A few years back, a group of friends from my ethnicity came soliciting for Sri Athavale Maharaj, a revered spiritual guru. They solicited on behalf of him and Indian theosophy, spiritual ideology, and philosophy. I said only one thing, why do you say this to me, who is a known and revered devout spiritual leader? Why don’t you knock on any of the doors other than our ethnicity? I said that’s where you need to go.
The oracle of Delphi
Psephology is just like that, knocking the doors and finding a rationale to support our own anxiety. Of course, some convert the data into intelligence and leverage it for building strategy. However, for the sake of academic discussion, I won’t relent too much on psephology, which has multiple times been equated to ‘Oracle of Delphi’.
Anyways, we can argue endlessly, neither I nor anyone knows the outcome. Irrespective of the outcome, some people are bound to be affected, spit venom (any side) express radically but won’t be able to change. I would repeat that same question that I raised to the followers of Sri Athawale Maharaj
I visited my dentist today. He is Korean but his staff is Hispanic. To initiate a talk, I asked,
what do you who wins?
She said, abruptly cutting me short, Donald Trump,
and I said Why? Just that everyone is talking the same around me.
I said everyone, means what? Is that your ethnicity? Cross ethnic?
She said, everyone in the office, mostly white girls.
Keywords and Biases
It is a constant struggle for a human being, do we bring rationale, and do we use rationale to support our bias. Selecting news based on the keywords, we all know, is a sampling error.
In 2016, I was a die-hard anti-Trump and I would cling to every little news that would make me feel good. That news was succor, pleasing, and making me comfortable. Of course, we all know the outcome of that election. For almost 2-3 years, I watched President Trump and made my independent judgment. Today, I realize, he is an effective leader who called a spade a dagger and remained committed to his ideology. I wrote that blog, “The Biden Bid”, on mymilieu.org. It’s about Trump and his effectiveness. I am not a psephology, but at the time of writing, I evaluated the data, discerned it from the noise and sensed the pulse of the nation, and asked Joe Biden, to be as effective as Trump.
The death of Zia, did anything change?
I recollect, as a young adolescent, I saw Zia’s plane being blown off. I told my father, that now the relations between India and Pakistan will become better. He shared a snippet of wisdom, that politicians are a reflection of the polity. Nothing will change.
Once i was similarly passionate, then i realized psephology was sentiments are so unpredictable. While in college, we played elections, exactly the way you did. Later at the University Senate, again we matured and evolved and got our faculty Dean elected. Thereafter, while in Mumbai, it was even smarter. However, with age and experience you realize, the politicians make it happen for themselves by infusing us common man, with sentiments, rather exploiting our sentiments. Politics is driven by country’s challenges, wants and threats, not by ideology, the later is just an enabler.
I presume, i never understood the depth of what my father said about Zia’s death, age and experience only offers that insight. So, despite researching unbiasedly, and i will wait for Nov 3, and if it won’t go to the court, we will soon see what’s in the offing.
Committing to higher Sentiments
As I comprehend, election sentiments are a mediocre game. We are driven by sentiments, that are supported by the intellect. Waiting anxiously and holding insistently for specific results is like an 8th grader waiting to see on the top of the merit list. It is a crass deprecation of what we stand for.
We have to envision what is good for the country, for the global community and not be constrained to select segments or select material advantages. That is possibly the nemesis of democracy.
mymilieu.org 