Image Credit: CFJC Today

By James Peters

Two & Out

PETERS: This election campaign has not been a battle of good and evil

Oct 23, 2020 | 10:38 AM

AS WITH MOST ELECTION CAMPAIGNS, some have framed this one in B.C. as a battle of good versus evil.

It’s not a helpful characterization, even if partisans deem it a way to help them win.

Black-and-white, good-and-evil dualities are a way that humans often try to make sense of their worlds. It simplifies our understanding of people’s motivations, even though very few people — even politicians — can actually be characterized as villains.

Much more often, people enter politics with altruistic motives and either succeed or fail based on their level of competence and the competence of those around them.

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Some fall victim to bouts of selfishness and make mistakes in the name of ambition – but that’s a different animal than out-and-out villainy.

When looking at the people who have put their names forward to fly the Kamloops flag in the next legislature, there’s not one individual who would not make a good representative.

Partisans spend a lot of time and energy painting their opponents as evil, even if they might not use that word.

Sometimes those allegations have some weighty evidence behind them, but most of the time partisans are capitalizing on examples of human failings that we all exhibit from time to time.

So if it’s not as simple as the good choice and the evil choice, how do you place your vote tomorrow?

First, you determine whether your motivation for placing your vote is individual self-interest or the interest of the broader community.

Once you address your motivation, you can decide which candidate’s or party’s divergent visions match what you would wish for either yourself or the world around you.

Any voter who is honest with themselves should be able to say that the party who may be the biggest benefit to them personally may not be the best for the province. Or it may.

For example, investments to address homelessness will not have any direct impact on me — in fact, they will cost me money — but may be good for the community. And so that influences my voting intention.

There are a lot of factors to consider, so it’s unfortunate that political parties spend so much time running down their opponents as, essentially, evil, when they could be telling me why their candidates match my voting intentions.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.