postmodernist election

by Ray Tue May 21, 2002 09:17

All weekend we've had analysts saying 'the people clearly want X', or 'there were mixed messages about Y'. Its ridiculous.
This was an election, not a referendum. People didn't vote for one thing or another. They voted for hundreds of different (often contradictory) reasons, in 40 different constituencies, for hundreds of different candidates. Trying to pull one or two agreed messages out of those votes is just stupid.

by Andrew Tue May 21, 2002 10:09

The Irish Independent published a poll last Thursday which showed that only 21% of people thought politicians would fulfill promises when elected.

by postmodernist Wed May 22, 2002 19:47

Yes Ray poses a reasonably pertainant point the election threw up a multiplicity of issues, (perhaps not hundreds though) In keeping with this the electorate choose many independents and some small parties to the left of the labour party. It will also be far from easy for media or self appointed left pundits to accurately discern trends from these mixed messsages, certainly none that will rhyme or even fit simplistic slogans. This of course fits well with a postmodernist perspective which rejects western rationalist solutions, however it requires a bit more intellectual effort than blindly relying on one theory/party/ etc to provide all the answers.

by Ray Thu May 23, 2002 09:12

There is no cohesive 'electorate', there are just hundreds of thousands of electors. It isn't the case of 'the electorate' sending out a mixed message, its a case of hundreds of thousands of people sending out individual messages, in response to the multiplicity of candidates and issues (and at a local level there are hundreds of issues).
The only certainty is that about 40% of people didn't bother voting at all.

by postmodern Fri May 24, 2002 21:07

Actually I was talking about mixed messages (plural)
It would make life more challenging if your thesis is true: "its a case of hundreds of thousands of people sending out individual messages" It also poses the following questions are these hundreds of thousands making their own ideologies or are they saying to hell with all the political theories currently out there. It is one certainty (not the only one) that about 40% of the electorate did not vote, this is an international trend it seems, and is hardly that suprising given the virtually identical economic policies of certainly the main political parties.