Vote with your feet

[imomus]

There's a general election in Britain tomorrow. Am I voting in it? No. I don't even know what my electoral status is, and I don't really care. I haven't voted in a national election in Britain since... 1992? To be honest, I'm much more preoccupied with European issues than British ones these days. It's a matter of some importance to me, for instance, that France ratifies the European constitution with a Yes vote in the May 29th referendum. Whatever the accuracy of the comparison, Chirac is speaking a language that resonates with me emotionally when he calls the European constitution "the daughter of the 1789 revolution". I'm on tenterhooks about Turkey's accession to the EU, but I'm not holding my breath about Britain's adoption of the Euro. The Euro is great, but whether Britain is in or out of it matters very little.



I feel like a European and I feel like a Scot, but I don't really feel "British" any more. That national unit no longer computes for me. Call me "urbriotic": I feel a sense of place, and a sense of pride, in cities rather than nations. For the moment, Ich bin ein Berliner! Taking the train from Paris to Berlin this week I was once again struck by how a short train trip can change things more radically than any politician. The contrast couldn't be greater: Paris is beautiful, defined, dense, passionate, sexy, classical, stressful, volatile, Berlin is unfinished, amorphous, empty, relaxed, subcultural, calm, solid, stolid, serious. No politician would dare to suggest he could turn a Paris into a Berlin. Such things are beyond the power of mere humans, but any human can exchange Paris for Berlin or Berlin for Paris just by getting on a train. Trains, ships and planes, it seems, are more effective agents of political change than politicians.

Rather than voting at the ballot box, I've voted with my feet. Rather than militating for change in Britain, I've preferred to live elsewhere, to find ways of being which appeal to me more than the British way of being. It was selfish of me, I know. Life is too short, you see. Rather than beat my head against a brick wall, I've simply walked out the door. But I think I'm alienated from domestic politics for another reason: it "says nothing to me about my life". It seems unreal. Domestic politics is all about numbers. It's managerial. How much do we put into the tax rebate, how do we finance the health service and the transport system? Naturally these things have to be decided, and of course the answers will impact on the lives of the people who live in the country deciding them. But numbers seem incidental. They whirr away in the background, just like they do on my computer. Normally I don't notice them, even as I surf along, turning them into letters, or sounds, or pictures. Enormous anomalies in the numbers Gordon Brown juggles daily would make very little difference to my life, as long as the basic systems kept working.

It's the transnational issues, issues like global warming, which do matter to me, and will affect me wherever I live. But in domestic elections these issues are unfortunately downplayed, and all parties tend to say the same thing about them. They're so huge they seem best dealt with at European level anyway. And it may well be that we're seeing the last days of national-scale politics. Britain will eventually either integrate with the EU or integrate (in the unholy alliance I've called "Angrael") with the US, and only then will it be able to do something effective about an issue as big as climate change. (And obviously, you know, I hope Britain aligns fully with the EU on this issue, because the US is doing nothing about climate change.)



What really matters to me above all is not numbers, and not text, but texture: what I summed up in yesterday's interview with Marxy as "a way of being". Small incremental changes in national fortune or national policy really don't seem to matter much beside the way of being you experience when you arrive in a new land, a new city, a new culture. It's way of being which is crucial, and I believe that when you find a way of being you can live with, and you can love, everything else starts to flow in the right direction. Even when things go wrong, they go wrong in the right way. Even if people are poor and unemployed, if they have the right way of being it'll be fine. And of course the corollary is true too: if the way of being that prevails in a place is wrong, it won't matter how prosperous, peaceful or proud those people are, they'll just be richly, peacefully and proudly wrong.

I'm afraid I now feel that when I visit Britain. Whether rich or poor, successful or failing, Britain seems just wrong to me. It espouses values I don't espouse. Whatever history it might celebrate is wrong: I can never forgive it for failing to have an eighteenth century bourgeois revolution like the French one, or for failing to have a constitution, or failing to become a republic. Britain is just horribly wrong in so many ways that choosing a red, yellow or blue way of being wrong is pointless. Britain, as far as I'm concerned, is wrong in its attitude to the intellect, to sex, to art, to class, to the body, to the relationship between money and quality of life, to the relationship between work and play, to the relationship between itself and the US, or the relationship between peace and war, or between British people and foreigners, or between sunny days and cloudy days, or... well, I could go on and on, or alternatively I could just go, which is what I ended up doing.

Are any of the major political parties looking at Britain's essential wrongheadedness? What are they proposing to do about it? The answer is that if you really believed Britain was essentially wrong in its way of being, you wouldn't go into politics. You'd go into France, or Germany, or Japan, or India, or Tibet, or somewhere you felt things were less wrong. I mean, really, why be a satirist when you could be a satyr? Why be miserable when you could be happy? Why vote when you can walk? And why take the perspective that it's politicians who define a place, when it's so clearly ordinary people and their ways of being?

Comments

[no1herene-more.livejournal.com]

you use your blog to have your say politically, why not use the vote you were given.

it wasn't long ago that blacks and women were allowed the privelidge of voting. but if the majorities stop voting, that vote might not be there for them next election.. is it a privelidge, or a right? Doesn't matter, it *can* be taken away from you.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think two things have formed the attitude you're hearing here:

1. From the age of 19 to the age of 37 I lived under the most dismal series of "enemy governments" in the UK, Conservative governments. Of course I was going to try to see hope elsewhere than in party politics.

2. Throughout my life it's become easier and easier to travel, to relocate, to pick and choose your culture and your "way of being". To become a "mobile dissident".

So put those two factors together...

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Had I the resources, my partner and I would prefer to live in Europe in a hot second. Paris or Berlin or Florence or even London are far more aligned with my interests and tastes and political beliefs than the US is. We tried to emigrate to the EU in 2002 and were beaten back by bureaucracy, money and language barriers. Europe doesn't want me. France most certainly did not, not with 18% unemployment and my sketchy French. Great for being a tourist, no chance of a job. And no job, no work visa, no work visa, no staying past six months.

Consider yourself extremely lucky that your EU passport allows you to vote with your feet, legally. Thanks to those politicians, you get the phenomenal gift of access to casual, continental emigration among the rich pool of European culture as opposed to desperate, underground, illegal immigration, which is what those Moroccans cleaning hotel rooms get. And since I didn't have half a million dollars in the bank or a European parent or grandparent, or the desperation required to attempt illegal immigration, the EU is essentially closed to me.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

You're right, and I do appreciate how lucky I am. It's only been this way since 1993, when national borders came down and Europeans could move between countries as easily as Americans can between states. I moved to Paris almost immediately, in 1994.

[jermynsavile.livejournal.com]

I shall vote tomorrow, despite sharing 90% of your list of 'wrongs'. Changing the national psyche isn't, unfortunately, on the agenda.

You use the word 'managerial' - I think the word goes further than describing necessary decisions about taxation, funding etc. Britain is now a country that espouses corporate values throughout: we parrot management speaqk throughout all levels of government, we restructure/rightsize annually in the public and private sectors alike and worship short-termism to an extent that long-term planning has all but disappeared.

I think that it is symbolically important that we no longer have an 'Industrial Correspondent' on BBC rolling news broadcasts but do have half-hourly shares reports.

[kattullus.livejournal.com]

As a Scot, do you ever consider yourself a colonial?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think all Scots are vaguely or sharply aware of our ignominious capitulation to the English (through the neat little trick of putting James VI on the English throne). So, yes. Actually, one of Tony Blair's best acts was to give Scotland a parliament... which then proceeded to protect Scotland from his more conservative policies!

[sarmoung.livejournal.com]

There's astonishingly little to choose from in this election and the mood amongst many of my friends is one of resignation. The meh generation perhaps. I could follow Eno's suggestion and vote Liberal Democrat. This makes some sense given their record on the Iraq war, asylum and so forth. But even they are shying away from discussion of the European constitution and greater integration, which I favour. It was interesting to see Charles Kennedy reciprocating (http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/0,12102,1459509,00.html) by stating that Station to Station would be the one record that he'd grab in an emergency, but holding Heroes in the photo.

[klasensjo.livejournal.com]

I took some test and ended up Lib Dem, by big margin. Now, when I see this picture, I think, rather naively: "Yes, he's one of us". I felt the same way when I saw the haircut of Mr. Junichiro Koizumi the first time.

[jermynsavile.livejournal.com]

Don't know how much you've been following the campaign but, thinking about it all further, if there were two key themes throughout then they were Iraq and race (the issue of foreigness and whether Britain is being 'swamped'). The Iraq question is moot as the two main parties both agree on the outcome but just quibble about the process used to get there.

Race however has been on the agenda for a long time. You say, rightly 'No politician would dare to suggest he could turn a Paris into a Berlin'. But that is exactly what Britons seem to fear, that 'foreigners' have a mind to somehow steal Britishness. While racism exists everywhere this paranoia seems particularly strong in Britain (England especially). Am I wrong? If not, then any ideas why this is?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I was listening to a conversation at the airport as we queued for a Ryanair flight. An Australian was befriending an elderly British couple. The way he did this was to assume they were right wing and to make some political observations that would allow him to bond with them, so he went for the jugular, raising two issues calculated to appeal: how Britain is better off outside the Euro mechanism, and how the Edgware Road is "like Calcutta these days". And it worked. He got the friendly response from the elderly couple, although I almost turned round and kicked him.

The irony is that I really think that three or four decades ago British people would not have rushed to make political small talk with strangers. They'd be like my father, and do backwards summersaults to avoid discussing contentious political issues, especially with strangers.

For heaven's sake see sense

[(Anonymous)]

These views are so out-of-date I was waiting for a joke about British Rail. Or the food being bad, and the charts being full of Roger Whittaker. You seem to ignore all problems in any country where you fancy the women and most of this blog illuminates how you deal with authority more than Britain today. The majority of British people happily and thankfully ignore its 'attitudes' (which are the most diverse in Europe) as permission-seeking is not so important to them. How can you forget how Britain embraces the misfit while, at the same time, can rid the world of true bastards? What other country left their former colonies when their time was up, and still as friends! Shit-obsessed, Germany stamps out misfits making 'street art' in squats while Britain gave us Bowie. The flavour and consistency you admire in France or Japan is another twist to their mind-withering insularity. I suspect you'll return to sanity once you have children.

Re: For heaven's sake see sense

[(Anonymous)]

Nice to see Robert Kilroy-Silk making an appearance.

This anonymity seems to be catching.

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

Isn't the European constitution a step on the road to destroying the all the little national peculiarities that you like so much in today's Europe?

Do you think that a constituation designed not for the protection of the people, but for the benefit of big business, is a good thing? Do you look forward to the mass privatisations that will be enforced by law?

The EU is not liberal, but Libertarian. They're trying to build a militarised, imperial bloc, based on orthodox monetarism and devout profiteering. And when we criticise it we're written off as xenophobes. I love Europe, which is why I'm against the constitution. You can't have internationalism without nations.

[(Anonymous)]

Whether you like it, you're British, and I don't think anyone reading this blog could think you were anything else. You don't come across as American, Contintental, Japanese or anything but a very British sort of dandy. You're always going on about how impossible it is to be outside society, but in a way isn't that exactly the subtext of this blog entry? You're British, you don't like Britain, so you leave. But that doesn't mean you can really join any other society. You can't really become Japanese or German. You can just be residents in their country. I'm certainly not saying people shouldn't go and live in foreign countries, because I think everyone should for at least a year or two. But there's undeniably something culturally isolationist about it.

H.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think a big influence on me has been Larry Durrell, strangely enough. When I was 9 and living in Greece, I read Gerald Durrell's books about animals, and "met" Larry as a secondary character, this British bohemian living in Corfu because London was "people going round in circles, sneezing on each other". Much later, in Avignon in the 80s, I met the real Larry Durrell, an old man walking down the street with a shopping bag. He came for a pastis with my mother and me. My mother presented me as an aspiring writer, which was embarrassing. Larry talked about how he was being offered a medal of some sort by the French government, and how he was writing a book about Provence. I'd recently been reading his novel "Monsieur", so I talked with him a bit about that. Larry Durrell (or Paul Bowles) is exactly the kind of old man I aim to be one day, though of course I'll be a lot less eminent, unless I get cracking on my "Tokyo Trilogy" pretty soon.

[becki1111.livejournal.com]

What you say makes so much sense, and my husband and I have talked about moving to Canada or somewhere that isn't the US. Ultimately, we decided it is more vital to stay in the US and be a voice of resistance. But this involves more than simply voting. The idea that politics can be changed in one day of throwing your ballot in a box is ludicrous.

My question, and it is rhetorical, is where are all these dissatisfied voters in the years between elections? Are they writing to their governmental representatives, are they staging protests, are they fundraising for those candidates that could make a change. And why, is it our tendency to look at the top of the political pyramid for change? Why not organize and put greater emphasis on local political races, make change from the bottom up so that there is not only support if we would manage to get a decent person in a higher office. I firmly believe our duty goes well beyond voting if we want to see significant change. I've mentioned in a comment earlier that my husband is involved in politics. He has been a congressional campaign manager, a fundraiser, a political consultant. Now he is head of the local democratic chapter in our congressional district. He exemplifies the sort of ongoing action that is required for change to be made.

That being said, I have to own up to the fact that I do not have the same determination or sense of hope that he does. Your list of the wrongness of Britain could be inserted into my own mental checklist for the US (with a few alterations and additions of course). I admire my husband for his best efforts to keep the Bush administration in check, but I can't even manage to watch the news or most tv shows as they just reinforce the overall wrongness of American culture at present. Have you seen any of the "reality tv shows" that have taken over prime time tv? They are such digusting examples of human nature that they literally make me nauseous. And the list goes on...you become anti-social because you feel utterly alien to a culture and place that is supposed to be your home. You seek out the pockets of like-minded few, but those are diminishing as people as you put "vote with their feet".

I used to be a firm believer that it was not a place that allowed you to secure a reasonable sense of happiness or being, but over the past five years, I've become more and more convinced that, as you said, "...when you find a way of being you can live with, and you can love, everything else starts to flow in the right direction" may in fact be tied to place.

In the US I cannot find a way of being I can live with without wearing major blinders to what surrounds me. Others feel invigorated by their fury at the Bush administration, I find its effects near crippling.

Anyway, thanks for the post, it articulated a lot of the jumble of "should I stay or go" that's been leaving me in a muddle for quite a while. Now it is just figuring out the healthiest way to stay.

[rciaodree.livejournal.com]

I can understand much of what you say above, but I feel like you speak for a tiny, super-elite of the world with little or no need to put down roots anywhere. This elite class can flit from nation to nation, to find a lifestyle or texture that suits them, and not care a whit about boring details like welfare, state pensions, national health care, public education, etc. The policies of states do not matter to the elite -- as you say, "[e]normous anomalies in the numbers Gordon Brown juggles daily would make very little difference to my life, as long as the basic systems kept working."

Sadly, for the poor, young, disabled, sick, and elderly, all of these things matter very much. One point that you might consider: when one is tripping from nation to nation, not feeling any investment in any particular nation, it is hard to care enough or feel invested in any nation or place enough to want to contribute to the general welfare of that place. You may feel allegiances to cities -- and I understand that as a proud denizen of New York City -- but cities generally cannot provide health care and benefits (perhaps they should). When one feels connected and tied (in a good way) to a particular country, one is more willing to contribute to the general good of that country: viz., as an American, I would be entirely willing to pay higher U.S. taxes to provide greater welfare benefits to the poor, to fund universal health care, and to improve public education. I'm going to go out on a limb and hypothesize that those who spend brief periods in many places are not willing to make significant investments or monetary contributions to the governments of the places they temporarily inhabit. Perhaps this all comes down to saying that it is hard to get people to give up or sacrifice for the general good of a state if they don't feel connected to that state. Maybe it shouldn't be that way, and we should all feel like global citizens, and contribute to global taxation that would fund global welfare, health care and education programs. The U.N. has not reached that stage yet, though.

Perhaps the EU provides a way to gather funds for the state(s) through EU taxation -- I don't know the particulars.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks Octopus,
I've been meaning to post something like this for some time, and I grapple constantly
with the issue of the writer previous to you (reality-show nausea!). I have qualified to live in Canada, and am much more culturally comfortable there; however, I will always come back to the USA to vote, if only for the lesser of evils, because I do care about those less fortunate than myself.

[playnow.livejournal.com]

аффтор жжет

NO to the Constitution

[(Anonymous)]

Hiya, I'm french and will vote NO, a determined NO to the so called "free" market and a resounding NO to an ill written treaty that is certainly not a Constitution (read yours or ours if you wanna see what a constitution might look like) but is a tool which will be used to bring the people down (yay!), for instance this treaty limits the week's working time to, wait for it, 68 hours... bravo, we are at 35 now and I wish we all could be all across the geography
for instance, the defence of europe will be tied to, wait for it, NATO
for instance, the minister of foreign affairs of the EU will be, wait for it, Javier "let's bomb kosovo" Solana
for instance, the "constitution" can only be revised after asking the European Bank if it's ok with the mods
etc. etc.

no offence meant but Chirac (I saw him yesterday) lied all the way
I usually do not vote but this time I will, YES

Votre,
Guy. (http://homme-moderne.org/musique/carnet/)

Re: NO to the Constitution

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, perhaps Chirac isn't lying. Perhaps the constitution will be the "daughter of the 1789 revolution" because a lot of people will get killed... and then a Reign of Terror will begin.

[(Anonymous)]

being able to vote with your feet depends on where your feet first touched the ground, no?
you can come and go as you please, because of where you were born.
i'm sure a lot of people in the third world would LOVE to vote with their feet and come over here to JAPAN.
but japan doesn't want them, and it kicks them out of the country, in fact.
your way of being works for you.
but it is a poor excuse for a way of being for less privileged.

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

Is it because I'm a pirate? (http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/icst/icst-6/icst-6-full.html)

What a great link!

[thetemplekeeper.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that: it really made me think!

I wonder if another way of facilitating micropayments for artistic services might be just to offer a linux-based (so freely operated) on-line "shop" whereby, if one liked samples of a thing, one might subscribe each month to receive more of it. Each charge could be 50cents or something... Imagine if, for example, Momus sold MP3 versions of an album of demos or somesuch on-line for 50 cents. Bearing in mind there have been almost a million visitors to his website, he might become enormously rich and be able to (1) visit galleries to excess and (2) donate lots of non-exploitatively earned money to Chirac's "oui" campaign in the referendum! Hey, Momus: what do you think?!

I might try it on my own website when I've got a bit more to sell (for microcost, of course).

Voting IS important

[spoombung.livejournal.com]

Sorry, Nick, I think you're being incredibly silly and flippant.

Voting for labour the past two elections had REAL value for me and my family. Example : as a family, we're a couple of thousand pounds better off every year because of family tax credits.

You claim there are only managerial differences between the parties. I don't agree. Someone somewhere in the labour party decided it was important to support small and middle income families - and the main drive - the fuel for that decision was philosophical - not managerial. Would the Tories have initiated this? No.

Okay, voting is not important to you, you're traveling, you're ex-pat. I understand that. But I have to RELY on it to make a difference - I live here, I'm plugged into the system through the family - i have to listen and care about what the parties say about education and health. In a word, I'm more dependent on voting and politics than you. Of course, having a family is a matter of personal choice, but the fact remains that huge numbers of people make this choice - either that or they choose to stay in their country of origin. Politics deals with common denominators - you understand that - and you have also written, and rumbled about it in an egalitarian way in your other essays.

I know you didn't mean this essay as a blueprint for everybody to gallivant freely and gaily through the world like beautiful people they should be, but can you understand why your attitude has got on my nerves? It's the way you've pitched it and your use of contrast that erks - the lumpen, grey, nasty UK and the impotence of voting - and the bright, potent, international,culture -loving traveler.

I find it patronizing.

Re: Voting IS important

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Your points are well taken. I should perhaps have spelled out more clearly in the piece that I'm not saying there's a moral equivalence between all the parties. The Conservatives are repulsive, and although my politics align better with the Lib Dems, I do realistically think Labour should and will win tomorrow, despite being led by The Butcher of Baghdad.

info on berlin please

[(Anonymous)]

Momus,

I'm planning to stay in Berlin for a few months, avoiding the dreadful New York city summer. Do you know of a good online resource for housing/lifestyle info? How is the filmmaking scene there? Is it mostly installation/video based? Thought I'd throw that question out since you're plugged into the music/art scene.

And...what's the chance of finding a job, with an American passport?

thanks-
sam

Re: info on berlin please

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ha, you'll be here when I'm in the NY summer you're avoiding!

Ex-Berliner (http://www.exberliner.com/) is the English language Berlin mag for expats, and has a flat finding service.

Film-making I don't know so much about... Yes, there are lots of video installations oriented to the art world. I saw some great John Bock videos last week, quite longform, almost approaching what Matthew Barney's been doing, ie putting sculptural ideas into an absurdist longform narrative. Bock is one of Berlin's most interesting artists.

Americans I know here work as DJs, or do semi-unpaid art gallery work. The really hard-up make a little money handing out club flyers.

Grammar and Bakeries

[(Anonymous)]

Dear Mome,

You've repeated JFK's grammatical error. You should have said "Ich bin Berliner."

"Ich bin ein Berliner..." - I am a round jelly doughnut.

(BTW - In Frankfurt I've seen "Black & White" cookies, popular on at least the east coast of the US, on sale as "Amerikaners".)

Re: Grammar and Bakeries

[thetemplekeeper.livejournal.com]

You mean he didn't mean "I am a doughnut"? But I felt such a strong affinity...

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

Finding a way of being that you're happy with seems to me largely a matter of luck. Maybe that's because I have been unlucky. Maybe someone who has found that way of being will claim it is due to their personal efforts or to fate. But I certainly have made efforts, within my limited means. I have lived for considerable periods in three countries - Britain, Japan and Taiwan - and visited others. I have to say that I've NEVER been particularly impressed by ANYWHERE.

I'm not sure what the point of this (my) post is, really. Perhaps it's just that I don't particularly trust the idea of any country, or even city, possessing an answer to one's lifestyle problems. Humanity seems to be facing pretty similar problems all over the globe right now. Having said that, I am currently contemplating a move of country. It's the lies I can't stand.

For me the whole issue of lifestyle is very simple; I crave a sense of community. I have never found that. I suppose such a thing might be geographical, but experience leads me to believe that it's either non-existent, or that it depends upon the nervous system of the individual. In which case I'm doomed... perhaps.

[thetemplekeeper.livejournal.com]

Why don't you try Spain, or Siena? There are some great communities out there, although in my experience they tend to be smallish ones...

[(Anonymous)]

cage said something about the most effecttive form of protest being everyone getting together and NOT voting. then the government would be embarrassed out of existence.
of course, if only one person decided NOT to not vote, i suppose their ballot might change the world.
boots were make for walking.
votes were made for voting.
and when, nick, did anybody ever say you couldn't do BOTH?

"A newspaperman wrote asking me to send him my philosophy in a nutshell. Get out of whatever cage you happen to be in."(John Cage, M, Writings 1967 - 1972)

Priority Inversion

[darthkronos.livejournal.com]

I was like Freud through my college years and hearing your songs seem to reinforce these logical beliefs. However, some songs seem to hit on both sides and left questions unanswered. I mutated like CS Lewis from an atheist to a believer. I am not saying you are responsible for me becoming some kind of religious crazy. But, I began to believe and see how tyranny mostly starts with a power grab spawned from the naïve assumption that you are in control.

p.s. Did you see that GL was referring to your work in his recent Star Wars publicity interviews? Ever thought of collaborating on his next Koyaanisqatsi type project?

Abstraction is the best way to tackle divisive subjects it removes the clearly defined sides.

Re: Priority Inversion

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Can you be more specific about where George Lucas mentioned my work? To my shame I've never seen any of the Star Wars movies, but I'll try and watch them if he's really listening to my records!

[deedee77.livejournal.com]

Idiot.