Just Vote

Elizabeth Mary Gunto wrote:

Dr. Scoville,

Hello, I'm Elizabeth Gunto,
and I work for the Echo. I'm
writing an article about people
who have decided not to vote in
the upcoming election. I was wondering
if you would be interested in an interview
between Thursday and Saturday. Let me
know if there is a good time for you.
Thank you for your time, Elizabeth Gunto

Dear Elizabeth,

I don't call it a decision (not to vote), though as they'd
say in the 60's: not choosing is a choice and if you're
not part of the solution you're part of the problem.
Fun with words.

Lazy, my good-wife, Ann might call it.
Indifferent? Somewhat. Cop-out? Certainly
by any true believer's standard--my sister-in-laws, for example..

Rebellious? In an immature way, probably. Cantankerous?
A little.

I could give IT lots of names and rationalizations (not-voting is
like being sober at a cocktail party: I see more going on than
when I'm swept up in it, call me designated driver. I really can
see somewhat the points on both sides and am dialectically more
interested in keeping them in play in my own mind than in resolving
and having one sideWIN. Well, that's a lie. I don't pay close
attention to the issues so I can't claim to see clearly. I guess
I'm just beyond good & evil.)

I resist all the Just Vote kinds of of talk, the Your-Vote-Counts
kind of talk. Dogma and internal propaganda. Good spirited,
of course, but I don't believe in the system in that way--not a label
flag wearer, or saluter, hand over the heart. I thought Bill Ayers was,
like Thoreau, probably marching to the beat of a different drummer
and am not appalled by his Weatherman wheelings and dealings back
in the day.

Don't like to feel "under the influence" of the madding crowd. I'm
somewhat misanthropic. I watch with interest. IT is not a big deal
for me--thought clearly IT is all around.

I'm happy to see Obama and Michelle on the scene and find the
Other Ones a turn-off, but that doesn't motivate me to take sides,
does that make me a bad person? Sure: I'm a walking bag of
guilt: I admit it. Can't make a move without some violation
of the whole--my original and ongoing spin.

With re: the latest crisis: I think it is Meta Sustainability doing it's
evolutionary thing--system correction and adjustment; and I don't
believe its actions/reactions correspond with any of our sustainability
club, light-bulb changing, Volt Chevrolet talk: preserving the gated
communities & American Dreams and foreign cars as we see it in the
terms of our collective desire.

I believe we're buffaloed for now; & even the experts acknowledge
their confusion. That's a good thing. A-Poria, the Greeks called it:
when a system bottoms out and realizes there's no solution in
it's own terms. No pores. No exit. Prerequisite to the beginnings
of philosophy and religion.

One thing I've realized, in all my anti-thetical & antagonistic practices
(in educating, if not politics--which I ignore): I can't defend my position
against true believers, or even modest believers.

To do so, if effective, would undermine the thesis and assumptions of
those challenging me ("accusing": what the? what the hell? who do
you think you are?) and of course that simply doesn't work: my
reasoning protects and defends my non-reasoning (pre-rational:
emotional, a-logical, ir-rational) frame of mind. It doesn't change,
re-configure or re-calibrate my mind-set & tolerances.
Over time, maybe). And I assume that's how it goes with others.
We can squabble-argue & that's worth doing if feelings aren't hurt,
but edify? That takes some kind of Frame Discourse setting up conditions
for sustainable and sustaining argument. A liberal art. . School mode.

So I usually joke about my "dia-bolical" perspective, claim devil's
advocacy. Pretend to be silly rather than hostile & threatening.
Or turn the other cheek.

Hope this helps. Send me questions or push me further. On-line is always
"a good time" for me. That's been the point of my faculty spamming for
years and years: that we can argue across the curriculum, sustain an
e-Hyde Park, soap-box galore, put disciplinary ideas in play. Keep
the cerebral credit, securities & trust fluid & get good at it.
(Do I contradict myself?)

Best, Sam Scoville.