"Well, it doesn't depend on me..." Non-voters in Bulgaria have been consistently over 60% recently. This is also a perfectly legitimate choice. But what does it lead to, asks Ivaylo Noisey Tsvetkov.
In Bulgaria, non-voters have been constantly over 60% lately. You will not believe that I will immediately refer to Hegel, but miracles do happen. Already in 1821 in "Philosophy of Law" the German philosopher notes one of the main drawbacks of universal suffrage: that it will largely lead to electoral indifference, because the vote of one always risks being lost in the majority. I.e. the problem is not from yesterday. There is one more thing - the so-called "Downes paradox" (or paradox of voting), which dates back to the Marquis de Condorcet shortly after the Great French Revolution: in general, that the more people vote, the more the weight of the personal vote in question falls.
What comes out at first glance? Hegel and Condorcet have not left us answers and recipes, and in fact they are also slightly relativistic regarding the question "should or shouldn't". Thus, today in the Western liberal-democratic world, roughly speaking, we have two schools. One says something along the lines that it is a civic duty and should be voted for even if there is no one to vote for. And the other: since there is no one for whom, do not impute to me a civic or, God forbid, moral duty to vote without fail.
But the continuation of Downes' paradox today contains a pure aporia or internal contradiction in the conditions of liberal democracy - it, liberal democracy, will tear its last shirt so that you can exercise the freest possible choice, but in at the same time, if you don't exercise it through voting, liberal democracy itself begins to creak, and at some point it may not even have a shirt to tear. If we understand metaphors and, more precisely, metatextuality.
Let's vote too!
I will omit here the repeatedly repeated explanations of the creeping frustration, the series of recent elections, even the infamous and gloatingly imposed "everyone is a mask" type of disgust with Bulgarian politics. I won't even mention my own favorite state of political Weltschmerz, ie. world weariness in general.
I will say only one thing: Come and vote. Because the above "Downes paradox" explains something researched to death and clever: that the bigger question is not "for whom" but "why should". And the short answer is not platitudes like "then you have no right to criticize", but something bigger: voting cannot and should not be emotional (he is cute and he is fat, or vice versa), but purely rational action. In a ruthless relationship with the fact that management directly or indirectly affects your being.
I understand both the desperation and the Hegelian apathy, but it seems like never in modern history (ours included) has voting been more important. If our grandfathers in the villages wondered quite rationally in the style of "what's wrong with me"? (I exclude the violent electoral practices bequeathed with bitterness by Aleko), today in absolute connectedness you shine many times more.
I understand, maybe part of you is lazy. What am I going to do on Sunday to vote for THEM! But here it is good to rationalize what you achieve by not voting.
Winners are happy when you don't vote
You get roughly the following: the "winning" are infinitely happy with 60-plus percent non-voters. When the minority chooses, there is no room for serious reshuffles, power is distributed between the first two (and a half, but what a big half!) forces and automatically again works for itself, never for you.
Ergo, question: do you want something to change or are you completely desperate that nothing can? And maybe you don't care?
The latter, however, corresponds to a remarkable theory inspired by Vasil Varbanov, according to which - paradoxically or not - the so-called "middle class", especially the one with the diagonals, says to itself "we're fine this way" and there is no need to vote for change. All political talk of reform and improvement in this army de facto does not register, "falls on deaf ears", as the English say. Gray business and the "insidious" economy are going great, paternalistically supervised by the so-called "powers of the status quo". And the cynical "stability".
The very clientelistic structure is now the norm. But there is another - you have also heard that when you exceed a certain million turnover, the Fats come. In the best case, they politely become your partners, in the worst case, an incident happens to you. They are both the offices and the whip of the state, i.e. they have - if we refer to Ilf and Petrov - at least 400 ways to be convinced in the style of "Tony Soprano".
Of course, it has long been no longer "we break your knees" - becomes relatively elegant. These are really smart people, they invite you to a meeting, without much pressure initially, discussing possibilities, someone wants to see you, make friends, almost. I'm not kidding, this happens all the time, even as you read this.
Find them out too. They have to get up early and "watch" - to make dozens of similar decisions every day, so-and-so, who should we take what from him, the one from Burgas is struggling, let's see if we can convince him, Pancho from Dve Mogili has not collected the votes, the one from Varna is late with payments, etc. .n. They work for real, for "their business", cosa nostra is now cosa loro, "their business", you have to be on the phone 24/7. You probably make 50 phone calls a day if you're the head of the mafia, apart from giving out the orders.
They are busier than us
But they also have one small problem, alas - they cannot extort Western companies. If you are wondering why there are no real big investments in Bulgaria like factories of "Volkswagen" or the like. Well, they don't need to, we run our own business. And it is called "absorption of European funds". And now according to the anyway backward Development and Sustainability Plan, even more so.
For a moment, let's impose this model on non-voters, because they really are a Legion (according to the Gospel of Mark 5:9, where Jesus asks one what is your name, and he, possessed by thousands of demons, shouts, we are a Legion). Of course, with the clarification that non-voters are not homogeneous. There are all kinds, from all cultural strata - from those mentioned in diagonals, who feed off the local government and lie in wait to cheat it, to the upper class disgusted by the above. Some of my fellow political analysts make me laugh terribly - for some selfish reason or another, they maintain Alec's great observation that "everyone is a masker". The media also does not help anymore in a pre-election situation. They no longer dare to ask something real - because of the prepaid formats and because of the financing.
So there is no longer any kind of debate. Why? I want to see Borisov or Peevski in a direct debate with Kiril Petkov and Asen Vasilev. I don't want all the politics to be poured out on Facebook or to measure the billboards. Yes, there will never be a debate again, and we'll be asking ourselves for years why 60% don't vote.
I don't judge anyone: political choices for me are always in the realm of the intimate. I never ask anyone "you for whom", I find it in bad taste. But I am sure that the too convenient reduction of politics to social media and the refusal of visibility is not moving us forward.
Why doesn't the Legion vote? It is a bit like the great FSB song "Why do you love me", in this case - why not me. I.e. ask the river there, ask the moon, etc. I really think it's a mixture of disenchantment and despair from the political class plus pure Bulgarian laziness.
The future is in your hands
I got a little tired of explaining that not voting de facto paves the way for the state mafia. This is not the place for me to go into the technical psychological and rational method of convincing people of the meaning of voting. I won't even talk about "civic duty", because not voting is born with the negative mother complex.
This is a psychological and somewhat pathological phenomenon from the good doctor Jung, which also affects power, and I immediately explain why: for boys, the mother is ipso facto a symbol of comfort, i.e. in a meta sense - our notorious stability. Ergo, the non-voters do not find this maternal comfort.
This possible "mother" with the otherwise active citizens, it may be Urania, but it may also be Hecate, the grandmother of all witches, who refers us to the metaphysical. Accordingly, Mother Earth, i.e. the parties that instill a kind of unconscious divine order are also the winning parties that no longer actually win. Because the result of politics today tends to the green zero of the roulette.
And from there, in the mind of the non-voter, quite logically, the worst and counterproductive "well it's not up to me" takes root. Or, even more interestingly, my one vote is exactly equivalent to the bought vote of some Roma in Slivensko.
But there is a philosophical "however". In Bulgaria, not voting looks more like a childish reaction according to David Hume - like stomping your foot when it doesn't go your way. Adults and adults should vote not because of civic duty, but because they are a kind of devotee of choice itself, of the fact that liberal democracy itself offers this choice at all.
Primarily in the First World we are aiming for.
And maybe we can learn from the Australians? With them, the non-voter is fined with only 20 of their dollars, something like 25 BGN. Both he was slapped across the fingers and his economic right was not taken away - as if a reminder that you still have a civic duty. And maybe not, who knows.
So, think quietly, Legion. The future is in your hands.
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This comment expresses the personal opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and DV as a whole.