I don’t watch much sports on TV. For some reason, I like the Canadian Football League, where Canadians cities compete to see which of them has the best Americans. And I like curling, a favorite pastime of many Canadians. I can sometimes follow the strategy of the curling masters, who are looking six or more rocks ahead.
I might watch two NHL hockey games a year. In 2004, I watched the first playoff game of the Calgary Flames. For some strange reason, I arranged my life to watch the rest of the playoff run. The Flames went all the way, losing the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals.
After the loss, I started questioning my commitment to watching this playoff series. Yes, the Calgary Flames were geographically the closest NHL team for me. But watching TV hockey was just not my thing. I told my puzzlement to a friend of mine, who had a B.Sc. in biology.
“It’s the endorphins,” he said. He went on to explain that when we emotionally attach ourselves to a sports team, we internally manufacture chemicals in our bodies to magnify that emotion.
So when the Calgary Flames scored a goal, I was elated. That was good, right?
When the other team scored a goal, I was dejected. This dejection then moved me into a state of withdrawal, which had my body craving the endorphins even more. I was watching the game to get my high for the next goal of the Calgary Flames.
It seems strange that if I was on a street corner selling a white powder that gives people pleasure when they ingest it and causes withdrawal anxiety when they can’t have it, I would probably be in a prison somewhere. Yet professional sports is selling its own version of mood-altering drugs to us.
So what does this anecdote have to do with politics?
I’ll just remind people that I spent six years in a Canadian political party. I experienced about eight elections: some internal party elections, some general elections.
My first election was an internal party election for its leadership. I was new and did not have a strong preference for any of the aspiring candidates. So I volunteered to be an election worker. I got a vest that said “security” and a walkie-talkie. My manager told me to go here and there, keeping crowds managed as the emotion of the election floor evolved and changed.
Yes, there was a lot of emotion at that event. I saw long Congo lines of supporters of the rival candidates trying to upstage each other, waving signs and shouting slogans. From my visual observations and the chatter on my walkie-talkie, someone from each of the rival camps was managing their crowd. The party made a very emotional decision that day. What Congo lines had to do with highway traffic safety or prison reforms kind of escaped me.
I had one more internal election where I was a neutral worker. Again I saw the outcome manipulated by emotion. And there was some minor skullduggery.
But the rest of my elections had me emotionally attached to a particular candidate. After spending hours and days working on an election campaign, sometimes we won. We were elated. We got a big hit of endorphins. It was fun. The winner and I were on a first-name basis. Personally knowing celebrities is its own kind of drug.
And sometimes we lost: we didn’t get the drugs we so much craved. Like Calgary Flames fans in 2004, we election workers were looking for that high in our next political activity. Unlike professional sports, that high requires more wait time in politics. Yet, we waited.
There is a lot of truth to the term “political junkie.”
I got to know one vibrant political junkie. She had a talent for organizing small campaign teams for internal elections, someone behind the scenes. She was a force to be reckoned with at that level. Aspiring politicians wanted her on their side. She could start someone’s political career. The trouble is that this lady had memberships to several political parties. She would parley her talents to someone she liked and wanted her services. I don’t think she was ever paid or took advantage of political favors; she just liked the excitement of politics — and bossing eager campaign workers around.
Politics and professional sports are very emotional. Both induce internal, pleasurable chemistry when our team wins. Political junkies like their endorphin-induced high just like hockey fans.
And Now for the TDG
Will the TDG give some of us the same high as western democracy?
To answer this question, I will take you to the nature of the TDG elections.
The base electoral unit of the TDG will be a neighborhood of about 200 people. Neighbors will vote for one of their own neighbors to represent the neighborhood. Neighbors will be trained to define “good character” and “capacity for governance” for themselves, and then cast their vote to the neighbor that best fits their definition.
So here we have neighbors thinking about “good character” and “capacity for governance” weeks and months before the annual election. They will know some of their neighbors; they will be thinking of those neighbors who deserve their vote.
There are no campaign signs, noisy supporters with slogans, or Congo lines to prove which candidates have that good character and capacity for governance. Neighbors will know how to cast a wise vote without these traditional campaign tools.
Let’s assume there is neighborhood called “Holich.” Two neighbors seem to be community leaders: Fred and Sharon. It is expected one of them will be elected. Most votes go to these two. The final count is Fred 57 and Sharon 41; three other neighbors got a handful of votes. Fred has the responsibility to represent Holich for the next year. There probably was not much drama in this election. Very few endorphins were generated to make people feel good about themselves.
Fred will attend district meetings with other neighborhood representatives. In these meetings, the neighborhood representatives will be learning about each other. In six months, they will vote to send one of them to be the district representative. Again, good character and capacity for governance are the criteria to cast a wise vote. Again, very little drama is generated for this contest. Few endorphins are produced.
“Well, that’s not very exciting!” many of you will be saying.
That is exactly the point. The TDG is looking for wise votes, not votes based on endorphins. TDG elections will be quite low key. And that’s progress!
Published on Medium 2023
Politics is Mostly a Spectator Sport
