There was a very interesting editorial piece in today's Boulder Daily Camera regarding the electoral college. It was the opinion of 5th graders. I, perhaps more often than I should, defer to the logic of the playground. The innocent apolitical philosophy of playground society would of course be reckless and callous in modern adult life, however there is no denying that some of the wisdom learned (either through experience and occasionally through force) playing baseball and tag during lunch at John Harvard Elementary in Queens Village, N.Y. has guided me, and been a more secure rudder than much of the abstract, if not well thought out policies born in the libraries of that other Harvard.
What I learned at Harvard (elementary)
1. Life isn't fair so you better take opportunities when they come. But keep it real, good luck is equally an injustice as bad luck so take the good with the bad.
2. If someone is a jerk, you have two options, engage and accept the consequences (if you win, the brutal hand of the law, if you loose a fleshy black eye) or diplomacy. On the playground those who harbor bias and malice are ostracized until they either see the error of their ways or finally become disenfranchised and irrelevant.
3. Popularity is important. Further it's frequently more important to be popular than it is to be right.
How do these three playground lessons translate into modern life?
The first lesson teaches us the importance of not being a hypocrite. It looks poorly on adults to decry misfortune, particularly misfortune of design and not recognize the inherent inequity of good fortune. For example it would simply be disingenuous for us to wallow in woe as a result of this current financial crisis when this is a misfortune that we all actively pursued. Lenders did not have to be so reckless with their qualifications, but we as Americans did not "Need" that new car, tv, house, kitchen, vacation ... For those supporting the democratic ticket this misfortune has been a windfall of electoral support but we must temper the victory celebrations with the sobriety of the significant challenges ahead. This unjust good fortune is financed with the homes and jobs of many who are truly innocent.
Lesson two teaches us about how to reconcile differences of opinion. We too frequently attach a persons views to our perception of them as a person. We for example confuse disinterest in environmental stewardship with a general misanthropy, we assume bias equates to inability to be compassionate. Rather than diplomatically seeking an amicable compromise we chose to engage because after all "they" are wrong. This engagement however simply proves valid, the very worst concerns about us, that those we disagree with believe. On the playground since the consequences of engagement are as negative as they are immediate, by and large children favor the longer, more prudent diplomatic route. They form coalitions of the willing to systematically make those with a social disorder irrelevant. Granted something goes wrong as the innocent self selections of the "geeks" "nerds" "jocks" and "cool kids" who seem to live in harmonious isolation morph into the adult institutions of "liberals" "conservatives" "democrats" and "republicans" (not respectively), but what those germinal institutions understand is there is no shame working together when necessary, even if it requires concessions. Further unlike in the adult world, where the rare individuals that feel equally comfortable in all those groups is called, unprincipled at best, a traitor at worst, on the playground these people are called at worst popular, at best class president. The play ground teaches us that is is okay to to group together with those we want (Hence you have the Boulder's and Austin's of the world) but we fail (if your a jock or a cool kid in elementary school literally) if there is not cooperation.
The lesson of popularity is frequently lost on adults. Unfortunately with an increase in education comes a disproportionate predilection to suffer from the illusion that accuracy is more important than the ability to sell it. As we learned from lesson two, those individuals who are comfortable moving between myriad groups, rise to leadership in the proto-society of the playground, sometimes even in spite of themselves. How many elections have we seen at all levels of government that the person who was clearly the most intelligent and most qualified was handily defeated. In a democracy the only entity that knows what's best for society is society itself. While the intellectual elite will certainly support the intellectual candidate by and large, even a few of them will be courted and succumb to the wiles of the cool kid. Meanwhile everybody else (who is the majority remember elite means minority) will overwhelming support the popular kid that they can relate to. This is actually okay, this is actually how it ought to work. They only way for us to know where society is to look directly at it's reflection as becomes clear in the mirror of elections. The higher the voter turnout the clearer the picture and the aggregate is the truth, doesn't mean we have to like what we see, but like looking at ourselves in the mirror as individuals the honest assessment is how we should make policy.
With the caveat that even with the likely record voter turnout of the 2008 election cycle, we are woefully short of the 100% voter turnout that would tell us the truth. Further for every percentage point short of 100 we know the exact percentage by which our view of society is distorted. (i.e 80% turnout = 20% perversion of the view of society). With that said, it is very consistent that 5th graders would be so unified in opposition to the electoral college. Aside from the fact that the electoral college does not solve the problem it is intended to address, the undue influence of large states on national politics, it is also a distortion of the picture of society. The most recent example of course is that of 2000 when the popular vote gave us a (49% distorted) vision of a center left society but we ended up with a right oriented administration. How can we be surprised that the public policy of the past seven years has failed. Not only has history proven those policies invalid, electoral history (2000 popular vote, the consistent march to the left in local and state elections and of course the 2006 midterm election) has proven the center right philosophy unpopular. Barack Obama is going to win this election not because he's smarter than John McCain (I think that he is), but because he is the standard bearer of the center left political philosophy that is currently popular in this country. Obama maybe the darling of the "geeks" and "nerds" but he is also a cool kid.
It will be interesting to see if the liberal base who was staunchly supportive of eliminating the electoral college after the 2000 election will be continue to be committed to this position once they regain the reigns of government, or will the unfortunate truth that power corrupts be proven true once again. Barack Obama will win the popular vote, and likely a decisive electoral college victory. That does not change the fundamental flaws of the electoral college that it exacerbates the undue influence of population centers rather than diminish it, while distorting, sometimes beyond recognition the reflection of society that elections provide, the only guide by which good leaders can know where we are where we need to go.
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