a. "I would vote, but there's no difference between the candidates." Up to 40 percent of young people feel there is no major difference between the candidates, according to a CSAE survey released Sept. 27. When a highly heterogenous population produces nearly indistinguishable candidates, the hegemony of the Voting Party is clear. Not voting makes little sense as an act of protest.

b. "I would vote, but I don't know enough to vote responsibly." Gallup reports that slightly more than one-third of Americans claimed they had given "a great deal of thought" to the presidential campaign, compared with 42 and 52 percent at comparable times in 1996 and 1992, respectively.

How much do you need to know to vote responsibly? Just enough to surpass the irresponsibility of not voting. And perhaps, if you expect to live in America after graduation, a bit more.

A democracy is not characterized by its forward-thinking policy, its welfare rights or its ability to speak for the people. Popular government is marked by struggle, bureaucracy, checks-and-balances and endless debate, all of which threaten to engulf the isolated fictions of real community progress.

There are many benign dictators who could make America an abstractly "happier" place--and do so on a time scale our legislature couldn't begin to imagine. One cannot look around the world and guess which countries are "free" simply from their recent policy choices.

Instead, the single factor which distinguishes democracy is the meaningful participation of citizens.

Most of us have little problem with aristocracy, benevolent or otherwise. Many of you will spend next year in the corporate and academic worlds, both aristocracies of varying degrees. Do not, in your spirals up or down towards money or fame or angst, forget the importance of the ritual gesture.