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| Democracy, Voting and the Media Revolution |
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| Monday, 22 November 2010 15:13 | ||||||
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Question:
Yesterday was election day. Last night I was at a shul not far from my community. Before Arvit a Rav got up and explained why he felt it was important to register and vote. He said that it doesn't matter who we vote for, as long as our community votes and is noticed by the politicians. I also saw a Torah site based in Queens NY that said something similar. They also mentioned voting to help Israel. Do you believe it is okay and even correct for Jews in Hutz Laaretz to vote, or is it better not to (especially for a Jewish candidate even if they are good)? Or should we not vote in order to feel and act like strangers in galut.
Answer:
1. In principle, Jews should vote, as should all citizens. You cannot expect very much from the political system if the politicians believe that you are unlikely to either support them or punish them on election day. This is practically the only weapon citizens can wield against the complete corruption of the system. For this reason direct representation, where a citizen votes for a specific person to represent his/her interests, is superior to proportional representation, where one votes for a list. The difference can be summed up in one word: accountability. This lack of accountability, due to an electoral system based entirely on proportional representation, is one of the underlying banes of Israeli society. 2. In some countries voting is compulsory. Such laws are designed to deter apathy and non-participation which tend to diminish the legitimacy of the regime. This in turn can lead to increased crime and corruption, as well as a general societal malaise. This is not a desirable outcome. R. Hananya the Vice-Priest, who lived under Roman occupation at the end of the Second Temple period, taught: “Pray for the welfare of the regime, since were it not for the fact that men live in fear of the authorities, they would swallow one another alive” (Avoth 3:2). The Talmud comments on this statement that were it not for the law and order imposed by the government, men would behave like fish: the bigger fish always swallows the smaller one (TB ‘Avodah Zara 4a).
3. Having said that, we need to recognize that today the theory of democracy does not work as intended. In George Washington’s day, the average American voter was a farmer who carried a pocket Bible and a pocket Shakespeare in his overalls. And in the evening he actually read them. He may have had access to an independently published newspaper. He had a value system, could tell right from wrong, and was able to make an intelligent choice.
4. Enter television and mass media, which in order to turn a profit always appeal to the lowest common denominator, creating a pervasive popular culture which serves to lower societal standards. And then came the Internet. Today the average voter does not, and in many cases cannot, read the Bible or Shakespeare and is easily bamboozled by the media which is typically owned by a handful of immensely wealthy individuals and conglomerates that have their own agenda. Add to this advertising agencies and spin doctors, and you are confronted with a reality in which it is not very difficult to mind control the man on the street. In the BBC documentary The Virtual Revolution: Part 1 – The Great Levelling?, John Perry Barlow, a cyberlibertarian political activist and author of the Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, put it rather well: “You don’t have to control people much if you can control what they believe. And you can control what they believe if you control what they have access to. If you can control what they can know, the rest of it is a very simple matter.” And that, as Prof. Noam Chomsky and others have pointed out, is how you manufacture consent and engineer election results.
5. Nevertheless, I believe one should vote. First of all, nothing is gained by not voting; historical experience suggests that real change is never achieved simply by non-participation. Secondly, in some situations, doing nothing is as pernicious as doing something bad. Not voting is not, as some mistakenly believe, a choice to do nothing; it is a conscious decision to allow others to decide the outcome. Each non-vote for values and policies that are right and proper lends increased electoral weight to each vote for those opposed to such ideas. Thirdly, the system put in place by the media moguls is imperfect; large numbers of voters can sometimes stymie their best laid plans, particularly when the vote is close. Fourthly, it is not unknown for just one or two elected representatives to make all the difference. Former PM Ariel Sharon was able to implement his appallingly ill-conceived and criminally negligent policy of withdrawing from Gaza and exiling 10,000 Jews from their homes because of a majority of one or two MK’s; when it became clear that he had the slimmest of majorities, others, fearing political reprisals, sheepishly fell in line. (It is worth noting that the Israeli Right lost 40,000 votes in the elections prior to Sharon’s about-face because many foolish individuals insisted on voting for a party that had no chance of crossing the minimum threshold required. It is worth noting further that 40,000 votes at that time amounted to two K’neseth seats.) Ignoring such realities so as to avoid ‘dirtying one’s hands’ by participating in something ‘unseemly’ or ‘unclean’ is an ideological luxury that we can ill afford.
6. All of the above is true and valid for Jews everywhere, whether in Israel or in Galuth. For a Jew living in Israel the imperative is that much greater, for we are commanded in the Tora: “And you shall be for My purpose a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). Our responsibility to do our utmost to create a society based on the values and teachings of the Tora in the Land of Israel is infinitely greater than in the Galuth. Nonetheless, we should not lose sight of the fact that all societies should be based on the Tora in the limited sense of the Seven Noahide Laws; to the extent that a Jew in Galuth is able to influence such matters, he is obligated to do so.
7. The suggestion that Jews in the Galuth should refrain from voting “in order to feel and act like strangers in galut” is misguided; it involves the cardinal error of introducing an Hagadic notion into an Halakhic discussion. Of course a Jew must know that Galuth is exactly that: exile. And if a Jew does not feel that way, he/she has a problem. A serious problem. But this has no bearing on whether one should vote in the Galuth. I am reminded of the beautiful and powerful statement in Mishnath R. Eli’ezer (Parasha 3) that Jews living in Galuth should pray for rain according to the seasons and needs of Eress Yisrael and not those of their countries of residence “lest they see themselves as living in their own land. They should rather see themselves as temporary sojourners in a foreign land, and direct their hearts in prayer to Eress Yisrael”. A profound teaching indeed. Nevertheless the Halakha does not follow this view. Explicit statements in both Talmudim and nearly all the Rishonim state plainly that one always prays for rain according to one’s location.
8. It goes without saying that voting in order to help Israel and the Jewish Nation is very proper and to be encouraged. The fact that a candidate happens to be Jewish is neither here nor there. Wherever possible one should vote for the candidate most likely to be well disposed towards Jews and Israel (which almost invariably goes hand in hand with a more principled and morally healthy attitude in most matters).
Rabbi David Bar-Hayim
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| Last Updated on Tuesday, 07 December 2010 20:34 |
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Comments
1) I agree that the two issues are not "even remotely comparable".
2) I believe that Rav Kahane z'l was right regarding quite a number of issues that he raised, but dead wrong on this and a number of other matters.
1) You "may" have had a certain impact on future events - and you may not. Probably impossible to tell for sure. The choice of presidential candidate, for example, depends on such an interplay and synergy of causes and effects that such talk is highly speculative.
2) I believe one has to deal with the existing reality rather than gamble now in the hope of a future dividend. I think we should avoid speculation as to what the future holds and deal with realities in the here and now.
I was speaking of voting generally. I did not make any reference to US politics.
All situations must be judged on their merits. I am not a US citizen and am not expressing an opinion, but I ask based on what I understand your leanings to be: is McCain closer to or further removed from your views, overall, than the present US president?
To #1 and #2:
1) The precise figures regarding votes cast for various parties in various elections can be viewed at the Kneseth web site. Those figures bear out what I claim: it is very possible that if the approximately 40,000 wasted votes had gone to parties that crossed the threshhold, Sharon would not have had a majority. You are apparently unaware of the formula used to apportion Kneseth seats; it is complicated and cannot be explained here. In short: throwing away votes can have a much greater impact on the final outcome than you imagine.
2) Voting is not a popular or beauty contest. Assuming that there is no perfect candidate or party, one can and should vote for the least harmful. Lo 'alekha haM'lakha lighmor ("You are not obligated to complete the work" - Avoth end of chap. 2) is good advice that can be applied here too.
The next Republican candidate for president in the United States may well be more conservative because he/she knows that many Christian evangelicals stayed home on election day in 2008 (I remember hearing the number 1.5 million). And although many people in the 1960s thought Barry Goldwatter was a disastrous choice for Republican presidential nominee (since he was too right-wing), many people now credit him for inspiring the movement that led to the election of Ronald Reagan 15 years later. In other words, being "practical" is not always better than being principled.
My main point is that, in my opinion, one should not always choose the "better of two evils." I voted for Bush in 2004 because he was close enough to my values and positions but did not vote for McCain in 2008 because he simply was too far away from almost everything I believe in.
(to be continued)
4. Re mass media and it's influence on the public: This is a major theme of the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, expounded most fully in his work Revolt of the Masses. He talks of a Mass Mind being driven by mass media to the lowest common denominator, resulting in a debasing of everyone / everything. He describes a feedback loop known to engineers as hysteresis, where each component of the cycle influences the other in the same direction, amplifying the effect.
5. "Not voting is not, as some mistakenly believe, a choice to do nothing; it is a conscious decision to allow others to decide the outcome." I'm reminded of the clever aphorism by Neil Peart: "If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice." - Rush, Freewill
I also wanted to add to 8. about choosing the best candidate for Israel and the Jews over the Jewish candidate, that we sadly see it is often the case that the Jewish candidate is WORSE for Jews and Israel than the non-Jewish candidate. Jewish candidates feel a need to pander to the public and avoid the appearance of favoritism by deliberately acting against Israeli and Jewish interests, in a process based on the forces in Ortega y Gasset's downward spiral of mass media hysteresis. Rather, Israel's best supporters are fundamentalist Protestants like past President George W. Bush who unashamedly support us for religious reasons.
"(It is worth noting that the Israeli Right lost 40,000 votes in the elections prior to Sharon‟s about-face because many foolish individuals insisted on voting for a party that had no chance of crossing the minimum threshold required."
I believe you are referring to Marzel right? Anyway at least for then or for now, who else to vote for? Many of these "rightist" parties back stabbed the Jewish people. Look at Likud, look at Sharon himself," the bulldozer" look at the "religious parties", they don't stand 100% for the Torah, the corrupt system forces them to compromise. Once they do its a slippery slope.
People vote and then they get the same garbage, being openly lied to.
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