The race to the Nov. 29 nine-in-one local elections is already into the home stretch. However, as the nationwide polls loom closer, many Taipei residents are stuck in a doleful conundrum: vote unwillingly for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) or distrustingly for his rival, independent candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
This quandary fully expresses the “collapse of action” that follows when cognition and emotions fall into disorder. When an electoral battle gets bogged down in mutual name-calling and hitting out at random, the essence of democracy lies in tatters.
Lien and Ko are not the only candidates in the Taipei race, but their support rates are higher than the others’. Lien inherits the mantle of the old KMT authoritarian forces, while Ko is a symbol of “neo-scientific” authority. In the view of residents who cherish humanistic values and social concerns, neither is an ideal candidate for mayor.
However, these same people may feel that they have to vote one way or another, and in the end they feel forced to cast their ballot for one candidate, with tears in their eyes, just because they dislike the other contender. Such an outcome will cause Taipei to lose an objective opportunity and the potential for reform.
In this campaign, Lien’s wealthy and powerful background has inevitably become a target for attacks by rival camps. Voters are well aware of the Lien family’s complex political and business relations and cannot shake off the stereotypical image of Sean Lien as a playboy. These factors continue to hamper his electoral prospects.
Although he keeps using “working stays” at ordinary people’s houses in an attempt to tone down his image of privilege, this strategy is based on a mentality of “dumbing down” the electorate and is unlikely to produce significant results.
As for Ko, he is running under a “white” flag, declining to adopt the colors of any party. At first, the prevailing atmosphere of antipathy toward President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the KMT and China caused this neutrality to work in his favor in the eyes of the majority of voters. Civic groups and media have also been quite friendly to him. Even though Ko has said some things that betray a serious degree of gender prejudice, some outspokenly feminist groups who responded to his comments did so with kid gloves.
However, amid continual tests and revelations, Ko has demonstrated a kind of elitist and instrumentalist mentality that puts science and technology above everything else, along with a strong sense of his own superiority. Ko’s advocacy of “streaming professions” exposes his deep vocational prejudice and pays scant regard to diverse social values.
This kind of pronouncement and mindset that divides people into ranks and classes is even harder to stomach for people who actively promote social reform. Maybe people who study humanities and social sciences will not end up earning NT$8.7 million (US$286,000) a year, like Ko does, but they may be able to make big changes in the world. A filmmaker may never get rich, but his or her determination may be what it takes for mankind to attain peace of mind.
By now, the hopes that many people had placed in Ko have changed into a kind of anxiety buried deep down. Ko’s authoritarian character can easily bring to mind the spectacle of the unresolved tensions of an Oedipus complex. In the language of Sigmund Freud, a son starts out by trying to achieve his desire of self-maturity by means of gender identity that frees itself from his father’s authority. However, amid mismatched roles, this kind of resentment of authority, or masochistic obedience, is instead redirected to the social system.
A democratic election battle should not just provide a vicious forum that becomes a channel through which people vent their resentments. If choosing Ko merely replaces the old authority with a new one, many people fear that some people’s illusions of this new hero or idol will — just like their efforts to escape from a condition of being oppressed — fail to achieve true liberation. People may even unwittingly acquiesce to the genesis of a third dynasty, making the process into a kind of false rebellion.
Although many non-aligned voices in Taiwan are silent and powerless, they are full of anger and anxiety. This voice should be conveyed and heard. This is a grave question and a protest is called for. Taipei is seen by many as the nation’s best city to live in, so why are there no ideal candidates for its mayorship who would allow residents to cast their votes happily instead of getting trapped in such a painful choice?
Chiou Tian-juh is a professor of social psychology at Shih Hsin University.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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