It’s not often that someone my age has a profound change of heart. Morals are something you develop (or ought to) through careful examination and years of mistakes; this is why you cherish them, and fight to protect them. The fact is the older you get the more stubborn you become, the more unwilling you are to bend to anyone else’s suggestions. Take politics, for instance: horse-trading, back-biting, double-dealing; I thought myself immune to the whole dirty business. Apparently, I’m not.
Effectively I’ve sold my vote in the June election. And so have you, most likely.
OK, so maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Balaclavaed men didn’t turn up on my doorstep with a bag of hundred dollar bills to secure my vote, but this a story we are all intimately aware of: boy has vote, a vaguely familiar man inquires politely, the next day your mother’s car has been fixed, or your father’s loan extended.
We all know what the right answer is in a democratic state. Votes should not be bought. If voting is the cornerstone of freedom then votes can’t be priced, because freedom would then have a price. It would no longer be free to be free – see what I did there?
Yet human nature in every democratic nation has bastardized the concept to some degree. Given the opportunity to vote freely, a man should default to his best long-term interest; but if a president is likely to raise taxes in the best long-term interest, and another has promised to buy flowers, we’d have a dozen red roses all around. In Lebanon we’ve bastardized it, slapped it around, buried it, dug it up and buried it somewhere else.
The problem here is that people don’t care about the bigger picture, the greater good (even their own) or anything beyond their very immediate interests. I suppose decades of war have lodged it in our psyche; if you spent your entire adult life in a shelter then you’ve necessarily learned to live minute by minute, and have grown incapable of living for tomorrow. I’ve made a thousand mistakes in my teens, and I’ll make a thousand more before I’m done here, but I’ve hardly ever felt remorse. It wasn’t that I lacked a conscience, but remorse needs a tomorrow. And what if you thought there was to be no tomorrow, tomorrow?
We know the rules: make good choices, save for a rainy day, and think before you speak. But there is no internal need to follow them here. What am I saving for? Who am I worried about? And who cares about my choices? So when a smiling gentleman walks up to me and promises to erase a debt or fulfill a dream in return for a vote in an election that will have been decided long before any of us go to the polls, well, I’ll consider it. What harm could it possibly do, right?
The problem is that it infects good men too. Imagine for instance that you’re leading a political party in the direction you believed to be truly patriotic. Yet your opposition simply lavishes your constituency with gifts, or threats, or worse. Anyone in their right mind should vote your way. But you know that less than ten per cent of your countrymen are in their right mind. You have no option but to get your wallet out.
And here’s me, part of a religious minority living in an area once known for its tolerance and ethnic diversity, in love with a country because it never made me feel inferior. Now my corner of the world is threatened, there’s a man on the TV claiming to be better than everyone, preaching ideological intolerance made reality through cold hard cash. And my neighbors are about to trade their children’s future for a few liras. Well, now what? Double that, and I’ll think about it.
A great thanks to HRH Princess James Montague for the fantastic edit. Written for Time Out Beirut
I'm Karl, and I'm an acquired taste.
I've been an editor for 4 years, a writer for 5 more, and a geek ever since I wrote Pong on my first Atari. I'm married to the perfect woman and we live in the desert. 
*Fallacy spotted*
Flowers versus Taxes. What does he plan to use the taxes on? Or in other words “My sweat won’t pay for new prisons but tell me you’re gonna build libraries and you can double the taxes for all I care.”
On another point, I don’t see how buying people’s vote is different from convincing them to vote for you because you’ll tax them less. If what they see is how much money they’ll end up with, then “our children’s future” carries no weight and is a false issue.
But again, that’s what democracy is all about, letting everybody decide. Why is the hypothetical future more important than tomorrow? It’s not about the shelter, it’s not about choosing between Esope’s grasshopper or ant, not about voting for what or who will do you the most good rather choosing the lesser of two evils -that may be and probably is a very French point of view for the election there goes in two rounds, the second round being a vote between the two candidates that has the most votes on the first round. This leads to people picking their favourite in the first for eventually picking the one they dislike the less on the second.
I say if political program 1 + bribe 1 > political program 2 + bribe 2, I go for 1 even though political program 1 < political program 2.
-Is there a word in English to differenciate between a vote as in the act of voting -vote- and a vote as in the quantum of power bestowed upon every voter -voix-?
@Agénor
The flowers versus taxes example is meant to illustrate shortsightedness. Anyone with any foresight will want to know what the taxes will go to, and will choose to vote accordingly. An idiot will smile at the flowers and vote, because taxes are ‘bad’. Let me see how I can make that point clearer in the text.
I never brought up the issue of lowering taxes, only raising them. You’re right about that though, if explained as simply as ‘I’m lowering taxes’ then it is bribery. But then again, we hardly pay taxes here.
The hypothetical future is a long term investment. A quick romp now might be just what you need, but if this romp forgoes any meaningful relationship for the next five years, you’d think twice about it. But the ant and grasshopper don’t illustrate this properly, because neither option in voting requires any labor, only foresight. If the ant and grasshopper were tanning on a beach somewhere, and had to tell the ladybug to either play the guitar for them all summer or go fill their pantry with food, I think they ought to opt for food.
But that’s my point as well. I’m coming around to this bribery system. It seems to be a necessary evil, and with enough time it might even become the norm, simply. That’s what bothers me really, that I’m not appalled at their behavior anymore. Actually, want a ticket home in exchange for a vote?
Same word can be used for both. But who cares, the president is dead, long live the philosopher king!
The question of tomorrow that you bring up depends entirely on your religious/life views: is there an afterlife, and so on. If you don’t believe in the afterlife, perhaps the idea of karma is appealing. As in, you won’t get punished/rewarded in the afterlife, but in this one for what you’ve done. If neither of those are something you can subscribe to, than I think the idea of tomorrow will still play a role if you have children. You’ll be dead tomorrow, but they won’t (hopefully), and your decisions today will affect the world they live in in the future. My presumption is that you’re talking about people who are, how should I put it?….don’t possess the best of means/intelligence. In other words, the mass society. If you mean that they aren’t thinking about tomorrow because they are simply struggling to get through today, that’s a different issue. But I wouldn’t put you in that category.
It has always been, and I think will always remain, in the interest of the government, as an institution, to keep the masses ignorant and following pretty slogans, rather than giving any of the core ideas real thought. This is the reason why propaganda works so well. As long as this will be the case, people and votes will be bought in one way or another.
As far as your take on morals, you forgot to mention one extremely significant factor. The vast majority of our morals are instilled in us as children, mostly from our parents/other adult caregivers. I think it’s very difficult as an adult to consciously change your morals; it’s not exactly like kicking a bad habit. Beliefs definitely change throughout your life, but I would argue that morals stay more or less the same.
@Inna
I don’t think they’re struggling, I think the entire concept of tomorrow has been erased from their reality. They realize there is a day after today but are incapable of concerning themselves with it, and if they aren’t then they’re certainly incapable of concerning themselves with next year, or the next decade.
It’s actually noteworthy how little the Lebanese plan for anything, from nights out to long term investment; most don’t even have bank accounts. This is actually a decent theme for a feature. Hmmm.
You’re right about the inherited morals. At some point all intelligent people reconsider them but it’s true that some things are hard-coded. This is a defining generation as well, one that was born in a war. It might be interesting to examine wartime morals as well. Hmmm number the second.
Well, I definitely cannot comment on the specific characteristics of the Lebanese people, so I’ll just leave that up to you. But I’m glad you were able to come away with a couple of topics for future pieces, if nothing more. Look forward to reading those
Karl for presidency
@JK
Hmmm. I wonder how much support I need to pull a monarchy off.
I’m bribed with booz and drugs
no cash plz kthnxbai
Well in Lebanon unfortunately it’s all about the money. But it’s interesting to find someone who still has this so called ethic, for in the end it is us who are going to suffer for a small amount of bits and pieces
@Carol
Who needs a future when you gots de cash?
Hear ye, hear ye. Text was edited on this day, prior to publication in Beirut, by His Royal Highness Princess James Montague. We are very pleased with the results.