Permanently Deleted
I mean, he’s missing the point that when you do vote, it still doesn’t matter, which kinda is the problem with this argument. You can not vote and thus ‘vote for the established power’ by default, vote for one of the established powers, or cast a vote that won’t do anything and thus will be a perpetuation of the false belief that your vote can change anything. All options are unacceptable. Given that, the only determining difference is how much effort each is, and not voting is the least effort. Therefore, while the marginal benefit is vanishingly tiny, you still have the best reason to not vote.
Wallace was a lib. I love Infinite Jest, but he was a big ol libby lib (and, it should be noted, an abusive sexual harasser). try to read his piece on John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign without vomiting on your keyboard. it’s clever, incisive, and compelling, and if you know anything about the subject matter, steaming horseshit. (also if you feel like it try to find his essay where he complains about campus political correctness). I’d like to believe if he hadn’t bit the big one, his capacity for empathy and his distaste for the barbarity of the right would have pushed him slightly to the left of his academic upper middle class millieu, but once he got a twitter account, he would keep saying dumb shit, get clowned on mercilessly (not to mention accused of sexual harassment), and eventually sign that big Anti-Cancel Culture letter.
anyway here his argument is definitely flawed, but he starts from a very reasonable observation, which is that the political system is designed to induce apathy, and it’s successful for most people. his mistake is misidentifying the act of voting as a rebellion against the apathetic project, rather than participation in it.
I kind of doubt that he would have been a willing participant in social media, guy didn’t have a tv even, and half of infinite jest is about media addiction. Telelace entertainment wasn’t a good thing. I think he might have been radicalized further by the continued spiral of reality. I’d like to think his takes on the Q phenomenon might have been especially interesting.
But who knows. Brainworms are a funny thing.
Yo you absolutely should vote for socialists and communists
Self-contradicting nonsense since he probably wants you to vote Dem, one of those parties that “wants” you to be disgusted and bored, so you’ll only be voting for disgusting and boring candidates… to what effect?
I suspect he had no answer.
