2018 – Renaissance Guy

Re-examining my 2018

I find myself these last few days at something of a loss. I am in a situation of being enrolled in classes, but having nothing to do. It’s not that I merely have some leeway before my next deadline, I actually have nothing to do because I am caught up. Unlike the only instances of free time in recent memory, this time it isn’t because I lack direction, or have been compelled to take time off because of health concerns. I am exactly more or less where I am supposed to be, and I have nothing to do. And I’m not sure how to handle it.

This is a good microcosm of a recurring theme of the past year, or at least the past six months. Feelings of being out of place or off balance have mixed in with an occasional dash of pride or accomplishment when it has been clear that I am the only one who knows the answer. I won’t say that college classes have been easy, because there have been challenging moments, and I’ve had to stretch myself to make sure I finish everything that needs to be turned in despite my disabilities. But for as much as I’ve spent the last several months waiting in anticipation for the other shoe to drop, for the sword to fall, and for the administrators and professors to turn out to be as bad as high school, or worse, things have gone better than I might have feared.

I’m hesitant to look a gift horse in the mouth here. But I strive to be above all self aware. And moreover, as I am formulating a new batch of resolution snow for the new year, it is only proper that I conduct an in depth reflection on what has worked, what hasn’t, and how to improve it. So, here goes.

Workload

The fact that I’m in this situation of being finished at the end of the semester, and reasonably confident that my grades will be good without knowing the final calculation, but at the same time have been mostly busy for the semester suggests that my workload is probably in the right ballpark. There were a few times when I was sick or busy, and it was a tossup whether I would make it to class or finish the homework, but I made it through. So this is probably roughly where the balance lies between coasting and jeopardizing my health.

I’m a little frustrated at this, because while the workload was about where I could handle it, intellectually there were times when I felt bored. I don’t know whether that’s a function of the classes being introductory level, or of my classmates being some combination of uninterested, unmotivated, shy, or stupid. But when I’m single-handedly answering a supermajority of questions asked by the professor to the room, because no one else raises their hand, and when called upon can’t give a correct answer even by reading from the book, something isn’t right. I can’t afford to overwork myself, but I would like to be challenged.

This is probably my hamartia; the fatal flaw in my tragic heroism. I have the intellectual capacity to require a high degree of challenge to satisfy me, but my physical handicaps prevent me from successfully executing the challenge to the satisfaction of myself or others. This far, I have been unable to find a balance. I can either be complacent, treating everything like and idle game and phoning it in, or I can seek things that interest me, creating more work for myself than I can handle.

But perhaps I’m overdramatizing. Perhaps too shall pass, and I shall find such a balance, and unleash my full potential. Perhaps it is a simple matter of allowing myself to gain more experience and wisdom.

Activities

I wouldn’t say that my first semester of college has been unstructured, because I have been unusually organized for me. I managed to get all my assignments turned in, after all, which I don’t know has ever happened for an entire semester in my life. So yeah, I’ve been organized. Or at least, organized enough. But in saying that, I realize that my “being organized” has come about, less like a calm, orderly, elegant rule of law, and more like an oppressive, hectic, martial law.

This isn’t really a surprise to me. Since I’ve been chronically ill, which has been a long time, work happens when I’m able, and rest happens when I’m unable, whenever those happen to fall. This sounds like a horrible system for the long run, and believe me it is, but, well… you try explaining to an angry teacher that your paper is going to be a day later, because you haven’t had an hour of free time in months, when they already don’t believe that you were actually sick all of last week, or that you would still be too sick to be allowed in school if you hadn’t been mixing steroids with over the counter fever suppressants.

And I’ve grown okay with that. If I’m excited to tackle a project, in pursuit of a topic I’m interested in, I’m okay making some sacrifices. I can live with martial law if I know and support what I’m fighting for. But I think I can do better than this. I think I can get to something a little less like the academic war footing I’ve been on, and a little more, well, human. I’d like to be able to have a better answer when I’m asked what I do in my free time than “I don’t have free time; or at least, it’s so infrequent that it doesn’t merit a designated activity.” Being a cyborg is fine if it keeps me alive, but I’d rather not be seen as robotic.

I don’t know whether I could really manage to make a splash in a proper club with a regular meeting schedule, as both my parents, and the assortment of professionals the university pays to advise me on how to keep my head, would like. Organized schedules seem to be the antithesis of my health situation, and there were a few weeks last semester where I think having an extracurricular activity to get to in addition would’ve pushed me over the edge, and set back my health enough that I wouldn’t have completed classwork, and we know how that song goes.

Still, I need to find something to do. Because while my workload and commitments are mostly calibrated to be doable on my bad days, which is undoubtedly as they ought, it leaves a lot of free time when I get things done on time. Not enough or so consistently that I can feel comfortable to add more commitments, but enough that I find myself in need of some activities beyond mere distraction. This could be as simple as deciding I’m going to keep up the LEGO City better, or committing to a world conquest campaign on one of my video games.

Social Life

Well, good thing all of the areas of my life are going well. Nothing else to report. Best be wrapping up this post and putting it in the queue.
My social life? What do you mean? That’s not even a real thing. What am I supposed to reflect about it? It’s not like there are any problems there. After all, you can’t have problems in an area of life that doesn’t exist, right? Let’s be real, no one really cares as long as I get good grades.

Fine. But just so you know, it’s your fault this post is going to run long.

Look, I’ve never been popular. I’ve never had many friends (or at least, many close friends that are in my age group and live in the same geographic area). Part of this is that I’m a constantly over analyzing introvert, but a lot of it is because I’m constantly sick. Friendships are simply higher up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs than I usually get, and it’s hard to really stay close when you’re only well enough to be out in society a few times a month. You miss the little jokes and experiences that build and solidify friendships, and when you see people again, there’s an imbalance. You might feel you saw them fairly recently, because you saw them the last time you left the house, but in reality that was three weeks ago, and to them you haven’t been around for a while.

I’ve been told that rebuilding a social life (or depending on how you count, possibly building one for the first time) needs to be a priority in trying to equip myself for college. My inclination is to tell these people to clear off and get a life that doesn’t involve micromanaging mine. Why do you even care? It doesn’t matter. I’m fine. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

In reality, I’m not sure how to parse this problem, let alone solve it. As mentioned previously, I still lack the stamina to do much outside of classes. The notion of making friends with people during class, as has been occasionally suggested, strikes me as paradoxical. After all, how am I supposed to be casual with people when sitting at attention and taking notes? I can’t interrupt class to interact with my classmates, and bothering them in their free time without a pretense seems, at best improper, and a good way to make classes rather awkward.

Trying to puzzle out friendships always gives me the old feeling that I’m missing something- that some fact or piece of social intuition which is critical for being a modern social human has eluded me. When I make friends, it tends to be by accident, and I lack a sense of what is and isn’t proper for a given situation that seems to come intuitively to others. This causes huge uncertainty and anxiety about trying to arrange anything that would allow me to get to know people better. And since my health mean that I pretty much have to arrange social events on my own terms in order to avoid collapsing the house of cards of my health situation, this leaves me in a catch-22.

So my social life isn’t exactly glamorous. I’m not happy with this state of affairs, but I don’t see any ways to remedy it that aren’t going to cost me a great deal in areas that I’m currently aiming to prioritize. If it’s a choice between making friends and getting good grades, getting good grades so I can make progress towards being able to contribute back to society is going to win, hands down. If it’s a choice between making friends, and looking after my health so I can stay alive… well that’s not much of a choice, is it?

But if I can’t say I am happy, I can at least say that I am at peace, which is a marked improvement. I don’t want to jinx anything, but overall things seem to be lining up to work out so far. There are worse problems than getting easy As, and so long as I continue to be healthy and do well, there are plenty of side projects to amuse me.

Picture Postcard Perfect

The Holiday Stroll is my favorite event in town. Basically, the town where I live, which is at this point a suburb of the expanded New York City metropolitan area, pretends to be an independent village, so that the old money, Ivy League denizens can feel good about themselves living in a small town. This is a town with more millionaires per square mile than homeless. This is a town which, in the six years of my attendance, had exactly two African American students in a school of 4000. This is a town in which it is a routine occurrence for friends to invite each other to Paris for the weekend. After all, what good is a private jet if it just sits on the tarmac? This is a town where the beginning of the top tax bracket is considered poor.

Of course, not everyone who lives in town is wealthy. But regardless of the statistical breakdown, it is very much a wealthy town. Moreover, it is old money. Tom and Daisy Buchanan would fit right in here. The mansion they had in the most recent movie adaptation wouldn’t even be the most impressive of ostentatious house I’ve seen in town.

The town also isn’t without its problems. On the contrary, it has a noticeably higher rate of drug abuse than surrounding towns, despite a lower official crime and arrest rate. Alcohol abuse, especially among teens, is well known to be endemic, but never acknowledged aloud. The public high school continues to pay out millions in lawsuit settlements for discrimination against students, and rates of suicide are alarmingly high.

But these problems are well hidden. The streets are safe and well kept (at least the ones downtown are). Home prices and property values are kept high by refusing to allow rehabilitation clinics or public transport to sully our streets. Schools have exceedingly low dropout rates, and standardized test scores are consistently above average.

The town is really quite good at burying its problems and making everything seem peachy. With just over three hundred years of practice, the town is adept at playing the part of a sleepy New England village. In summer, rows of flags and bunting line the streets. In the fall, vivid foliage distracts the mind and spirit from myriad woes. In winter, the businesses on Main Street string up lights and garlands in order to create the setting of a Christmas special, or else replicate a model train village. So convincing is the transformation that the town is occasionally used as a setting for Christmas movies.

The highlight of all this decorating is the Holiday Stroll. Businesses stay open late, charitable groups host bake sales up and down the street, organizations give out free popcorn and cocoa. Ice carvers create vignettes around the shops with Holiday motifs. Choral groups roam the street singing carols, and people dress up in holiday garb, whether that be woolen sweaters and Santa hats, top hat and coattails, or over the top getups wrapped in tinsel garlands and battery powered lights. Policemen direct traffic to accommodate horse drawn carriages, while Santa takes wishes from children at town hall.

It’s a show that the whole town is in on. It’s beautiful and magical in a way that seems to be, momentarily, perfect. And you forget that this is a town where multiple people have been indicted by the FBI for financial crimes, where husbands commit suicide because they can’t provide the level of luxury expected by the local culture, and where the public schools have made civil rights lawsuit settlements the largest recurring expense in the budget, because they have come to the conclusion that paying off those who don’t fit the mould to attend private school somewhere else is preferable to reforming the system. It leaves me with a kind of Canto Bite feeling- I wish I could put my fist through this whole lousy, beautiful town.

I don’t know whether other towns without all of the baggage and what I am inclined to see as moral corruption have something similar to the Holiday Stroll. I hope so, because it means there’s hope for keeping what I like about my town while excising the bad parts. But I don’t know whether that’s possible. I know part of what gives the Holiday Stroll its peculiar magic is the sense of authenticity. Hallmark holiday specials choose our town as the location where handsome and rich protagonists must overcome upperclass upbringing to see the true meaning of Christmas and family for a reason. People wear fancy sweaters and top hats to drink fancy liquor served chilled through ice sculptures at the jewelry store’s open house because that’s what this town is.

Happy Birthday

Note: This post went up late due to unavoidable, if not necessarily unforseeable, circumstances.

Despite my best efforts I find it rather difficult to muster the expected elation at my twenty first birthday. Truth be told, I find myself feeling mostly quite bitter about the whole affair.

There are, I think, a few different reasons for this, but they all come back to the same thing: a knowledge that this isn’t really on my terms. I mean that both in the acute sense, that I have been too sick and busy and friendless to arrange the Gatsbyesque birthday bash that I think I deserve, the notion of which I have frequently entertained myself, and the larger sense that I fear that my life is not living up to its potential.

The first concern is compounded by the knowledge that I haven’t had a proper birthday party since I was hospitalized on my eighteenth birthday, and had to cancel all planned events. This wasn’t the first time that birthday celebrations for me have had to be rescheduled; my birthday seems to come at a rather awkward time of year given how my health usually plays out. In fact, I struggle to remember whether it was even the first year I missed having a proper birthday party. But being both in the hospital on my actual birthday, and unable to have a proper celebration afterwards, stung.

I’ll admit, there’s a part of me that feels shortchanged. After all, what good is a birthday without having other people make a big fuss over oneself? Especially a big milestone like eighteen. But it’s not gifts that I miss. After all, almost anything that it would occur to me to require from birthday presents I can easily buy for myself, or even wait until Christmas.

I do miss my friends: by eighteen, I had just about weeded out the people that I earnestly enjoyed from the people I had been obliged to tolerate through high school, and after that birthday most everyone started off on their different ways for college, and I have seen very little of them. But what I truly feel robbed of is the milestone; the opportunity to have something to look back on, tell stories about, and compare with other people’s eighteenth birthdays. In this respect, being in the hospital on my eighteenth birthday was just the then-latest in a long line of derailed plans and broken dreams.

By that time, the high school had already dropped the ball hard enough that after four years of attending I was still four years behind, despite testing as gifted and above my class level on their own tests intended to label me with a learning disability. So it was clear I wasn’t going to get to graduate alongside my friends, or follow them off to college, or get out of the toxic environment of that school. I’ve not had a birthday party with all of my friends since, and probably never will. Nor have I made other friends.

Even if I did, what would I do? I can’t go out drinking on my twenty first birthday because alcohol conflicts with my medication. And in any case, I lack the stamina and constitution for a proper night on the town. I’m already on the brink of missing classes because of my health. No, I don’t get to have a normal birthday, just like I don’t get to have a normal life. I don’t get to choose or plan how or when I celebrate.

Of course, I do still celebrate, even when I sometimes fail to see the point. Even when I quietly, or in some cases, not so quietly, question whether there is in fact anything to celebrate, or indeed any point at all in continued effort, despite my apparently better judgement, I continue. Some have said that this is courage or nobility, or some other virtue. Truth be told, I think it’s mostly stubbornness.

Anyways, happy birthday to me.

God Save America

So, something happened this last weekend. I was playing Kaiserreich for Hearts of Iron IV. I’ve talked about Hearts of Iron a bit here already, but to quickly recap: Hearts of Iron IV is a grand strategy WWII game. You lead a country through history starting in 1936, with full control from the largest policy decisions down to the individual fighter. It’s the kind of game you imagine army cadets using to test strategies… if the AI were a bit more competent and the game rules a little harder to exploit based on the number-crunching nature of it.

Anyways, one of the few major flaws about the game is that there are only so many variations of WWII that you can really play through before you start to tire of storming beaches in France and encircling spearheads in Russia. Fortunately, the game is easily moddable, and there is a core community of enthusiasts who work tirelessly, dreaming up new abilities, rules, units, technologies, and alternative histories. One of the great products of this community is Kaiserreich: The Legacy of Weltkrieg.

The basic premise of Kaiserreich is simple: what if Germany won the First World War? This simple thought experiment has given birth to a project which is, in some ways more expansive in content and lore than the game in its off the shelf state. Every country is impacted by the changes of a German victory, and no detail is too small for this group. It is evident that this is a labor of love, with untold thousands of hours invested in crafting unique politics and identities for each new country. But the real triumph of Kaiserreich is the variability: Whereas the base game is inherently limited by its mooring to real history, in Kaiserreich, almost anything is possible.

The way the game proceeds is not totally random, but it is variable, and it can hinge on the smallest of things. For instance, rumblings in the Ecuadorian export sector can cause economic ripples in North America which delay the arms shipments which prove decisive to Imperial Germany’s defense of Elsaß-Loringen from the Commune of France. As a result, a good player is always watching the news headlines, of which there are plenty written into the game, to sense potential sea changes before they happen.

Of particular interest is the Second American Civil War, which is not actually inevitable, even in this timeline where the US lacks the post-WWI consensus, and the fall of Britain and France make liberal democracy seem like it is on the way out. The civil war can be avoided, but it is rare to see the AI achieve this if you are playing another country. As a result, the first several months are spent helplessly reading news events, as the United States seizes and spams towards violent collapse.

And there are plenty of events to read about. From the Battle of the Overpass, in which United Auto Workers clash with Ford security, to the infamously racist broadcasts of Charles Coughlin in support of demagogues like Huey Long and William Dudley Pelley, there are no shortage of canaries in the coal mine. The civil war may not be inevitable, but it does not come out of nowhere.

For a moment on Saturday, I thought I was reading the wrong screen. Someone had posted a BBC article about a shooting in a synagogue in New York. My brain took in the information: a politically motivated terror attack, followed by a response from the president that fell somewhere between ineffectual and inflammatory, meaning that within a few hours this terrorist act had become just another geographical feature in the political landscape. Instead of inspiring pause and sober reflection, a blatant act of political violence became just another thing that happened.

It took me a moment to realize that I was reading from the BBC, and not the in-game story. For a split second my brain had categorized this attack as happening in the game, because obviously this was a sign of a country in a deep political crisis bound for violent dissolution. And for that split second, I was content in the knowledge that even if it was a particularly realistic interpretation of alternative history, it could never happen here, in today’s America. I could enjoy the game because I don’t have to deal with it. But no. This is not a game. The people killed in the synagogues of Philadelphia, and the churches of Charleston, and on the streets of Charlottesville are not mere pixels, but people.

It is true that it is easy to make prophecies of doom, to claim that the end is nigh and the fall of the republic is imminent. And it is also true that plenty have made such forecasts before, some under circumstances which seemed far more dire, and have always been wrong so far. The trouble with extrapolating from bad events is that there’s a difference between a cluster of bad results, and symptoms of a doomed system. The former is troubling, but fails to take account of the enormous collective effort required to overcome the inertia of stability.

What concerns me so deeply about reading about this latest shooting is not the event itself, but how easily my mind mistook it for part of the story of how the US fell apart. What concerns me is that we might already be on that path, and it will be impossible to know unless we learn it too late. If we are, then it means that urgent and energetic action is needed to restore norms to our society and political system. It is not yet too late, but it means we may no longer be complacent.

It is no longer enough to complain idly to friends when we see others degrading the democratic norms and principles that this country great. I include myself in this statement. The earlier we commit, the better the chances are that we will be able to overcome the present impasse with a minimum lasting collateral damage. And if this alarm turns out to be the momentary reaction to passing circumstances, then this commitment will not be in vain. For our investment in this great democracy will serve as an investment in the future of our society.

Of note; the single event in Kaiserreich which has the largest impact on whether the United States lives or dies, isn’t Huey Long’s paramilitaries, or Jack Reed’s strikes, nor the machinations of MacArthur and his stratocrats. The thing that decided the fate of America more than anything else is the results of the 1936 election. All the efforts of those larger than life figures are moot if the election swings the other way. The election itself isn’t enough to singlehandedly avert the civil war, but if the American voters don’t do their part and vote, it becomes only a matter of time until thins collapse.

So for the love of god and country, if you’re eligible, go and vote. Get involved. Whether you believe things are headed for trouble or not, whether or not you agree with me, take part in democracy.

Attn Millenials

The website analytics suggest that the majority of my audience are young Americans, so I’d like to take a moment to address this group specifically. Everyone else can take the week off.

Alright, guys, gals, and non-binary pals, listen up: I think we may have made a mistake. I’m concerned that recent events indicate that the oldsters don’t actually know what they’re doing any more than we do, which is what we assumed when we, collectively as a demographic, decided we could get away with not voting. According to the census bureau, less than half of us who were eligible voted in the last election, compared to more than 70% of oldsters.

Now, I’m not going to try and pin the blame everything bad that’s happened in politics on the elderly, but I am starting to think that we might need to step in. The geezers have had their chance, now it’s our turn.

The bad news is that this is going to require a commitment, from all of us. How much of a commitment will depend largely on where you live. Voting is easier to do in some states and localities than others. Some towns you can waltz into a polling place without any wait, and even register day of if you’ve forgotten. Other places require you to have your papers in order months ahead of time, wait in lines that rival Disney world, and endure cross examination from misanthropic poll workers.

This discrepancy is not accidental. These are the jurisdictions that fear us and the power we hold as voters, as well they should. These measures are designed to frustrate you into apathy. Don’t let them.

The good news is, no matter where you live in the United States, your right to vote is sacrosanct. To this end, there are resources you can call upon to help ensure your voice is heard. There are multiple nonprofit organizations dedicated to ensuring you have all the information necessary to jump through whatever hoops exist for voting in your jurisdiction. Your state government will have sample ballots with voting instructions. Local organizations provide transportation to the polls on voting day, and if necessary you can enlist help to cast your ballot if you have a disability.

Ideally, you will want to be an informed voter. This is where having access to a sample ballot is especially helpful. You can research candidates and issues beforehand and take notes. Don’t worry about studying; you’re entitled to take notes with you into the voting booth. But above all, don’t lose the forest for the trees. Voting at all is far more important than researching until you find a perfect candidate.

Our time is nigh. We, the young voters of America must stand up and take charge. The old guard have demonstrated that they do not know any better, and are no more qualified to vote or make decisions about our the fate of our country and our world than any of us. It is in our best interests, as well as our obligation, to step up and take responsibility, before outside events thrust that responsibility upon us.

Keeping Our Country Great

The United States is a truly marvelous country. It isn’t that other countries don’t have similar freedom, domestic tranquility, or prosperity. What makes the United States truly stand out isn’t any of these in particular, or even in combination. It isn’t anything that can be measured or exported. Rather, it is the notion that all of these things listed; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; are not only inviolable, but sacred. Freedom of speech, security of property, and opportunity without discrimination are not merely tools to help society progress and prevent other injustices, but are fundamentally good in themselves. This, not our army, or economy, or laws, or geography, is what makes America unique. These are what make America great

But while these things make us strong, they also makes us vulnerable. That we hold such things to be sacred means that we often take them for granted. After all, if something is God-given and ordained, how can we mere mortals mess it up? This kind of attitude leads to a dangerous complacency, making us believe that freedom is free, or that only one kind of sacrifice from a small handful of brave souls is required to defend it.

The truth is that freedom, even American freedom, is fragile, and easy to lose. Like any sacred thing, freedom is only maintained through conscious dedication. The moment Americans stop treating freedom as a tangible practice that needs to be defended, and instead refer to it as an abstract thing that will always exist, the United States is just another country with laws and rhetoric that reference strong principles, rather than the bastion of democratic values. On that day, Americans will still have all the same rights, but it will become a simple task of modifying the laws to take them away, because there will be no more taboo.

So, how do we do it? How do we keep our principles alive and strong in such times? How do we make sure that the freedom, prosperity, and security we enjoy will survive to be passed onto our grandchildren? The answer is surprisingly simple. We must, all of us, make a commitment to partake in the rites of this country, not just in obligatory way that we pay taxes, but with the zeal of citizens who believe in the vision of their country’s future.

We must engage with our political system, force our representatives to earn their pay by engaging with us, and above all, vote. We must become and remain engaged citizens. We must earn our values through our actions.

The Protest No-Vote

Among my friends, the most common excuse I hear for not voting is spite. People think that not voting is a form of protest. In their minds, the system is deeply flawed, all of the candidates are bad, and so the only way to have a truly clear conscience is to abstain entirely. With respect to my friends who believe this, and I do indeed respect them, this behavior is childish and self-defeating, and needs to stop.

Now, to be clear, if you honestly believe that all of the candidates are exactly equally bad on all matters; that they are truly not only morally equivalent, but morally identical, and if forced to choose, you could genuinely do no better than tossing a coin, except that presumably you respect the process enough to feel shame at being so capricious, then I will begrudgingly concede that indeed, you oughtn’t vote. If you tragically lack the comparative reasoning and foundational convictions to come to any inkling of a preference, then I suppose it would be above you to fill out a ballot paper. You leave me disappointed, but if you genuinely can’t see a difference, I won’t ask you to fake it.

Fortunately, I have met exactly no one who believes that at their core. Everyone has some set of beliefs and values that they reckon are fundamentally correct, and want to see in the world. Some people are more upfront, some are more nuanced, but everyone has an idea of how the world ought to be run.

There are two main arguments I hear in protest non-votes, both of which are similar, but subtly different. The first holds that withholding one’s vote is a radical act of defiance by refusing to participate in the system. This is seldom justified, but when it is, usually has something to do with “the system being rigged and elections are all for show” and “by refusing to vote, we send a message that the government doesn’t have the consent of us governed”. The first justification is, at best, misleading, and at worst, a conspiracy theory. If rigged refers to gerrymandering and biased voting laws, then this is a great reason for voting and changing the system. If rigged refers to a conspiracy to prevent change, then there’s not really anything to be lost by voting, is there?

The second justification has a little more to unpack. It refers to the language used in the founding documents of the United States and the philosophical writings it draws upon in turn. If you never learned civics, the basic idea is that government derived its power from the consent of the governed, and this consent is required for the enforcement of laws to be justified. This is most directly exemplified in democratic elections, but theoretically can be more abstract, like a popular revolution that installs an unelected government (this usually works better on paper than in practice).

The idea here is that not voting is a way to undermine the whole system; that if enough people don’t vote, the government won’t have the legitimacy to pass and enforce laws, and presumably those who don’t vote won’t have to pay taxes. The myriad problems with this line of thinking are apparent, but here are my two big ones: First, this bets a lot on everyone interpreting your signal the same way and agreeing to act on it. In practice, this is like trying to make a speech without talking. Politicians don’t put in the effort for people who are t participating. And second, it doesn’t really undermine the legitimacy of the government so long as you willingly waived your right to vote.

The second main argument I hear for not voting as a moral stance holds that voting is a moral exercise, and that a person casting a ballot must be willing to accept all of the elements of a candidate: policies, character quirks, scandals, and the like, good and bad. The argument goes that if you don’t accept all of this, then you have no moral standing to say that one person is better than the other. You have to own your choice, and if you can’t get behind it one hundred percent.

This is a classic argument in philosophy, deontology versus consequentialism. The argument boils down to: it is morally worse to add any amount of evil to the world than to do good at the cost of some small evil. This is the line of thinking that says that it is immoral to divert a runaway trolley from hitting five people to hit one person instead, because the act of diverting it is a moral choice as opposed to a consequence of existing factors.

I am not totally unsympathetic to this argument. But it falls apart when applied to elections. The underlying moral argument here presupposes that everyone is supposed to act in this way, always behaving according to strict and inviolable principles of right and wrong. The argument holds that a bad person being elected is not an individual wrong so long as a given person did not endorse them by voting; it is mere circumstance. But elections are precisely the summation of individual choices. There can be no mere circumstances in elections. They are always the consequences of moral choices.

Sometimes these choices turn out to be wrong in retrospect. But if a lack of hindsight can be called a failure, it is a failure of analysis, not of morality. Failing to vote does not disclaim responsibility, but actively avoids a moral choice out of cowardice. Let me submit then that the superior maxim is to always vote in the manner which best aligns with one’s own sense of morality. Your goodwill does no good if you do not express it in your actions.

The lesser of two evils is still the less evil choice. You will not find a flawless human being, let alone a politician, but someone has to be elected, and you have to do your part to decide who, and hold them accountable. Failing to do so is a failure of your moral obligations as a citizen. You don’t have to make the perfect choice. But not making the choice of voting is abandoning your good will and intentions in favor of the security of cowardice. If you decide you truly can’t live with any of the mainstream candidates, there are always third party and write-in candidates. Or failing all else, a spoiled ballot is a far more effective protest than inaction. But do not allow yourself to give up your choice because the choice is hard.

Why Vote?

Yes, this is a theme. Enough of my friends and acquaintances are on the fence on the issue of voting that I have been stirred into a patriotic fervor. Like Captain America, I have, despite my adversities, arisen to defend democracy in its hour of need. Or at least, I have decided to write about voting until my friends are motivated to get out and vote.

Why vote? In today’s America, why bother to go out and vote? Elections these days are won and lost not at the ballot, but on maps and budget sheets, with faraway oligarchs drawing boundary lines that defy all logic to ensure their own job security, and shadowy mega corporations spending more on media campaigns designed to confuse and disorient you to their advantage than the GDP of several small nations. The mathematics of first past the post voting means that our elections are, and for the foreseeable future, always will be, picking the lesser of two evils.

Statistically, you live not only in a state that is safely for one party or another, but an electoral district that has already been gerrymandered. Depending on where you live, there may be laws designed to target certain demographics, making it harder or easier for certain groups to get to the polls. The effort required to cast a ballot varies from place to place; it might be as easy as dropping by a polling place at your leisure, or it might involve waiting for hours in line, being harassed by officials and election monitors, all in order to fill out a piece of paper the effect of which is unlikely to make a major difference.

So why bother? Why not stay home, and take some well deserved time off.

It’s an older poster, but it checks out

Obviously, this logic wouldn’t work if everyone applied it. But that’s not a compelling reason why you specifically ought go to the effort of voting. Because it is an effort, and much as I might take it for granted that the effort is worthwhile, to participate in and safeguard the future of democracy, not everyone does.

Well, I’ll start by attacking the argument itself. Because yes, massive efforts have been made, and are being made, by those who have power and wish to keep it, and by those who seek power and are willing to gamble on it, to sway the odds in your favor. But consider for a moment these efforts. Would corporations, which are, if nothing else, ruthlessly efficient and stingy, spend such amounts if they really thought victory was assured? Would politicians expend so much effort and political capital campaigning, mudslinging, and yes, cheating through gerrymandering, registration deadlines, and ID laws, if they believed it wasn’t absolutely necessary?

The funny thing about voting trends is, the richer a person is, the more likely they are to vote. Surely, if elections were bought and paid for, the reverse would be true? Instead, the consistent trend is that those who allegedly need to vote the least do so the most.

The game may not be fair, or right, but it is not preordained. It may be biased, but it is not rigged. If it were rigged, the powers that be wouldn’t be making the effort. They are making an effort, on the assumption that they can overcome your will to defend your right to vote by apathy and antipathy. Like any right, your right to vote is only good when exercised.

The American Promise

One of my more controversial opinions regards the founding of the United States regards the circumstances of its foundation. See, having read the historical literature, I’m not convinced the colonists were right to revolt when they did. The troops that were stationed in the colonies were there to keep the peace while the colonies were reconstructed following the damages of the Seven Years’ War, while the Stamp Act actually lowered taxes from what they had been. The colonists were getting more services for lower taxes right after a war had been fought on their behalf.

The complaints about taxes mostly stemmed from enforcement; in order to abide by the terms of the treaties that ended the war, the British government had begun a crackdown on smuggling, which had previously grown to such a state that it was almost impossible for legitimate businesses to compete with the colonial cartels. This epidemic, and the ineptitude or collusion of local enforcement, was the reason for the extraordinary enforcement measures such as the oft-cited writs of assistance. Meanwhile complaints about land claims in native territory- that the crown was being oppressive by restricting settlers from encroaching on native land -are hard to justify with historical retrospect.

So the idea that the American Independence War was justified from the beginning by the actions of the British administration is nonsense. The British were in fact one of the most progressive and representative governments in history. The only possible justifications for independence lay in a total rejection of ordained authority, a prospect so radical that it made the United States comparable to the Soviet Union in its relation to its contemporaries; the idea that men hold inalienable rights, that defending these rights is the sole mandate of governments, and that these governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed.

And this is what really made the United States unique in history. Because republics, even systems that might be called democratic, had existed since antiquity. But these had always been a means to en end. Allowing the governed, or at least some portion thereof, to have a say in matters normally confined to kings and emperors was only incidental to the task of administration. This was already the case in Great Britain, and several Italian states. But the idea that power of government wasn’t an innate thing, but something that had to be willingly given, was revolutionary.

The problem, aside from the considerable logistical feat of organizing a heretofore unprecedented system of governance, is that this justification, if not necessarily retrospective in itself, is at least contingent on those promises being achieved. It is easy, not least from a historical perspective, to promise revolutionary liberation, and then not follow up. Indeed, depending on how one views the Soviet model as to whether it ever really came close to achieving the promises of revolution (which really depends on how one reads Marx, and how much one is willing to take Soviet talking points at their word), most of the revolutions of the modern period have failed to live up to their promises.

Washington could have declared himself King of America, either as a hereditary appointment, as a monarch elected by the states, akin to the Holy Roman Emperor, or even as a non-hereditary dynasty, like the Soviets, or the strongmen of the developing world. Most European states presumably expected this, or they expected the United States to collapse into anarchy. Instead, Washington set a precedent in line with the rhetoric of the USA’s foundation, with the intention of living up to the promises laid out in independence.

But while Washington certainly helped legitimize the United States and its promise, he didn’t do so singlehandedly. After all, he couldn’t have. The promise of the United States is not that those who happened to fight, or be present at the constitutional convention, be granted certain rights. No, the promise is that all are granted inalienable rights by a power higher than any government, and that everyone has the right to participate in the process of government. Notice the present tense. Because this is not an idea that expires, or will eventually come to be, but how things ought to be now.

The measure of this promise; the independent variable in the American experiment, is not the wars that were won, nor the words that were written on paper long ago to lay the foundation, nor even the progress that has been made since, but rather the state of affairs today. The success of America is not what was written into law yesterday, but what percentage are participating today.

The notion that, as the world’s superpower, America has already succeeded, and we need only sit back and reap the dividends of the investments made by our forebears is not only false, but dangerously hubristic and misleading. The failure of America does not require foreign armies on our streets, or a bottomed out economy; only complacency on our part. If we forget what our forefathers fought for, if we choose comfort over our values, indeed, if we decide voting isn’t worth the hassle, then we lose. And as a proud American, I believe both we, and the world, would be worse off for it.

In the interest of encouraging discussion about voting, this post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

2017 in Review

Author’s note: I started writing this at the beginning of December, and then promptly got distracted. As a result, most of this piece is written from a while back.

In many ways, my 2017 has been a sort of contrasting reflection of my 2016. My 2016 started off okay, got slightly better, before bottoming out in the end. My 2017 started at a fairly low point, but got better; incrementally at first, and then in larger strides. All in all, though, it is probably too soon to call 2017, for a few different reasons.

First, and most immediately relevant, is the fact that I am currently in the midst of trying to pull together college applications. This process probably should have been started with more time before my New Year’s deadline (Author’s note: We got it submitted in time). In my defence: I was told that the software my school uses would make the process streamlined and simple. It might have worked, if the school computers didn’t insist on purging my account from the registry no matter how many times it’s reactivated. Maybe I should have anticipated such problems ahead of time. Alas, I am too often too trusting.

I should say that whether or not I am accepted, or even whether or not my application comes together in time to be submitted will not have a great impact on my overall morale and views of the achievements of the past year. I should say this, but I would be lying. If I get accepted, likely then I will look back on this year as a moderate success overall. Else, I will probably view this year as equivocal; it had its good moments, and it had its bad moments.

In any case, it is difficult for me to internalize the year coming to a close while I have yet to wrap up my last great project of applications. Indeed, this difficulty in coming to grips with the rapid onset of the holiday season has led me, as it often does, to unknowingly procrastinate on gift acquisition. Here I must add that in addition to the considerable distraction of college application, and the unprecedented stress and anxiety which hath befuddled me amidst this process, I have also seemed to have taken ill with viral symptoms.

Among all this equivocating and qualifying, there are a few solid events and conclusions about the year with which I am reasonably comfortable. For one, I received my diploma (I still struggle to grapple with the term “graduation”, as that term carries implications which I believe are misleading), and ceased formal enrollment at my high school. Typing this sounds like I am underselling these events, but in all honesty the formalities were surprisingly anticlimactic compared to the struggling before it.

I traveled a fair bit, spending an appreciable proportion of time at Disney World, visiting the White Mountains and Bretton Woods, and seeing the eclipse, which, even with all the hype, did not disappoint. I attended a record number of Nerdfighter-related events, going first to NerdCon: Nerdfighteria, and then later to the release party for Turtles All The Way Down. Such events are invariably never what I expect, yet still good. Most recently, I embarked on a Disney Cruise which departed from New York and traveled to the Bahamas and to the Disney parks. And though I have not yet been able to fully collect and organize my thoughts on the subject, I must add that for what is otherwise a multi-day car trip, cruise ship is an excellent alternative.

Of course, I traveled a fair amount in 2016 as well, so it’s hard to call the travel record-breaking or year-defining. Nor has the sociopolitical convolution been particularly distinct from yesteryear. Certainly things have been active; chaotic even. But to a large extent this feels like an inevitable consequence of the momentum generated from past events. Indeed, many of the political items which I am inclined to focus on as being of singular historic importance – the mass demonstrations, the special counsel investigation, even the surprising turns of events in elections both domestic and abroad – seem more like reactions to the current conditions than like actions in themselves; and therefore do I feel that they are less relevant to considering this year separate from others.

What has been defining about 2017, at least the latter half of it, has been the appearance of free time in my life for the first time in recent memory. This has had two principal effects.

First, it has led to a proliferation of personal projects, ranging from simple items such as setting up a gallery page, and a crowdfunding campaign, to more ambitious endeavors such as restarting my creative fiction writing, and building a prototype board game. Even though only a handful of these projects have yet been achieved, and none have been the runaway success that my wildest enthusiasm might have daydreamed, I do believe that I am better off from having tried all of them.

Second, I am happier now than in school. Even though the process of wrangling college applications has caused a minor relapse into some of the less healthy mental patterns, and it is difficult to make meaningful data out of the minute to minute fluctuations in mood and happiness, I can say without reservation that I am happier on balance now than at any point since my first year of high school.

Like I said previously, the determination of how 2017 compares will likely be one made in retrospect, partly because the events which are likely to define it in retrospect are still ongoing, and partly because it’s nigh impossible to judge this year in particular devoid of its proper context. That being said, this year has defied my expectations, and has been, if not quite as good as my wildest hopes, then at least, better than the trajectory of the end of 2016 had led me to fear.