Is There Any Point in Voting in Elections?

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This article was written at the beginning of February on the civil calendar. At the time of writing, the elections are drawing nearer and nearer (though by the time you read this they have probably already passed, to all our relief), and that is precisely the right time for a bit of healthy anarchism. Perhaps it will help for the next elections. Here I would like to examine the question whether there is any point in going to vote in the elections (about a year from now, God willing). Have no fear: I do not intend to abandon the heights of philosophical Olympus and descend, heaven forbid, into the mire of current affairs. I merely want to exploit this platform cynically in order to explain why you, dear reader, have no reason at all to go and vote in the elections, whatever your political position may be. After that I will explain why, in my view, there is nonetheless an obligation to do so. And finally I will try to clarify why all of this is irrelevant, unimportant, and uninteresting. So let us all have an enjoyable read. The voting paradox In the days before elections we hear morning and night about the sacred civic duty imposed upon us, as though by the One who calls the generations from the beginning, to go and vote. Billboards address us with loud entreaties not to stay home and thereby, Heaven save us, give our votes to parties we oppose. Therefore, first of all, I see it as my civic duty to explain to the perplexed reader why this is nonsense and a chasing after wind. These appeals are built on the widespread feeling that each person has a small influence, and in that way each of us contributes his share to the larger picture. Therefore, our inner sensor hums in our ears, we must not despise the day of small things, and every small influence matters. But this is a mistake. A simple argument will show that the individual voter has no influence whatsoever, and therefore there is no point in going to vote. Suppose little old me supports the positions of the Green Leaf party. I now face the question whether to go and vote for it, or to remain tucked away at home, chewing green leaves for my own enjoyment and following with interest the feverish and blatantly uninformative television broadcasts describing the course of the voting, the polls, and the weather. In order to decide this fateful question, I must set two possibilities side by side: 1. I stay home and do not vote. 2. I go and vote for the party. Let us now examine the outcomes of these two courses of action. It is very easy to see that there is one outcome, not two; that is, both forms of conduct will yield exactly the same result. The only case in which my vote has any effect at all is when the party (if it still exists and has not gone up to heaven in a puff of green smoke) has amassed, without me, precisely the number of votes corresponding to a whole number of seats, less one vote, something like 31,387 votes. In such a case, my meager vote will join what has already been accumulated, and then, to my heart’s delight, the party will gain another seat, the one that would complete the four it needs in order to clear the electoral threshold. In every other case, my vote has no effect whatsoever. Mark this well: it is not that I have a small effect. My vote has no effect whatever. The next question with which we must deal is: what is the probability that the party has exactly 31,387 votes? Negligible, of course. That probability is far smaller than the probability that I will be in a traffic accident on the way to the polling station, or the probability that after the election something will actually happen from among all the things we were promised before it. As a certified armchair philosopher, it seems more than plausible to me that throughout the history of the State of Israel there has not been even one time when some party received a number of votes equal to an exact round number of seats. The conclusion is that until today, none of us who ever went to vote in elections in the State of Israel (and perhaps in the whole world) has had the slightest effect on what happened. ‘What if everyone did as you do?’ But now, immediately and quite unsurprisingly, the crushing claim bursts forth: ‘And what if everyone did as you do?’ Then, surely, it would have an effect. Indeed, true. If everyone went or did not go vote, it would have an effect. But the question that stands before me is not whether everyone will go vote, but whether there is any point in my personally, in my own honorable person, going to vote. Precisely because of my well-known modesty, I must admit that this is an altogether different question. Suppose I tell no one that I did not go vote; then my decision not to vote affects no one. All the others will make their decisions on their own, one way or the other. Those who are influenced by the slogans that wash our brains will vote, with or without me. The more rational anarchists will not vote, and again they will do so with or without me. Those who know this argument (by now many among the readers of Mosaic) will not vote. Others will. And still, whatever all the other citizens decide will happen independently of my decision. Therefore, even if 80% of the people decide, regrettably, not to vote, that is their decision whether I personally decide to go or whether I decide not to. Is there any point in voting in elections? On rationalism, anarchism, and the categorical imperative. Michael Abraham. Rabbi Michael Abraham holds a Ph.D. in physics and is engaged in general philosophy, Jewish philosophy, and logic. My step has no effect whatsoever. Whether I go or do not go, the political map will look exactly the same. The conclusion is that participation in elections in any setting beyond the residents’ committee of a single villa is an unnecessary waste of time. Perhaps you will ask: what are we to do with all the billboards on which our revered leaders call on us to fulfill our civic duty? Since I am committed to clean language, I will say that the signs (and the ‘leaders’ as well) are fit, at most, to be used as scrap paper by people of poor taste. No more than that. Between voting and tax evasion Let me now sharpen the argument a bit more. At first glance, a similar argument can be raised regarding income tax payments. An ordinary person who evades 1,000 shekels in income tax does not really harm anyone. The 1,000 shekels missing from the state treasury will not be felt anywhere. Perhaps in one of the computers a few digits will be recorded differently far beyond the decimal point, but that will not affect any of us in any way. The poorest of the poor will receive his allowance, and the last of the wine bottles will be returned by the prime minister’s wife to the pistachio ice cream shop and recycled, regardless of the absence of another 1,000 shekels from the state’s coffers. Moreover, here too the claim ‘what will happen if everyone acts this way’ is irrelevant, for exactly the same reasons already listed above. My decision to evade tax does not affect anyone else (surely you will not be surprised to hear that I hide it even more carefully than the decision to shirk fulfillment of my civic duty mentioned above, for fear of the evil eye). And yet there is room to distinguish between the question whether to vote in elections and the question whether to evade income tax. Tax evasion subtracts a small sum from the state’s coffers (relative to the size of the coffers), but here I have stolen, or I have not paid for the fine services I receive (for example, the organization of democratic elections, which costs the state quite a bit of money and is done just for me…). In the case of tax evasion, it is correct to say that each person contributes a little to the total sum, and penny joins penny to make a large account. Therefore, one who does not pay tax lawfully truly does not fulfill his civic duty. He has not contributed his share, small as it may be, to the general account. Here his act has a small effect on the treasury, but not a zero effect. By contrast, in elections to the Knesset, as we have seen, that is not so. There it is not a case of a small effect that accumulates into something large, but of a complete lack of effect (and in addition, elections do not involve the element of theft). A gloomy summary: indeed, there is no point in going to vote From many years of contending with my anarchist friends (and especially with my son Yossi, rational to the bitter end), this is an argument to which there is no answer. Although it is obvious to everyone that the big picture is nothing but the accumulation of the small contributions of each of the voters, all the ‘what will happen if everyone does this’ arguments do not hold water. They shatter against the rocks of the cruel logic described above. The meaning, of course, is that a rational person ought not waste his time and go vote in Knesset elections. But if everyone did this, Photo: GPO Do not look at the vessel (the ballot boxes), but at what is inside it (the ballot slips) Tax evasion subtracts a small sum from the state’s coffers, but here I have stolen, or I have not paid for the fine services I receive Mosaic, Nisan 5775, April 2015 Mosaic, Nisan 5775, April 2015 14

So then there really would be no democracy here, right? On the other hand, I decide only about myself and not about everyone, so in any case my decision has no significance whatsoever. More than that, the compassionate and gracious and all-powerful Creator saw to it that the percentage of rational people in human society would be small enough to prevent any result that would be felt on the macroscopic level. Human society is almost entirely free of any danger of rationality, thank God. What does all this have to do with Kant’s categorical imperative? To the best of my understanding, the only way to justify the absurd duty to go and waste my time on a pointless vote is on the basis of Kant’s categorical imperative. Immanuel Kant was an eighteenth-century German philosopher. Many regard him as the greatest philosopher of the modern era and one of the greatest philosophers of all time. Three of his books are devoted to deciphering and grounding the foundations of ethics. Kant, as always, also in this field seeks a rational foundation for moral obligation, as well as a sharp definition of that obligation. His conclusion is that the basis of morality lies in a categorical imperative, as distinct from a hypothetical imperative, that is, an absolute command not conditioned by facts or by anything else outside itself. The content of this imperative, according to one formulation, is: ‘Act only according to that practical rule which, upon adopting it, you can also will to become a universal law.’ Usually people understand that the meaning of the Kantian imperative is that if I do not behave properly, others too will not behave properly, and then the world will look bad. Therefore one must not steal, because if I steal from other people, they will steal from me and will steal generally. Thus I too will suffer, and the world will not be a very comfortable place in which to live. Hillel the Elder already said (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a): ‘What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.’ Many people are accustomed to preaching to someone who harms another: ‘Would you want them to do the same to you?’ by which they mean that if I do it to him, he will do it to me. Seemingly this is the meaning of Kant’s words, which require us to act in a way that we would want to become a universal law. But the meaning of the categorical imperative, and apparently also the meaning of Hillel the Elder’s words, is different. In Kant’s view, utility and consequences, and indeed facts generally, have nothing whatsoever to do with morality. The moral evaluation of any act is not made on the basis of an assessment of the consequences actually expected from it, but precisely through an assessment of a hypothetical state of affairs (what would happen if everyone behaved this way). In Kant’s eyes, nonparticipation in elections is immoral because even the rational person I described would not want this to become a universal law. He bases his conduct on the correct assumption that his act will not become universal practice, and that itself is an immoral rationale. Kant does not claim that there is any real danger that because of me additional people will not vote, or will evade taxes and empty the state treasury, for he was a rational and wise man, and therefore he certainly understood that these are empty arguments. What he claims is only that if this were to become a universal law, our world would become worse. The fact that it will not actually happen is irrelevant. According to Kant, paying taxes or voting in elections are moral duties, and as such they are not conditioned by facts or by an assessment of consequences (they are categorical duties). Therefore the rational-anarchist claim that this act has no bad effect, which is, of course, a correct claim, is irrelevant on the moral plane. Anyone who feels that there is importance in voting in elections or in paying income tax honestly, despite the justified claims of the anarchist rationalist, will not be able to evade recognizing the categorical imperative as a necessary basis for moral behavior. There is no other basis for the validity of such duties and for rejecting the anarchistic arguments. Ironically, it turns out that although the categorical imperative does not depend on facts and is not intended to prevent bad states of affairs, it alone can do so. Without it, our real and concrete condition would be quite grim (because everyone would evade taxes and would not vote in elections). Yossi, that rational son of mine, argues that the fools (like me) who accept the categorical imperative as binding save the world from rational people like him. Every morning, as part of the morning blessings (‘who has not made me a fool’), he thanks Kant for his brilliant trick, by means of which he succeeds in convincing rational people of a silly moral law, devoid of effect and foundation, and thereby he affects the world and in fact saves it. As for little me, one of those fools, all that remains is to intend to fulfill my obligation and answer ‘amen’ against my will. Is there a philosopher here? I once heard from a lover of philosophy (I do not remember who) that his life’s dream was that one day the lights in a movie theater would suddenly be turned on and hysterical people would cry out, ‘Is there a philosopher here?’ From the depths of my armchair I assume that most readers, like me, have not experienced such a delightful event while alive. The reason is, as stated above, that by the grace of the blessed Creator, the rational threat to our world is minimal to nonexistent. The philosopher does not help anyone in the least and interests no one, neither in the cinema nor outside it. Even if one of us encounters from time to time a rebellious rationalist who raises anarchistic arguments like those presented here, and even if, of course, we have no answer and can have no answer for him, the proper advice is simply to ignore him. It is a negligible and ineffective minority, thank God. So let him not vote, or let him evade tax, so what? Even if this became a universal law, no one among the readers of election posters in this world, or their writers, would hear about this law. True, we have already seen that practical concern is irrelevant on the ethical plane, but who cares about ethical laws so long as we are dealing with fools, and holy foolishness stands guard over us at every turn… In Kant’s eyes, nonparticipation in elections is immoral because even the rational person would not want it to become a universal law. Immanuel Kant. With God’s help. 28 years of success. 02-6450584 londonisfun.co.il Session A: 11-27 Tammuz (28.6-14.7) Session B: 11-27 Av (27.7-12.8) English studies in a unique program with 20 different levels, together with young people from all over the world. Lodging within a warm Jewish community in an upscale and safe area. Accommodation in a kosher hotel under Jewish ownership throughout the entire period. Trips, attractions, and activities every day in London and beyond. Strictly kosher food, each according to his own taste, and plenty of treats. Observant counselors, academics, with extensive experience in education and especially in this program. Hundreds of graduates satisfied with an unforgettable experience for a lifetime. Errors and omissions excepted. Suitable for ages 13-19, from girls’ religious high schools and yeshiva high schools. ‘Experience in English’ school in London, summer for religious youth. Mosaic, Nisan 5775, April 2015 16