Propaganda and Political Voting

When my father got hitched to my mother, he married into a stereotypical redneck family. Drunk, violent, family beaters mostly. He inflicted the conclusion upon me that drunks try to get other people to drink with them. Though he didn't share his methodology with me, I think he was right. Humans are a social species. It is comforting to know we are not alone in our addictions, our underlying abusive pasts, the dysfunctional world we live in... and our delusions.

Humans are universality machines. Even in the womb, we find ourselves in an unfamiliar place, with the biological imperative to survive, thrive, and multiply. It is paramount then that we be able to accurately identify items in our environment. Mistake a grizzly bear for a teddy bear and chances are your lack of discernment will not survive natural selection. Part of this is learning the ways in which our environments are static. Everybody fell down when learning to walk. Imagine instead that we lived in a world where gravity could fluctuate. Things that we take for granted such as balance might not be possible to master. Because of the consistency of gravity, that is one less thing our senses do not have to account for while providing for our survival moving forward.

Occam's Razor declares that the explanation that requires the least amount of assumptions is usually the more accurate explanation. While not a proof, this tends to bear out. Since I've learned to process the trauma of my past and start to think rationally, I've often found it's easy to see through the obfuscation by looking for the contradictions and double-standards. This is something that plagues so many people because almost all of it is inflicted on children as early as possible, in an attempt to override their natural scrutiny and drive for universalization of ideas.

Ever wonder why you've never seen a bumper sticker that asserts that 2+2=4? Such a thing is not necessary because we learn this is true from a very early age. Imagine there was somebody who needed for you to believe that 2+2=5. Simply claiming as much would not be sufficient. They would need a great deal of propaganda to successfully convince anybody of such a thing, let alone large swaths of the population. Propaganda that is rooted in ideas such as improving your life or avoiding harm. We've all seen bumper stickers that say things like "Jesus saves" or "Support Our Troops." Again, while not a proof, the amount of times such things need to be repeated suggests they are not accurate and/or cannot survive without being repeated ad infinitum.

Consider political voting now. It is neither normal nor rational for people to wander about, wondering how they can go about achieving their goals with a ruler interfering and telling them what to do. Yet if you look around, you will even find people on the other side of the globe thinking about United States political candidates. There is much propaganda abound, such as "Vote or Die!" and "If you don't vote, you're voting..." or my least favorite: "I'm voting for X to avoid Y." The sheer scale by which this is repeated should be enough to give anybody pause. "Why is it so important to other people that voting be engaged in and legitimized?" I often wonder.

I expect it is because as social creatures, we do not want to feel alone in our delusions. It's easier to sacrifice a child to the volcano when all your neighbors pretend it's okay too. For if you were to protest, you might me the next person tossed into your demise. Nobody who intends to vote or would tell you to vote has any reason to suspect that by doing so, they will be making any changes in their own life. In fact, I would argue they spend so much time and energy on such things for the express purpose of avoiding taking on the responsibility to apply their energies to things they actually have control over, such as improving themselves.