- An insomnia epidemic? Katherine Lucky, Commonweal
- Childhood: facts versus fads John Simmons, LARB
- The many lives of Túpac Amaru Miguel La Serna, Age of Revolutions
- The legacy of Yevgeny Zamyatin Jacob Howland, New Criterion
Author: Brandon Christensen
The politics of The Expanse
I am rewatching The Expanse, which is a deservedly popular science fiction show on Amazon Prime. It’s very good. As I said, I am rewatching it, mostly in anticipation of the new season, which comes out next month.
It’s good because I like my science fiction to be science-y. I prefer realistic scenarios. So Star Wars is not really my thing (even Star Trek is a stretch, to be honest, but DS9 is amazing).
One thing that strikes me as wrong in The Expanse is the politics. In the storyline, there are three political units: Earth, Mars, and the Belt. Earth and Mars are sovereign, and the Belt (based out of the asteroid belt) is semi-sovereign with a distinct and viable “nationalist” movement there. This is a sophisticated storyline for television. It’s better than DS9, which bore the standard for great science fiction television until The Expanse came along.
But I can’t stop thinking: why would the political alignment of the solar system be based on planets? If it were to be truly realistic, then Earth would not be a sovereign political unit. Instead, we’d have a dozen or so political units from Earth, some political units from Mars, and several from the Belt. Factions in the form of sovereign political units would dominate the political landscape, not planets.
Now, The Expanse does a good job confronting the issue of faction. Earth’s democratically-elected dictator has to deal with several factions, and Mars and the Belt both have factions, too. And several excellent subplots deal significantly with the issue of faction. But there’s not enough sovereignties in The Expanse. It doesn’t mean the series isn’t the best science fiction television series of all time (it is), but it does leave me wanting more.
Nightcap
- How would Wolf Blitzer respond to Savannah Guthrie on a road trip? Ryan Davis, 200-Proof Liberals
- What we owe to Donald J Trump Branko Milanovic, globalinequality
- Japan’s fragile monarchy Kenneth Ruoff, Japan Times
- Amy Coney Barrett on Lochner and the 14th Amendment Damon Root, Reason
Nightcap
- What is the human being? Jon Stewart, Aeon
- Premature imitation and India’s flailing state (pdf) Rajagopalan & Tabarrok, TIR
- Is it time to strike back at empire? Tony Barber, Financial Times
- Adam Smith: a historical historical detective? Nick Cowen, NOL
Nightcap
- Value judgements John Peeler, LA Progressive
- Value judgements Alex Mackiel, Quillette
- Theater in the time of COVID Noah Millman, Modern Age
- Federal futures in India and Nepal Shneiderman & Tillman
Nightcap
- Sovereignty and the modern treaty process (pdf) Paul Nadasdy, CSSH
- How states wrest territory from their adversaries (pdf) Dan Altman, ISQ
- Farage’s dangerous appeal Chris Dillow, Stumbling & Mumbling
- Decomposing the nation-state (pdf) Murray Rothbard, JLS
A short non-political note
I have not been paying attention to the election news cycle. I have dropped out of that system. I am lucky that I was born in the United States. I marvel at the underpinnings of the American constitutional order (an internationalist order). I understand that self-government and elections go hand-in-hand (if only we were all enlightened anarchists).
But I don’t pay attention to the horse race for the presidency. It makes a mockery of all the good things the republic stands for.
I have been taking advantage of the Covid pseudo-lockdown. (Thanks to Nick for the Zoom lesson in opportunity costs.) I wrote one scholarly essay and six short stories. I submitted them to journals. The scholarly essay was accepted for publication in The Independent Review after going through an unusually thorough peer review process. The short stories were all rejected. I am disheartened because I have been trying (slowly) to leave behind scholarship in favor of literary pursuits. I cannot practice my writing craft because the scholarly article (ungated rough draft here) is also the focus of a Special Issue in an open source academic journal (which also happens to be one of my favorite journals: Cosmos + Taxis).
So, I have another 16 months of challenging scholarly work ahead of me. I love this blog. It’s been good to me. I don’t know if the literary journals rejected me because of my style or my substance. I felt like I was tackling difficult topics, but I also know my writing style is a bit old school. I think maybe the rejections were a combination of old school style and old school substance, both of which are not exactly what literary journals are looking for these days.
Nightcap
- Libertarians and localism Lauren Hall, RCL
- The emerging world order (pdf) Michael Lee, Survival
- The last jihadi superstar Thomas Hegghammer, War on the Rocks
- A Canadian-American merger? J Dana Stuster, Foreign Policy
Nightcap
- Was liberal imperialism ethical? Kenan Malik, Guardian
- The world is trapped in America’s culture war Helen Lewis, Atlantic
- That was some election! Scott Sumner, Money Illusion
- California’s far Left governor sends his kids to private school Politico
Nightcap
- Time to read (or re-read) Main Street Matt Hanson, LARB
- Science, markets, and iterative knowledge (pdf) Hardwick & Marsh, SIEO
- “Knowledge” at Notes On Liberty
- Main Street in Gopher Prairie (and elsewhere) NOL
Happy Halloween!
Nightcap
- The two Americas (of 1965) Simon Schama, Financial Times
- The two Americas (of 1968) Jon Meacham, NY Times
- Purple America (pdf) Rodden, Ansolabehere, & Snyder, JEP
- What is the cost of pride? Rick Weber, Notes On Liberty
Nightcap
- Parties become popular by taking unpopular stands Scott Sumner, EconLog
- A European who understands America Antonio Garcia-Martinez, Pull Request
- Legal immigration into the United States Jacques Delacroix, NOL
- Birthday parties in the Soviet Union (photos) Nikolay Shevchenko, Russia Beyond
Nightcap
- 5 questions for undecided voters Conor Friedersdorf, Atlantic
- Useful libertarian idiocy Will Wilkinson, Open Society
- Why not randomize judges and juries? Robin Hanson, Overcoming Bias
- Good primer on the Armenian crisis Mark Movsesian, Law & Liberty
Amy Coney Barrett is the start of the rise of the Left
The Left has long been weak. It dominates elite circles, but not much else.
Amy Coney Barrett earned her law degree from Notre Dame. The other 8 justices earned their degrees from Harvard or Yale. President Trump’s ideological shake-up of the Supreme Court bodes well for diversity, which in turn bodes well for a resurgence of the American Left in the civic, intellectual, and moral life of the republic.
The stranglehold that the two schools had on Ivy legal thought has meant that the American Right would always be stronger ideologically as well as civically and morally.
It is perhaps ironic that Donald Trump, in trying to Make America Great Again, has done just that by opening up the avenues of power to diverse modes of thought. Donald Trump’s crusade for diversity has indeed opened up elite American circles to competition. This will only strengthen the Left, as it will now have to incorporate non-professional voices into its apparatuses of power, as the Right has long done with much success.
A strong Left that is not overly reliant on elite opinion bodes well for the republic.
Notes On Liberty 