”
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.
”
~ Elie Wiesel
Sometimes after I read an assertion in one context, it rolls
around in the back of my mind for a while before popping up
unexpectedly to apply in a completely different context.
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”
~ Elie Wiesel
Sometimes after I read an assertion in one context, it rolls around in the back of my mind for a while before popping up unexpectedly to apply in a completely different context.
I contemplated Weisel’s quote off and on for weeks after reading it in an advice column. Hate, like love, takes a lot of energy. You spend time thinking about the object of your loathing or affection. With hate, you might fantasize about painful or embarrassing circumstances befalling the person, and perhaps you even work – through gossip or worse – to encourage those painful or embarrassing circumstances to occur.
It seems to me that the opposite of love must require no effort, no emotion, no energy. Hate doesn’t qualify. Apathy does.
Indifference takes nothing from you. If you don’t care about a person, you don’t expend any energy – positive or negative – on that person’s behalf. You don’t waste any time or brain cells thinking about the object of your apathy. The person to whom you are indifferent ranks below such mundane activities as buying toilet paper, removing ear wax or recycling junk mail.
It finally occurred to me that Weisel’s quote explains why low voter turnout concerns me: Apathy is the opposite of patriotism.
“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”
~ John Quincy Adams
I don’t want to hear that tired, lame excuse from nonvoters that “it’s just one vote, it doesn’t count.” It does. The more votes that are cast, the more accountable elected officials must be to the people they represent. The fewer people who care about what they do, the easier it is for elected officials to act in their own best interests instead of citizens’ best interests. Want to know why we have pork, excessive lobbyist and corporate influence, bloated bureaucracies and inept government? I trace it all to voter apathy.
Even if your party or candidate doesn’t win, never wins, the fact that citizens are engaged in the democratic process makes a difference. The more citizens who are involved, the bigger that difference is.
I don’t care how many American flags you fly, if you know all the words to “The Star Spangled Banner,” or if you never miss a chance to recite the pledge of allegiance, it’s meaningless if you don’t vote.
Registering to vote is easy. To qualify, you must be a United States citizen who will be at least 18 years old by election day, not in prison or on parole for a felony, not declared mentally incompetent by court action, and registered at least 15 days before the election. Registration forms are available online at www.sccvote.org or at public libraries and Department of Motor Vehicle, city, county and post offices.
You don’t even have to find time to go to the polls on election day. You can register to be a permanent absentee voter, meaning you can complete and mail your ballot anytime before an election. I’ll tolerate no more of those pathetic “I can’t get away from work to make it to the polls” excuses now that we have permanent absentee balloting.
“Voting is a right best exercised by people who have taken time to learn about the issues.”
~ Tony Snow
Like anything else, voting can be done well or it can be done badly. Choosing candidates because of their party affiliation or name recognition are ignorant ways to vote. Voting for or against an issue because of who supports or opposes it instead of understanding the pros and cons is an ignorant way to vote.
Studying candidates’ positions on a range of issues and weighing the merits and drawbacks of tax and bond measures and initiative proposals is the intelligent way to vote.
If you can’t be bothered to vote, the only conclusion I can reach is that you’re unpatriotic and apathetic. How can you prefer a brand of toilet paper and express that opinion with your money but can’t prefer a candidate and refuse to express an opinion by marking a ballot? Don’t point to government’s faults as the cause of your apathy. Apathy is the cause of government’s faults.
An election is fast approaching. Nonvoters, change your unpatriotic ways in three steps: Register by May 16. Study the candidates and issues. Vote by June 6.
“The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference and undernourishment.”
~ Robert M. Hutchins
