(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

Of the numerous political maps discussed on the wonderful blog Strange Maps, this one of Poland's 2007 electoral returns shook me to the core. The whole series of maps forces me to reconsider everything I thought I knew about democracy.

Another earlier entry comparing the 2008 electoral results in the south to the distribution of cotton production in 1850 is worthy of note.

We tell ourselves that democracy is the interplay of ideas freely and openly discussed and considered rationally in a free marketplace of ideas. That the party that wins is the one who presented the best ideas. Presented as a more cynical view is the argument that money and campaign slogans have more to do with it. Underlying both views is the notion that every person in the republic is an independently-minded clean slate, of relative likelihood to be influenced by appeals to logic, loyalty, emotion, or fear.

It stands to reason that one's circumstance -- one's economic situation, one's background, one's cultural environment -- would play a role in making the decision. If these maps are any indication, then these factors are the only ones that really matter. IOW, whatever party becomes the one you associate with your cultural identity is the one you're going to support in the election. It should perhaps be cautioned that this may be more true in Europe than in the US, but I think it seems to bear out as fundamentally true in the US as well.

ETA. The troubling corollary to this is that democratic voting results will always fundamentally reflect the underlying racial divisions and hierarchy. The inequalities of imperialism appear to linger for hundreds of years, even long after they have supposedly become "distant history." IOW there will never be a 'free marketplace of ideas' or anything resembling any such thing.

Comments

[anarchomo.livejournal.com]

The related slogan I've heard is that "all politics is local."

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

well one more coordinate is common sensical
but presented in some depth and elegance by
the philosopher henri bergson and that is that
in any two party system or two blocs of parties
system they will tend to alternate cyclically
in power because of the inevitable sense of
newness and fatigue of the outs and ins...
my feeling is that the differences in 'ideas'
and real 'interests' are much more minimal ,
in the United States in any case, than the
ideologues and enthusiasts with their causes
choose to suppose... perhaps need to suppose
for psychological reason etc.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I think even there, though, it's not so much that people change their minds, but more likely what happens (IMO) is that the supporters of the party in power are fatigued by disappointment and are not as eager to vote them back in, as campaign promises go unmet -- whereas the people who's party is not in power perceive a continual string of things to be outraged about, and have more enthusiasm for going out to vote. Even a shift of enthusiasm of 5% either way makes the difference.

[lassiter.livejournal.com]

What we have seen as a general trend in the US, though, is not so much voter churn between party choices, but ever-increasing voter apathy. As Texas humorist and occasional political candidate Kinky Friedman has observed, all that campaign money goes, not to convince voters to go to the polls, but rather to convince them to stay home. Most political strategies these days literally are about holding down the opposition's vote, rather than increasing one's own tally.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. It's something that I've always suspected (or, at least since I learned about the different British folkways that infect America), but seeing it in a map...

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

As much as I anticipated the findings of the cotton-2008 election one, the near-perfect overlap still stunned me. That is truly amazing.

The thing I keep in mind and try to instill into everyone that I encounter (especially if it's one of those persons who believes that affirmative action has "done its job") is that socioeconomic history reverberates into the present. The cultural, capitalistic events that occurred more than 150 years ago still inform the realities of current citizens. The effects of 20th-century government-enforced redlining will extend through much of the present century if not the next.

Most Americans (you know, the workers, the non-industrialists) don't quite understand the difference between income and wealth. These are the same folks that conservatives are trying to hoodwink by renaming the estate tax (which they are trying with all of their might to abolish [and succeeded in temporarily repealing]) the "death tax". Calling it that makes it sound like it affects most if not all taxpayers, when in fact it applies only to those who had $3.5 million as individuals and $7 million as families during the fiscal year of a person's death. It's Orwellian propaganda tinged with cynical populism--this is the conservative's psychological trick.

That income is confused with having wealth benefits only the moneyed class--the de facto ruling class. Thus class continues to dominate all strata that inform history and so forces itself into the current social reality, irrespective of our myth of a "marketplace of ideas" (which itself derives from the myth of meritocracy).

I've been reading Monthly Review a lot lately. My socialist streak is so pink now it's salmon flooding into fuschia.

[ankh-f-n-khonsu.livejournal.com]

No real surprises here.

However, "IOW there will never be a 'free marketplace of ideas' or anything resembling any such thing" seems like a fatalistic, biased projection. Did you take time out for this: Strategies for Revoultionaries: Government 2.0?

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

It's not an "absolute always" but an "always, until/unless there is a fundamental change in human society."

I've long thought the real focus of the revolution should be on helping people to treat one another with more generosity and respect than to change the political system. It's harder and not as exciting as toppling tyrants, but I think it is where we will see lasting change. Though, don't get me wrong, I do have my own preferences when it comes to political systems too.

[cennetig.livejournal.com]

Most people live reactively and don't really engage with other viewpoints and ideas. The fact that it can be mapped on a large scale is depressing but not surprising.

[predsedatel-50.livejournal.com]

oh, tha map is like Germany tryes to eat Poland...