Here is the political compass for the class. We talk about two kinds of costs that are incurred in political choices: transaction costs and political exclusion costs. Transactions costs stem from the time and effort involved in gaining enough information to make a choice; exclusion costs occur when our preferences are not represented in the political choice (we didn't vote or we lost). If you are this different (all students at the same liberal arts college, roughly the same age with many of the same experiences), imagine where random individuals from throughout the population would fall. So how does a society make political decisions in such an environment?
Based on the chart we created, and where the candidates stand on the chart, it seems very hard to choose someone to vote for. As a college that is similar, it seems that our votes could be very mixed and not decide on a clear winner. This is a small indication of possibly why we will be a swing state for this coming election. To make the election work, we can not be part of the exclusion cost and not vote as that does not solve anything. It is very hard to figure out how our community here at the college will decide as it seems it will be a toss up, but other individuals who are opposite of us have both candidates in their zones will also have trouble seeing how both are right next to each other. It may come down to certain issues and the importance of them to citizens to decide this years presidency.
ReplyDeleteIf everyone acts in their own self interest with a vote, then the majority opinion should prevail and society will move in that direction. Just as our free market works as people act in their own self interest, so too should the political landscape. Unfortunately in this country, only around half the voting age population votes in major election years, and even less in non-major years. Just as our economic models break down if too few firms or consumers are involved, so to does our political system. The act of voting then, tends to be more important than what side you are voting for. I personally do not fault others for voting opposite my own, so long as they vote and are an active participant in democracy.
ReplyDeleteWhile graphing our political positions on the compass, I actually thought the outcomes were more concise than I would of expected. The results seemed adequate for a representation of students at K, in my opinion. I expect the rest of the voting population to be all over the compass based on their personal beliefs and experiences. Since our society does call for leadership and leadership by democracy, the only way to make equally representative decisions is to vote. Since there are cost that come with voting it is in the hand of media to make a transaction costs as little as possible without creating a bias—
ReplyDeletea very hard task for many popular media outlets today. Hopefully with a lowered transactional cost people will be more willing to vote and thus diminish the exclusion cost that comes with choosing not to vote. In our society, the only way I can see the population’s political stance equally represents is for everyone to vote.
I agree with Bianca, I was expecting the results to be more scattered and not so concise, but as you said, we are all the same age, with similar experiences. This makes it really hard to decide between only 2 candidates so I don't really have a stance of where Michigan would lie in the swing vote. I think it could go either way. I also hope that exclusion cost will decrease because it is really important for everyone to vote. I just finished my SIP, so this might not make any sense :/
ReplyDeleteI was not particularly surprised by the range of political views expressed on our class's political compass; I actually expected there to be some significant outliers, but there really weren't any. Though dismayed, I was not surprised to see what I have been feeling for a few years now, i.e. that our political views were not represented in the candidates that could actually win. Even the Socialist and Green party candidates are more conservative and authoritarian than our class average. Because of this mismatch, our political views have been removed from the current political forum, and our beliefs stand virtually no chance of being codified in this election. As a result, I am torn as a voter between voting for Obama because his platform is slightly less disagreeable to me than those of Romney, or to show my disaffection by voting for a third party.
ReplyDeleteI was also not surprised that there were so many similar political views and as Bianca said, this could be a good representation of K as a whole. I was surprised by the political views of the candidates and their ideas. I do think that if everyone really knew how each of the candidates thought and their plans, no one would know who to vote for. This was definitely a good test to take as a class.
ReplyDeleteI was most surprised by the positions of President Obama and Mitt Romney on this chart. After graphing our own positions, I was shocked to see how closely they were in measure. It might as well have been one large dot in all seriousness. I think this fact reflects how increasingly polarized our political system has become these last four years. In an election where voting really count, no candidate wants to take a serious stance on an issue, when this would stands to alienate a large group of oppository voters.
ReplyDeleteI read in a recent report that viewership of CNN has been dropping substantially in the past few years. The network that touts itself as straight-forward, unbiased reporting has been losing numbers to the likes of networks like "Fox" and "MSNBC". The more opinionated, and convicted programming has been scooping up viewers left and right from "CNN". I think this increasingly political polarization is reflected in the positions of our two candidates for president.