Dispatch: The Last

The election is over, and in this last dispatch I am pleased to report that the results did not embarrass me. Though the final official numbers are not yet in, my preferred candidate, Barack Obama, won reelection—much to my relief. Also, much to my relief, my forecasts reasonably accurately guessed the margin of victory: 50.4% for Obama; 48.1% for Romney. I overestimated Obama’s take of the popular vote by 1%, but otherwise, my short-, mid-, and long-term expectations about the unfolding of events were pretty completely fulfilled. My fundamental take on the logical drive of the election and the relevance of its rhetoric (that is to say, largely irrelevant) strikes me in retrospect as accurate and confirmed. Not bad for someone who consciously avoided paying too much attention.

At the same time, even as I rose from my seat after tapping out these rather hard-headed accounts, I felt, felt doubt and fear and anger. Which reminded me, reminds me, that human beings are first and foremost emotional creatures. We are emotional creatures capable of rationality, but we are emotional creatures first and foremost. And emotion, prompting it, playing it, and profiting from it, is what media is all about. However much reason, however much rational discourse, critical, thoughtful, and analytical, finds its way into the media—and there is plenty of it en masse—it is almost completely swamped by the emotion, the ceaseless playing on and for. Going into Tuesday night, I was genuinely worried for my preferred candidate and my country. Perhaps retaining one’s balance, even sanity, requires paying attention, but not too much.

Dobranoc, Dr. hab. Banaś