“Accurately suspicious about others' motives, INFJs are not easily led. These are the people that you can rarely fool any of the time.”
As this is rather flattering, I’ll accept the comment as true (perhaps thereby disproving its validity?). But whether or not I’m more attuned to motivations than most people, I do consider them to be very important.
There was an episode of South Park in which Kenny was brain-dead and in the hospital. Kyle and Stan wanted to keep their friend hooked up to life support. Eric (Cartman) wanted life support turned off so he could inherit Kenny’s video game. Meanwhile Kenny was needed in Heaven to help fight off an army of demons. (Hey, this IS South Park after all.)
In Stan’s “I think I’ve learned something today” moment, he realizes Eric wanted to do the right thing for the wrong reason, while he and Kyle wanted to the wrong thing for the right reason.
Is Eric Cartman the candidate for you?
From a practical standpoint, I suppose it's usually better to do the right thing for the wrong reason. But the disconnection between motivation and outcome demonstrated in the South Park episode points to an inherent flaw in representative democracy.
If you’re forced to vote for Eric (bad motivation, good outcome) or Kyle (good motivation, bad outcome) who do you choose? As an elected representative, Kyle may get it “wrong” on a single issue, but his heart is in the right place. Cartman is only out for Cartman. God only knows (and He's busy fighting the Devil Army) what Cartman would do when another problem needs to be resolved!
On the other hand, how important is this particular issue? And maybe your motivations are every bit as pure as Kyle’s. (F’rinstance, you happen to KNOW Kenny is needed in Heaven.) In the critical situation, do you vote for good-guy Kyle and risk destruction of the entire Spiritual Plane?
Politicians today are occasionally driven by ideology themselves, but more often, they are beholding to groups that are completely wedded to a specific agenda — most no better than Cartman’s. That means we might get what we want on one particular issue … say withdrawal from Iraq. But the representatives who’ll withdraw won’t stop there, and soon we’ve been transformed into “cheese-eating surrender monkeys.” (Feel free to substitute your own example — leftist or rightwing — I just like the Bart Simpson phrase “cheese-eating surrender monkey.”)
I don’t think there's an easy answer, but I’m pretty sure that unless Heaven is about to fall, it’s a good idea to skeptically appraise the motivations of the people who most stridently support a particular candidate ... or oppose the other one.
Who really, really wants Rudy or Fred and who really, really wants Hillary or Barack? Go beyond today. Do you think you’ll want the same thing those folks want tomorrow?
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