2024-09-11
I read and really enjoyed this article by Margaret Killjoy-- I feel like it articulates a growing feeling I've had and struggled to articulate to the people around me about why I feel so increasingly disenchanted with electoral politics-- I still want the democrats to win, but I can't bring myself to spend as much energy or care on the election every four years; there are other important things to worry about and spend that time on instead, that I might actually see making concrete positive change to the world.
Every four years we hear the same thing: “it’s different this year. This is the most important election of our lifetimes.”
The reason this statement is so effective is that, somehow, impossibly, it’s generally true, or it feels true. The 2016 election mattered—the fate of the world hung in the balance. The 2020 election mattered—the fate of the world hung in the balance. The 2024 election matters—the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Democracy itself is on the ballot, they say, and in their way, they’re not wrong: the election this year is between a candidate who believes in representative democracy as an ideal and one who does not.
Can it be that the stakes are indeed higher, every four years? Probably. We have more and more on the line with each passing day, as climate change gets worse and the world order stumbles drunkenly towards collapse, world war, or both.
Or it’s a shepard tone. There’s this auditory illusion called the shepard tone, maybe you’ve heard it. It’s a sound that appears to be constantly rising (or falling) in pitch, no matter how long you listen to it. It’s uncanny, unnerving. I just played it while writing this piece and my dog looked over at the computer, curious and a bit unsettled.
It’s probable that “this election is the most important election of our lifetime” is somehow both true and also an illusion.
See, the way you build a shepard tone is that you layer multiple tones, all of which are rising over time until they reach a peak and start over, but you put the volume emphasis on the ones that are rising rather than the ones that have peaked. So the mind always notices the parts that are rising.
We do that when we look at the world around us. This isn’t just true of the political spectacle. We as a society put emphasis on problems that are getting worse, and there are always things getting worse. This is rational of us, a survival instinct: the current problem needs solving, always. If you are starving and freezing, and you find food but not warmth, your need for shelter is going to only become more dire and the intensity of your situation will only continue to rise despite the fact that your food need has been met.
Acknowledging this pattern shouldn’t mollify us and and it shouldn’t pacify us. Our situation, as individuals, communities, and members of a global population, can and does get both better and worse, and I suspect that the life of the average person on this planet is going to be getting worse due to both climate change and authoritarianism.
