Octave Mirbeau

One thing astonishes me, I would almost say stupefies me, namely, that in this scientific age, after so many daily scandals and revelations, there can still exist in our beloved France one voter, one single voter, that irrational, inorganic, dreadful animal who allows his life to be disturbed, all his dreams and pleasures to be interrupted, merely to vote for someone or something. 

When one reflects for a moment on the surprising phenomenon, does it not lead astray the most subtle philosophies, and even confound Reason itself? Where is a good writer capable to give us the physiology of the modern voter? Where a neurologist to explain the anatomy and mentality of this incurable lunatic? We await them. 

Oh, I understand that a swindler always finds buyers; that censorship finds it’s defenders, and musicals his fans. I understand that even daily papers that write rubbish find their subscribers, and the politicians find journalists that exalt their capabilities. I understand all that. But that a member of parliament, or a senator, or a president of the Republic, or any one of the strange jesters who seek elective office, whatever it may be, should find a voter, that is to say, the unimaginable being, the improbable martyr, who feeds you with his bread, clothes you with his wool, fattens you with his flesh, enrich you with his money, with the sole prospect of receiving, in return for such prodigious generosity a smack on the head, a kick in the ass, or maybe a shot in the chest, in truth, this exceeds the already rather pessimistic notions I had formed until now of human stupidity in general, and French stupidity in particular, our own dear and immortal stupidity.

I speak of course of the believing voter, the convinced voter, the theoretical voter who imagines, poor thing, that he is acting as a free citizen, exercising his sovereignty, expressing his opinions, imposing political programs and - admirable disconcerting lunacy - righting social wrongs. I’m not talking about the voter who “knows the tune,” who takes the Mickey out of everything, who sees in the results of his “political sovereignty” nothing but a conservative joke o a liberal nonsense. For him the electoral sovereignty of the individual consists in filling his pockets by way of this charade known as Universal Suffrage. He’s looking after himself and doesn't give a damn about anyone else. He knows what he’s doing. But the others?

Yes, the others ! The serious ones, the austere ones, the sovereign people, those who feel a great inebriation seizing them as they contemplate themselves in the mirror and say: “I am the voter! Nothing can be done without me! I am the foundation of modern society. By my will the President and the Congress make laws which bind over 36 million people, the richest and the poorest alike.”

How can it be that there are still people like these? How is it that, however stubborn, proud, and paradoxical they might be, they are not yet discouraged and ashamed of their work? How can one still find, somewhere in this world (in the remotest corners of the moors of Brittany, even in the inaccessible caves of the Cévennes and the Pyrenees) a person so stupid, so irrational, so blind to what he sees and deaf to what he hears every day, as to vote Blue, White, or Red without being forced, without being paid, without even a free drink to make him drunk? 

What baroque sentiment, what mysterious suggestion does he obey, this thinking biped endowed with free will (at least this is what people say), proud of his “rights,” absolutely confident that he has done his duty by dropping some piece of paper inscribed with some name, it doesn’t matter which, into some ballot box?... What can he possibly say to himself to justify or even explain such an extravagant act? What does he hope for? Because, finally, in order that he agree to surrender himself to these greedy bosses who will sponge off him and bludgeon him to a pulp, he must be telling himself something and hoping for something so extraordinary we can scarcely imagine. Somehow, by some potent cerebral lucubration, to him the idea of Member of Parliament has come to stand for the idea of Science, of Justice, of Devotion, of Hard Work and Probity. In the very names of current politicians and of those who preceded them, he must have discovered some special magic and seen, as if through a mirage, flowering and blooming in a garden some promise of future happiness and instant gratification. 

And that’s what’s really dreadful. 
It seems that nothing teaches him a lesson, neither the most burlesque of comedies nor the most sinister of tragedies.

Yet for centuries the world has endured, societies have developed and succeeded one another, each similar to the next, and one fact has dominated all of history: the protection of the powerful and the oppression of the weak. The weak don’t understand that they have only one historical raison d’être, and that’s to pay for a bunch of things they’ll never enjoy and to die for political schemes that have nothing to do with them.

Why should it matter, whether it’s Peter or John who demands, “Your money or your life !” since he is obliged to lose in any case? Well! No. In the presence of different thieves and torturers he wants to express his preferences, to cast his vote for the most rapacious and ferocious of the lot. 

He did vote yesterday, he will vote tomorrow; he will vote always. Sheep go to the slaughterhouse, silent and hopeless, but at least sheep never vote for the butcher who kills them or the humans who devour them. More stupid than animals, more sheep-like than sheep, the voter appoints his butcher and chooses his own devourer. He fought revolutions in order to get this “right”. 

O good voter, unspeakable imbecile, poor dupe, if instead of reading the same old crap that the morning papers serve you every day (big papers, small papers, right wing or left wing papers, conservative or progressive papers) in order to manipulate you the way they want. If, instead of swallowing that fanciful flattery that caresses your vanity with which they surround your pitiful rag-clad sovereignty; if instead of gawking, as an eternal idiot, at the heavy bullshit of politics, you were, for once, sitting in your armchair, reading the work of Schopenhauer and Max Nordau [for instance The Conventional Lies of Our Civilization, 1883], two authors who have meditated deeply about you as a voter and about your leaders, perhaps you might learn something amazing and useful. May be, after reading their works, you’ll feel less eager to put on your air of gravity, wear your fine frock coat and rush to those murderous ballot boxes where, no matter whose name you choose, you are sure of picking up the name of your worst enemy. Those authors, those two connoisseurs of humanity, would tell you that politics is an abominable lie, opposed to all common sense, justice and right, and that, by meddling in it, you will gain no credit, you, whose fate is already written in the grand account of human destiny. 

After that, dream if you will of paradises of light and perfumes, of impossible brotherhood, of unreal happiness. It’s good to dream; it eases pains. But keep politics out of your dream, for wherever politicians are found, there too are sadness, hatred, and misdeeds. Above all, remember that he who solicits your vote is, by that very fact, revealed as a scoundrel, since, in exchange for your advantage and fortune, he promises a cornucopia of miracles he’ll never deliver because he is not in a position to deliver them. The man you elect represents neither your problems, nor your aspirations, nor anything of yours, but rather his own passions and interests, which are all opposed to yours. 

In order to warns you about cultivating hopes that will soon fade away, do not imagine that the sorry spectacle at which you assist today is peculiar to one regime, and that it will pass away. All regimes are the same, that is, they are all equally worthless. So go home, my good friend, and go on strike against general elections. You have nothing to lose, and, at least, this should keep you amused for a while. From behind your windows, in your home shut firmly against all beggars of political alms, you’ll watch the obscene trafficking in votes and electoral favours. 

And even if there exist in some unknown corner of this land, some honest man capable of governing you and respect you, don’t regret your decision. He would be too jealous of his dignity to involve himself in the dirty game of politics, too proud to accept from you a mandate that you only ever grant to the boldest cynic, to insults and lies.

Dear good friend, I repeat my invitation to you:

GO HOME and GO ON STRIKE !

Le Figaro, 11/28/1888