Democracy and Determinism
I'm not much of a believer in free will, but I still think it's important to vote. Here's why ...
I've been a bit of a free will agnostic for a while but in a way that skews towards determinism. Some days I'm convinced there is no such thing – that our feelings of choice are experienced after a decision has already been made by forces beyond our consciousness. Other days I'm more of a compatiblist and believe that our choices really are our own, even if they may already be determined (ie. I choose chocolate ice cream from the menu because I know it is the option that will bring the most pleasure despite having no control over why I have the preference).
Both of these options might look indiscernible from the vantage point of somebody who believes that they are an uncaused causer – a spirit that can look out from within a body and cause things to happen. In a sense, they would be right, my two vacillating positions are just that, positions. They don't deny determinism but take a different viewpoint as to where the choice is ultimately made. I think that I often choose the compatibilist position in order not to fall into a kind of passive fatalism – that the very feeling of being engaged with my choices (whether they are already made beyond the spotlight of consciousness) is enough to affect the quality of those actions. John Searle once said that we don't have free will but we have to act like we do. His example was that when the waiter asks us if we want the fish or the steak, we can't tell them that they must wait for the forces of the universe to decide on our behalf.
It's hard to imagine a democracy functioning well enough if its populace decided all at once to stop believing in free will. The justice system doesn't just rely on the idea that a criminal is a criminal by merit of the choices that can be solely attributed to them but also to the decisions that the jury makes at the end of the trial. And then there are elections. What seems to be the collective weight of considered individual choice ends up being more a kind of murmuration of consensus – veering from one orthodoxy to the next every decade and a half.
For the past few years, I've felt that I could discern a weary determinism with elections. The first-past-the-post system does the heavy lifting to distort the multiplicity of political views within the country into a two party dichotomy. A vote for a party that doesn't help to create a win for that particular seat is henceforth disregarded. With that dynamic set up, two distinct supportive columns establish themselves within the population – the voters who will reliably vote for the two largest parties. Sometimes they are doing so out of a particular local or familial loyalty and other times it comes from a visceral, unreconcilable dislike for the other party. The point is that these two opposing columns aren't going to budge.
In between the two columns are those that vote for the smaller parties, the undecideds and the floaters. I speak from my own unsubstantiated prejudices when I say that the smallest group within this category is those who, in earnest, read through the manifestos and make an earnest decision as to who they should vote for. It is from that same prejudice that I posit the largest group as the 'it's time to let the other lot have a go' demographic. These people are like political cicadas, changing their alliances every 10-15 years. This shift is not the result of intense scrutiny or sudden revelation. It's a kind of collective shrug. It's this collective shrug that, to me, seems to be the most influential factor in the mid-generational shifts that ensure a decade or so of power for one of the two main parties.
This isn't an argument towards apathy. Primarily I would love for there to be a Proportional Representation system that represented the plurality of views held around the country and fostered a spirit of compromise and cooperation in government rather that a constant, distorted polarity. But I'm also conscious that a safe seat is only safe in the sense that the constituents can be relied upon to show up and vote in a certain way. Those two columns of reliable support may seem like a kind of inertia but both are actually the result of constant action as far as voting is concerned.
I was certainly an apathetic participant in democracy as a young man. I didn't vote in 1997 but felt the collective exhalation of relief when Tony Blair, I man I never really liked, romped to victory. I didn't enter a polling booth for a good few years after that. I held my nose on more than one occasion and can see myself doing so again this year. To be very honest, I've rarely felt like my vote has made a difference. Every time I went with my heart, it wasn't for the winner. Every time I voted for a winner, I held my nose.
And yet, I keep returning to the polling booth whenever I get the chance. Why? Because I like voting. Because I feel like I'm doing a good thing whenever I vote. A lot is made about how many people have fought and died for a vote and I used to dismiss that claim by saying that they died for a choice. But, even when I lack any enthusiasm for any of the names of the ballot, it feels good to be able to participate in the process.
It could also be that participation in an election ensures our compliance with the result provided it is fair and legal. While we might protest and oppose a government, we will not attempt to overthrow that government because we have a certain degree of respect of the democratic process itself. I was streaming to a small handful of viewers on twitch when the MAGA/QAnon coalition stormed the Capitol in 2020. My wife was watching it on the news in the living room and none of that small handful of viewers informed me in the live chat. It was a startling illustration of how little effort it takes to simply not recognise the result of an election, to throw away the whole democratic process when you don't like the result.
People often use the term "sleepwalking" when describing a democracy's lurch into fascism. But it also seems to describe the whole democratic process itself – an electorate turning from one side to another every half-generation in the same way that a restless sleeper shifts every few hours.
But at the same time, when I take my place at the polling booth I always feel a strong sense of intention. This probably comes down to how the environment intensifies that act, how I must stand in line, identify myself, receive my polling card and then take my place at the semi-private booth to make a mark on a piece of paper and then place it into the ballot box. The ritual and formalities that surround this action add to that sense of intention. Despite the cynicism I feel towards the electoral system in this country almost all of the time, the act of voting always feels significant and meaningful.
So, in a world where our actions are determined (I avoid saying "a deterministic world" because things get weird at the quantum level) the value of an action doesn't come from whether it was chosen freely, but rather how much value and attention was given to it. This value and attention within itself is enough to influence our behaviour outside of the action. In this case it might result in honouring the result of the election if it was arrived at fairly but it also might result in more civic and political engagement beyond the event and its outcome.
And, of course, this draws attention to all of the other rituals that religions and folk cultures place around events. Not just in the ceremonies that surround births, marriages and deaths but also how something like saying grace might change your experience of eating a meal afterwards. It's still about intention, but intention as defined by the attention and importance that we give to a task rather than whether the action was executed by an uncaused causer.
Thanks for reading this
It's been a funny few weeks for me with regard to posting essays, poems and videos. I really felt bereft of any ideas worth communicating. Having written this, I can't help but think that there might have been a number of rituals that maybe got disrupted. Earlier on in the year, there would often be a little idea that I would turn over in my head during my daily domestic duties. Then that idea would spawn other ideas and the resulting essay would often be a result of how I brought those ideas back together.
Maybe another issue was that the essays were getting a little formulaic. The earlier posts in this blog, which date back to my substack days, are much more playful and experimental, veering between creative writing and critical prose, sometimes within the same piece. Then, after the move to buttondown, I monetised and committed to pushing something out once a week. It’s easy to become more cautious and predictable once you’ve gone down that road.
I really want to get back to regular posting after going through a little bit of a lull, so I think it’s time to change things up a bit, much like the olden days of Rusty Niall. Maybe I shouldn't over complicate things, people who subscribe to newsletters tend to just want a good read, something to keep the doomscrolling at bay. Hopefully the deterministic machinations of the universe will conspire to keep that aim at the forefront of my mind.
Cheers,
Niall