It's interesting to watch debates and commentary on debates of a big national character.
Without going into specifics, I've been watching one that continually claims to represent a major cultural shift in a certain country. I'm not so sure. I think it represents a shift, but the claims are so overdone.
But for that matter, many "shifts" are quite temporary in nature. The Baby Boom generation of the 60s did shift things, but in the long term they turned out to be more conservative than they started out to be, so the shift wasn't quite as dramatic as it was supposed it would be. That's pretty common. Lots of things that seem to have been overthrown, in fact, are just temporarily ignored.
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I'm pretty sure I know what debate and country you're talking about, and I happened to hear the Prime Minister (I believe) give his reason for voting the "right way".
Paraphrasing, voting for the referendum would show the world how progressive the country had finally become and it would be a "historic" vote.
To me, that didn't sound like a good reason to vote for or against anything. Voting based on that sort of thinking might define the cultural shift in voting patterns that everyone is so proud of more than anyone cares to admit.
One of the big problems about voting the "right way" on any one thing is it often turns out not to be the right way long term. Some major right ways turned out to be wrong ways over time. So many thing work that way. Over my time I've seen a lot of "inevitable" and "progressive" things retreat and later not be looked on as particularly inevitable or progressive. Quite a few people, at any one time, vote for what's supposed to be a trend because it's supposed to be a trend, or for something that's supposed to be progressive because it's supposed to be progressive, etc., without thinking things through.
The only reason to vote for or against something is because you believe it, or think it's probably correct, and you don't give a rat's you know what about what other people think on the subject. If you aren't voting that way, you probably are better off not voting at all.
Adding to this, voting for or against something as its supposed to show the world one thing or another is a truly bad idea. That's basically voting as you guess that the rest of the world will be impressed or pleased by how you voted. Usually, those who were inclined to agree with that position claim to be pleased, others are displeased, and most of the world doesn't notice at all, or if they do, it's for a day or so.
Long term, democracy is a great thing indeed. But it's well worth recalling that darned near every bad trend, idea or political philosophy has had electoral success. I'm not drawing a parallel at all here between anything that's happened recently, but it's worth keeping in mind that the Nazis came to power through the vote (in an election that would have seen the Communist prevail if they hadn't), and there have been plenty of strong showings of Communist parties, radical Islamic parties, and any other number of parties representing ideals that seemed totally inevitable and really good ideas, to the voters, to their shame later on. Long term matters, short term can be disastrous. Long term, people tend to be more simple and adhere to long term traits and cultures which they also often reject in the sort term.
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