Therein lies my critique of Tess’s column. The hypocrisy ascribed to my statements (that I would wait in line for Chipotle but not for voting) is no doubt deduced from my bombastic tone and loudly contentious attitude. I apologize to Tess for my lack of manners during the event she accurately recollects. I constantly have to remind myself that speaking loudly against the grain is neither endearing nor persuasive. However, I must defend resistance (c.f. Brian Dorne’s Oct. 3 column, “The conscious non-vote,” for a related view on this).
Though Tess rightly opposes the thoughtless non-participation I promoted during Chipotle Day, she erects a straw man argument by reducing my dissent to apathy. Therefore I must put forth an altered argument, espousing meaningful resistance rather than the indolent rebellion.

To begin with, the substance of my polemic is against the electoral system, not against the premise of voting. I am vigorously opposed to the appropriation of my vote to legitimize the election of a candidate who I will most assuredly not support. Thanks to the Electoral College’s methodology, in virtually every state one candidate walks away with each voter’s voice. This gives the victor a greater share of legitimacy (the more people who vote, the more significant is the majority of the population who voted for him). Simply put, that someone whose platform I abhor may receive even the paltry authentication of my vote is appalling. This leads me to the general conclusion that our “bipartisan” government receives undue legitimacy from inherently uncritical electoral participation.

That being said, I must agree with Tess that “political issues are not abstract—they get at you on a personal level, they affect almost every arena of your life.” However, I realize that legitimizing the system is not always the answer. Voting is not the “little taste of all those American rights and freedoms” that she’s “heard so much about,” especially if the choice is coercive, a constructed selection of one of two supposedly different candidates (c.f. Randy Brachman’s ironic Oct. 1 column, “How the cookie crumbles”). The false dialectic we are presented with operates on the supposition that by all voting in a two-party system, we can somehow promote a synthesis (read: bipartisanism) between the two poles. Our democratic process ostensibly seeks to attain a compromise that moves us toward an approach to government that is simultaneously progressive and traditionally sound. Our system tells us that we can reach a conclusion that rises above the destructive tension between Democrats and Republicans.

Yet, as Theodor Adorno states so succinctly, “Freedom of choice means the freedom to choose your ideology.” The problem lies in the fact that our system demands
unquestioning obeisance to the tenets of American dreams and ideals: The only difference between the parties is the path taken to this mutually stated utopia. This is why we cannot productively move our society beyond pure ideology and promote realistic approaches to governance, and why the bipartisan “dialectic” is detrimental to democracy. It is impossible for dynamic tension to exist in a unipolar political system.

My indignation is real and my refusal to participate is conscientiously justified. How can we so emphatically demand participation in a system that excludes minor party candidates and marginal voices? How can we blithely invest our voices in support of a system that heaped vituperation on Ralph Nader for Al Gore’s loss in 2000? Why is anyone who does not want to vote characterized as a lazy and unproductive iconoclast? Finally, why is it anathema to express discontent with the coercive, false choice that we are given?

I defend the “exuberance” with which Tess describes my defiance. I am hopeful when I violate the norms of the electoral process. By emphatically rejecting the false dilemma set forth by our bipartisan political system, I subscribe to a means of political progress through effective negation, even if it remains a subjective endeavor.

I will cast my vote, or refuse to participate, depending on where my issues lie and not where ideological pressure attempts to pigeonhole me.

Well, physically I’m working on burning off several pastry pounds, my hair is an inch or two longer (minus the section I accidentally set on fire), and I bought a new shirt. Nationally I now know to sometimes lie and say I’m Canadian. And financially things are much the same (except for the fact that I now have no money). Not exactly shocking changes.

After the experience of living and studying abroad, the manual urges me to reexamine every aspect of both my person and my personality. I don’t really have a problem with that. Actually, I was thinking about these things all along. And what surprised me in the process was actually the lack of change I witnessed in myself. Or I suppose, the lack of radical change.

I was expecting something big to happen to me while abroad. I was expecting be shaken up and reassembled. What I got was, well, not nearly enough fodder for an early memoir. My semester abroad wasn’t some kind of disjointed, isolated event—it was more like a continuation of the steady upheaval and unrelenting change that I’ve experienced each year here at Wash. U. (but in Auckland, the upheaval came with accents!). I went to the other side of the world, and guess what? I couldn’t escape growing up.

The manual exhorts me to “develop realistic expectations.” It says I should “read and reflect on the myths [I] might subconsciously believe.” Such as, “everything will be the same as it was when I left.” Or, “I can pick up friendships where I left off.” Or, “people will be interested in hearing about my exciting experiences in New Zealand” (no, I wasn’t planning on telling you all about them).

Okay, I get why they’re warning about these things, but with a healthy nod to my still-expanding social savvy, I’d like to think I learned these lessons a while ago. Heck, it doesn’t take study abroad to change my friendships—that happens just after coming back from summer break. I mean, everything is always changing whether or not you’re climbing glaciers in some foreign country somewhere. If I’ve learned one lesson in college, it’s that one. None of this holds still. I’ve been away for a while, and, yes, things are different. Most of my friends are 21, and I’m not. The construction is finished on campus and the South 40 is a giant hole. I’m a senior, and I should have plans. Like it or not, I guess that’s life.

As transformative as traveling can be and as jarring as the return might seem, I guess I’m still waiting for the shock to hit me. Honestly, my return to Wash. U. has felt pretty natural. Sure, the cheese and crackers they sell in Whispers have vastly improved, and I can go sit on a giant beanbag in the DUC whenever I want. But beyond that my disorientation has felt more like mild confusion (and that’s more of an overall state of being).

The little book warns me to be wary of the myths betraying my subconscious, but maybe “reverse culture shock” is the myth. Or maybe life is just plain shocking, and we’re just not used to be shocked in such new and shocking ways. How about that, eh? So far, though, I am not in need of recovery, readjustment, or some radical reassessment (at least not any more than I was before study abroad.) My reentry manual cautions me: be skeptical of the myth that, “I will not experience any reverse culture shock.” Well here’s another myth: that manuals ever help you figure anything out.