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The voter acts under the delusion that he may bring about some result in the world by the mere expression of his opinion. This is a delusion that flatters a man’s self-importance, and conduces to keep him in his place while he busies himself with finding, joining and creating men of like opinion, since that which he wants depends on numbers. Most talk radio, much punditry, and much group "leadership" is built on this delusion: the flattery of having one’s own opinions affirmed and repeated with stentorian righteousness, the busyness of building consensus, that is, uniform blocks of opinion, the self-importance attached to the assumption that one’s mere opinion, one’s voice, counts for something.

For Thoreau, there is only one test of what a man really esteems and believes: that which he acts upon. A man who is really concerned with a matter will not simply express an opinion on the subject, or petition for what he believes is right. He acts, without waiting first for the approval of the majority. "If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due; but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount, and see that you are never cheated again. Action from principle, and the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary."

By establishing a system founded on the marshalling of opinion, people who believe that the best or most efficacious means of achieving their goals for the country is by securing victory for their party are shunted into perpetually busying themselves with building party and consensus, and to that extent cease doing actual work to achieve their goals. And this, from the perspective of the elites who benefit from the status quo, is the great stability and improvement inherent in democracy, in contrast to other forms of government: by offering the commoners the prospect of acquiring power, and a power founded on marshaling those who share similar views, people busy themselves primarily with the acquisition and maintenance of power and efforts to build "consensus," thereby effectively preserving and prolonging the status quo.

It is sometimes averred that, whatever defects government by majority rule has, it has the merit of minimizing conflict by providing a means by which the majority can achieve or pursue its goals, without resorting to actual violence and bloodshed. This is wrong, however, because the system is founded on opinion and it costs next to nothing to have an opinion. The real worth of a thing and strength of a desire is revealed by what a person actually does, not what opinion he holds. It is far too easy to believe a thing and never act upon it. It is far too easy to hold beliefs that are little more than self-flattering opinions about oneself that one takes credit for holding.

If the Iraq War depended upon only those who would actually volunteer to go there and fight and those who would voluntarily pay to support it, we would soon find out how many supporters of the war there really were. A man who acts upon what he believes will soon experience real life consequences of his behavior; he will learn, adapt or respond accordingly. A man can hold an opinion that it costs him little to nothing to hold forever. Far from minimizing conflict, therefore, a system of majority rule founded on consensus multiples conflict and makes conflict more likely, for it is too easy for men to espouse beliefs and principles for which they, personally, will never experience serious consequence, and for which others – some small minority – will pay the price.

If Ballou and Thoreau are right, very little good can ever come from voting or the political process. What IS effective is to form voluntary associations of interested parties to achieve goals without the aid of politics or legislation. While Thoreau is famous for advocating outright civil disobedience to government when government compels action against conscience, Ballou (or, for that matter, Martin Luther King or Gandhi) are better known as advocates of simple PEACEFUL noncooperation. (A decision to not ride the public busses is not "civil disobedience" because it breaks no laws, but is a simple refusal to cooperate with or participate in one’s own repression or exploitation.)

If, for example, we desire to curtail our government’s adventures abroad, forget trying to build a party that can actually say no to unjust wars, and work to encourage people to not enlist in the military, and to help them not choose the military out of the necessity of their personal circumstances. Encourage engineers, scientists, business people to not work for the companies that produce weapons of war. This can be recommended both on religious grounds, and on the pragmatic or simple moral ground that they do not unwittingly make themselves tools of men who will lie them into unjust and unnecessary wars, and make themselves parties to murder for illegal, unknown, unstated reasons.

The goals different people may seek cannot be prescribed beforehand, because they must spring from and be maintained by action founded in the actual passion of the participants. What is critical, is that such action simply eschew politics, legislation and the courts, i.e., all forms of compulsion, and be conducted in a peaceful, voluntary, civil manner that deals with others on the basis of honesty and in good faith, even while opponents will not. While this form of activism may seem to promise too little to those who hope for sweeping change promised by gaining control of the legislative process, pursuit of that chimera has the potential to sidetrack people for a lifetime. The Republicans had control of the Congress and the Presidency for the last six years. Ask the conservatives if they got what they wanted. Consider, instead, whether Thoreau is right, and whether only "Action from principle, and the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary." Act accordingly.

November 7, 2006

Jeff Snyder is an attorney who works in Manhattan. He is the author of Nation of Cowards – Essays on the Ethics of Gun Control, which examines the American character as revealed by the gun control debate. He occasionally blogs at The Shining Wire.
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