In looking at mostly Buddhist blogs recently, I’ve noticed many of them bent toward politics. There is the usual decrying of Bush, the U.S. involvement in Iraq, the Republican scandals with the expected antidote of voting the Republicans out of office and replacing them with Democrats. Mind you, I’m sympathetic with everything they say, and at the same time I’m not too excited.

Only a relatively small portion of the American electorate can think. Those are reachable. Most others fit the category of the quote by A. E. Housman

The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic. His opinions are determined not by his reason — ‘the bulk of mankind’ says Swift ‘is as well qualified for flying as for thinking’ — but by his passions; and the faintest of all human passions is the love of truth. He believes that the text of ancient authors is generally sound, not because he has acquainted himself with the elements of the problem, but because he would feel uncomfortable if he did not believe it; just as he believes, on the same cogent evidence, that he is a fine fellow, and that he will rise again from the dead.

Introduction to Astronomicon of Manlius, Lib I. Cambridge: CUP, 1937, pg xliii

I’m admonished to rush about trying to get people to vote, like more people voting will fix everything. Indeed, my state is so indelibly stained (guess which color, red or blue?) that increasing turnout would probably only make things worse. I do not want more nonthinking people voting. I don’t think those unwilling to acquaint themselves about issues will do anything constructive by wagging their uninformed ignorance to the voting booth. I’m sometimes inclined to spend my effort encouraging people to stay home. Those that think will ignore me anyhow, and those that don’t, may, with a little nudge, cuddle up with “what they think they think” at home, and thus do the nation a better service than by voting.

As I stood in the voting line at the last general election, white and gray heads opined openly about their physical miseries, the government, etc., sharing their nonsensical wisdom with nodding heads. The way they intended to vote was quite contrary to both their needs and what they thought the country ought to be doing. I realized the futility of it all. They all believed themselves to be wonderful citizens, as if voting their feelings had some magical ability to transform what they were actually voting for into good. Sam, an adamant critic of the Iraq war and our involvement in it, voted for Bush twice, and successfully helped vote a senator out of office who had taken public heat for trying to slow Bush’s rush to starting the Iraq war. “If we can’t believe our leaders, then who can we believe,” was his rejoinder when I pointed out what to me was an obvious mental disconnect. Doing what your leaders ask you to is being loyal and patriotic, according to Sam, who fought in World War II.

“Get more young people to vote,” is often given as the answer to the voting problem. As if that would fix things. In my youth, I wasn’t clueless, but I didn’t have the experience to distinguish between fine sounding words and practical solutions to problems. My ideals were like two-week old bootleg liquor – something to get high on, but without much taste or any refinement of experience or practical wisdom.

I will vote, and I have tried to influence those that can be reached with reason and common values. I hope things change, too. But unless the change represents a change in long term values, it is of little consequence. We humans have some big problems facing us, and what happens in America is probably not of great importance to the outcome. This is no dour conclusion of doom, but simply an observation that many of the world’s problems have much more to do with the limitations of human nature itself, than with American politics. American politics simply reflect the fact that the ordinary fears, myths, and unconscious religious beliefs that screw up the world, are here in this country too. We have achieved reasonably good education for most Americans, but it has done little to improve our culture, our sense of security, or our rationality. In fact, we believe, to our own detriment, that since we are educated, we must also be rational and capable thinkers. We have added another depth of blindness about what motivates and drives us.

It is contrary to my habits to back away from politics as the best solution for the world’s problem. Yet that is clearly where I’m headed these days. It may be that the first noble truth of Buddhism has finally sunk in. Life probably isn’t fixable, because most of the things screwing it up are the things that gave rise to it in the first place. Hate, greed, and delusion were attributes of survival in a hostile world; it’s unlikely that heritage will seed one in which those attributes are missing. And they cannot be bent to any lasting good. They can only be transcended.

If, in the middle of the political fray, one can truly keep his balance and equanimity, then one has a possibility of actually doing some small bit of good. If one can contend for his beliefs with humor, with genuine goodwill, with a compassionate breadth of view that encompasses even the opponent, then one might accomplish good that is independent of the particular political result.