London: Icon Books, 2017
337 pp., $12.04

If you think of Jane Austen novels as light, fluffy romances—think again. Through her happy endings, she imparted essential moral themes, such as the fact that happiness requires knowing when to trust your own judgment (Persuasion) and acting on principle (Mansfield Park).

Such lessons are useful on their own, but many Janeites like to point out that Austen was also a social commentator, mocking and subtly criticizing certain norms and institutions of her day. However, few Austen fans have gone as far into understanding and explaining the substance and mechanisms of that criticism as Helena Kelly, author of Jane Austen, the Secret Radical. Kelly begins by observing two relevant facts about Austen’s life: 1) We don’t know much about it, because few letters or other documentary evidence remain, and the family reports are unreliable (the most famous was written by her nephew four decades after her death); and 2) for most of Austen’s life, Britain was at war.

Most Janeites point out these facts as a matter of mere curiosity or perhaps to highlight a few details of how soldiers and navy men play a role in certain Austen novels. But Kelly homes in on a particular effect of this context: Due to the wars, the British government increased censorship. She explains:

Treason was redefined. It was no longer limited to actively conspiring to overthrow and to kill; it included thinking, writing, printing, reading. Prosecutions were directed not just against avowedly political figures, such as Paine, the radical politician Horne Tooke, or the theologian Gilbert Wakefield, but against their publishers. . . . There can hardly have been a thinking person in Britain who didn’t understand what was intended—to terrify writers and publishers into policing themselves. (22–23)

For this reason, Kelly argues, readers ought to look very closely at the text and at the historical context it was written in, because criticism would have had to be subtle to be allowed at that time. For example, Austen doesn’t criticize the Church of England outright—but nearly all the clergymen she depicts in her works are lazy, gluttonous, pompous, or straight-up ridiculous. The self-important Mr. Collins, for instance, provides excellent comic relief in Pride and Prejudice—but no serious Christian would want him as his pastor. Kelly argues that this context alone justifies a closer look at the text and also quotes Austen’s letter to her sister in which she declared, “I do not write for such dull Elves As have not a great deal of ingenuity themselves” (124).1^[1] Austen wanted her readers to be thoughtful and focused enough to take in the layers of meaning she offered, and Kelly aims to show what such focus, combined with some contextual knowledge, can yield.

The Secret Radical’s key strength is its clearly presented, well-researched analysis of the political elements of Austen’s works, based on Kelly’s thorough understanding of the debates and economic policies of the day, relevant British history, textual evidence from the novels, contemporary reviews, and the few remaining letters from Austen herself. Kelly examines each of Austen’s six full-length novels—Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion—in this way, aiming to work through them in the order Austen wrote them to provide a rough sketch of Austen’s intellectual development as well as to keep the history chronological. (Kelly acknowledges difficulty in dating with certainty when Austen wrote certain novels and explains her reasons for taking them in the order that she does.) In the best cases, the interpretation she offers enables readers to appreciate the work under discussion on a deeper level.

For example, Kelly argues that Pride and Prejudice should not be seen as only an interpersonal drama with lessons for individual behavior but also as a pattern for how people of different classes at the time should behave toward each other in order to reform society without violent revolution. “Elizabeth and Darcy,” she writes, “were written to be not just characters, but symbols as well” (167). Mr. Darcy, the wealthy nobleman, shows himself to be ready to learn, even from those of lower status than himself, and to correct his manners when necessary. He also symbolically removes the military presence and its associated potential for conflict at the end by arranging a position far away for Mr. Wickham, a militiaman.

Likewise, Elizabeth, a gentleman’s daughter, is willing to speak her mind and learns to judge people only on firm evidence of their character. Mr. Bingley is a straightforwardly sympathetic character who earned his money through trade, a point modern readers may not question or even notice. In the early nineteenth century, the nouveau riche were by no means accepted in many social circles. By showing him not only in a positive light but as being sought after by the Bennet girls and befriended by Darcy, Austen was encouraging the acceptance of such self-made men. Kelly’s interpretation not only integrates with the novel’s central theme (that one shouldn’t allow emotions to distort one’s rational, evidence-based judgment)—it adds a layer of complexity to it. One’s emotions, and especially one’s initial reaction to a situation, are often shaped by the attitudes one has been taught—one’s prejudices (according to some accounts, Austen considered naming the novel First Impressions). Austen encouraged her readers to consider carefully whether that immediate reaction is justified, taking into account not only one’s vanity but one’s social context.

Kelly deals significantly with the political context in which Austen lived and wrote. Politics necessarily affects individuals’ lives and thus often is present in fiction to some degree. But it is one thing to identify these aspects of the background, another to trace how they affect various characters’ motivations, and a much different task to interpret their degree of relevance to the theme of the work. In this last endeavor, Kelly occasionally errs by overemphasizing the relevance of politics to Austen’s themes. For example, she claims that Emma is about poverty created by a rapidly expanding population and worsened (at least in the short term) by enclosure, the controversial practice of landowners getting permission from Parliament to build fences and hedges to stop poor people from gathering firewood, roots, and so on from the land they or their families had been granted by the government. Kelly cites many lines and scenes that refer to enclosure and its effects, such as gypsies being camped in an unexpected place leading to an unsuspecting young woman being accosted by them and twisting her ankle in her attempt to get away. However, Kelly fails to establish that enclosure is anything more than a background force in the novel. Emma is primarily about a young woman learning to better weigh the evidence she has around people’s emotions and not to interfere in others’ affairs of the heart—that each person must choose what is best for herself. This is an important theme that stands alone. Knowledge of enclosure is not necessary to grasp this theme, though such knowledge helps to set up certain aspects of the plot.

Similarly, Kelly’s discussion of Sense and Sensibility focuses on the unfairness of primogeniture, the legally enshrined practice in which, in the vast majority of cases, the oldest son inherited everything when a man died, and any other children and his widow were dependent on that son. Once again, this is extremely relevant to the setup, as it explains how the Dashwood ladies find themselves in the situation they are in—once Mr. Dashwood dies, they depend on the charity of a distant relative to find a decent place to live and must learn to live frugally. They also cannot depend on large dowries to help with their marriage prospects. But the bulk of the action is about the eldest two sisters learning to harmonize their reason and their emotions, one having tended toward self-indulgent emotionalism and the other toward stoic rationalism. Primogeniture, though certainly a target of Austen’s criticism, is not the theme of the novel.

Despite this occasional overemphasis on politics, the context Kelly provides is remarkably useful in enabling readers of Austen to avoid being a “dull Elf” and thus to better enjoy her timeless works. The book is written in clear, accessible language but is scholarly in the way it synthesizes a vast quantity of information from a wide variety of sources. In addition, although it assumes familiarity with all of Austen’s novels, a thoughtful reader with that knowledge will benefit from the demonstration of how to apply historical and political context combined with careful reading to better understand the satire and social commentary in other novels. Readers can certainly enjoy Austen’s works without Kelly’s additional context that enables wider integrations, but it is very helpful.

Jane Austen, the Secret Radical opened my eyes to the interesting, often subtle ways in which this influential author challenged the premises of the world around her. For those who want to get more out of literature, it’s well worth the time.

New outstanding music and new outstanding fiction seem equally hard to find in today’s culture, so I was astonished to find a little-known band from Nashville that excels at making both. As I detail in my new article, the Protomen have created a three-part work of dystopian fiction in the form of innovative and intricate synthwave rock music.

We owe thanks for the fact we can discover such niche things in the age of the internet to the pioneers of electronic communication. One often under-recognized innovator in this field is Samuel Morse, whose heroic life Aditya Patil has profiled in detail. Despite being better known for Morse Code, Morse labored through all manner of hardship to create America’s first long-distance electromagnetic telegraph, the forerunner to the electronic communications network that has brought the world together over the subsequent two centuries.

I hope you enjoy this week’s articles,

Thomas F. Walker
Managing Editor

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By the time Samuel Morse received the news of his wife’s illness, she was already dead and buried. For most people in 1825, it was an accepted fact of life that sending messages took days, if not weeks; but for Morse, the long delays in communication became a problem that he would devote years to solving. Morse designed and built a system that could send messages across hundreds of miles in seconds. Although he is remembered for the code that bears his name, his real achievement was the integration of the scattered discoveries that others had made about electricity into a practical machine—the telegraph.

Morse was born in 1791 in Charlestown, Massachusetts—then a center of politics and commerce—in a period of rapid scientific and technological transformation. With the Industrial Revolution underway, steam was moving goods on land and sea, industrial processes were displacing manual labor, and capital was pouring into industry and invention. Yet the transmission of messages remained largely unchanged; information still moved at the speed of the people or vehicles carrying it, as it had for thousands of years.1

Though electricity was a subject of growing scientific fascination, scientists were still struggling to understand its fundamental principles. It had been in its “parlor trick era” since the early 1700s, and people viewed it as a volatile and almost supernatural force. Elite salons and scientific exhibitions used electrostatic generators, Leyden jars, and sparks to amaze audiences.2 The public was obsessed with the idea that electricity was the “spark of life,” an idea that took hold after Luigi Galvani’s discovery that electricity could cause muscle contractions in dissected frogs.3 One thought of Dr. Frankenstein, not switches and wires, at the mention of electricity.

At the same time, scientists were making important discoveries. In 1820, Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted discovered that an electric current produces a magnetic field. André-Marie Ampère built on this almost immediately, establishing the mathematical relationship between electricity and magnetism. A decade later, Michael Faraday demonstrated that a changing magnetic field could produce an electric current. Across the Atlantic, American scientist Joseph Henry was making similar discoveries independently. Together, these findings established the science of electromagnetism. Yet for all this accumulated knowledge, no one had developed a practical, scalable system of communication from it.

Even the most ambitious practical thinkers remained focused on electricity as a source of physical power for lifting heavy loads and driving machinery and industry. A proliferation of projects, many undertaken without proper scientific understanding, was attempting to harness electricity to power machinery—a task to which it was fundamentally unsuited.4 But it could be used for producing a practically instantaneous, controlled effect at a distance—signaling. Morse built his electrical telegraph to do exactly that.

Morse’s achievement is all the more remarkable given that he was not a scientist by training. Rather, Morse spent much of his early life struggling to establish himself as a painter. He had studied at Yale and trained at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, but he found only limited success, and he spent years traveling and taking portrait commissions wherever he could find work. Morse sailed for Europe in 1829, visiting the museums of Paris and Rome to study European masterpieces. It was on the voyage home, in 1832, that everything changed.

Aboard the ship, Morse’s fellow passenger Dr. Charles Thomas Jackson described to a small group some of the recent experiments with electricity that he had witnessed in Paris. Jackson explained that electricity could be transmitted through a wire of any length with instantaneous speed—a spark appeared at the far end of a circuit at the exact moment that the connection was made.5 He also demonstrated the properties of the electromagnet: A core of soft iron becomes magnetic only while a current passes through its surrounding coil and loses that magnetism the instant the current is cut. This means that physical force can be triggered and released at a distance, practically instantaneously, through a simple wire.

Morse saw the implication immediately: “If the presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of the circuit, I see no reason why intelligence may not be transmitted instantaneously by electricity.”6 With that thought, the electromagnet was no longer a mere experimental curiosity.

The idea of using electricity to communicate was not new—it had been proposed in various forms since the time of Benjamin Franklin. But whereas others had used electromagnetism to produce visible, physical effects (such as deflecting needles to point at a display), Morse saw a means of carrying information directly: By controlling when the current was on and when it was off, the message could be encoded in the timing and the sequence of that single, repeatable signal. He spent the remainder of the month-long voyage filling his notebooks with designs for a recording telegraph. Morse was “most constant” in pursuing the subject throughout the voyage.7 By the time the ship docked in New York, he had already developed a nearly complete plan for his recording apparatus.

Back in New York, Morse set about building a working model of his telegraph. The device would record electric signals as marks on paper. Instead of requiring an operator to observe the signals as they occurred, it would create a permanent record that could be read afterward. His painting career had all but collapsed, and he was living in poverty, working and sleeping in his studio at New York University (NYU) where he served as a professor of painting and took on private pupils to earn his keep.

His first prototype was built from scrap materials in his studio. A clockwork mechanism pulled a strip of paper under a pencil, and electrical pulses from a battery activated an electromagnet that moved a rocker arm, which in turn moved the pencil, tracing a wavy line on the paper that could be decoded as a message. Crude as it was, the device worked. It showed that the principle of his invention was sound: Electricity could produce a precise, readable effect at a distance.

But Morse was unable to improve upon his model to overcome the problem of transmitting messages over a useful distance. His apparatus could send signals only up to about forty feet. The electrical resistance of the wire caused the current to weaken so much that it could not trigger the recording stylus over a longer distance. Previous attempts at electrical communication had failed repeatedly for the same reason, and Morse struggled with this problem for two years.

The solution already existed in the scientific literature. Henry had shown that a weak incoming signal could be used to trigger a fresh, fully powered outgoing signal through a device he called the electromagnetic relay.8 Leonard Gale, a chemistry professor at NYU familiar with Henry’s work, brought this to Morse’s attention. The relays took their name from the post stations of coach travel, where tired horses were replaced by fresh ones. In Morse’s telegraph, the weak current arriving at the end of its range simply operated a tiny electromagnet, which closed a fresh circuit powered by another battery. The incoming signal was thus repeated over another length of wire. By placing relays at intervals, a message could travel any distance.

This breakthrough did more than merely solve Morse’s problem; it established the fundamental principle of signal amplification in modern electrical engineering. The relay was the conceptual ancestor of the transistor and every electronic switching device that followed.

By 1837, Morse had been living on next to nothing for years—splitting his university salary into daily allowances, cooking his own meals in his studio, and using what little money remained to acquire parts for a working model. That year, Alfred Vail, the son of a prosperous ironworks owner in Morristown, New Jersey, proposed a partnership. He would build a working model at his own expense, using his father’s ironworks, in exchange for a share of the patents. The arrangement gave Morse the capital and precision engineering he had lacked.

Working through the winter of 1837 at the Speedwell Ironworks, Vail refined the crude prototype into a durable instrument and developed the dot-and-dash code that would carry Morse’s name. On January 6, 1838, after years of effort, Morse could finally demonstrate a fully functional version of his invention to the world. As a definitive test, Morse and Vail organized a demonstration. Two miles of wire were coiled around the room of the Speedwell factory building. Vail’s father dictated a message, and his son transmitted it. At the other end, Morse decoded the words: “A patient waiter is no loser.”9

The years following the demonstration were again a period of poverty and failure for Morse. He sought private capital to commercialize his invention, approaching financiers in New York to fund a working telegraph line. But the financial panic of 1837 had drained investment markets, and he was met with indifference and rejection. He needed to build the telegraph over a distance long enough to demonstrate its usefulness, and he lacked the capital to do so himself.

In 1837, Congress directed the Treasury Department to investigate the establishment of a national telegraph system, and proposals were requested. Morse was the only respondent to propose an electromagnetic telegraph; the rest proposed “optical telegraphs”—systems that transmitted signals visually between stations in line-of-sight using mechanical indicators such as arms and shutters.10 Morse argued that his invention could operate at any time of day or night, in any weather, and could record messages even when unattended.

Morse demonstrated the telegraph to Congress and President Van Buren, proposing that the government fund an experimental line between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore to test the practicability of transmitting messages between distant points. The line would serve as a test for an electromagnetic telegraph’s use for rapid official communication, but it failed to gain support in Congress. He sailed for Europe to secure patents but found himself shut out in London and unable to enforce the one he obtained in France. He returned to America having gained nothing and was forced to take up portrait commissions to survive.

For the next four years Morse pursued support from Congress, submitting formal petitions for the experimental line. It was a period of wasted genius—he was waiting for political approval to build a demonstration of a concept that he had already proven. In December 1842, Morse obtained permission to demonstrate the telegraph to the legislators directly, realizing that years of petitioning on paper had failed. He strung wires between two committee rooms in the Capitol and demonstrated the telegraph once more. This time, Congress listened.

The Morse bill, which had been shelved since 1838, was brought back before Congress. The bill faced considerable opposition in the House, with one representative ridiculing Morse’s proposition that if Congress was funding Morse, it ought equally to appropriate money for experiments in mesmerism—a pseudoscientific practice of hypnosis popular at that time.11 Supporters, however, argued that Congress had the authority to fund such a system under its constitutional power to establish post offices and roads.12 Seventy congressmen abstained rather than vote public money toward something they did not understand. The bill then waited behind more than 140 others in the Senate, with one day left in the session. Morse had not expected it to survive. After a dramatic midnight vote, the news reached him the next morning: The Senate had passed the bill. President Tyler signed it into law on March 3, 1843.13 Morse had $30,000.

With the funding secured, Morse set to work on the first long-distance telegraph line in the United States—thirty-eight miles of wire connecting Washington to Baltimore. On May 1, 1844, before the line was even complete, news of the Whig Party’s nomination of Henry Clay was telegraphed from Baltimore to Washington, arriving ahead of the train carrying the same information. On May 24, with the line complete, Morse sat in the Capitol and transmitted the first official message to Vail at the Baltimore railroad depot: “What hath God wrought.”14 The Baltimore Sun declared that “time and space had been completely annihilated.”15 Morse later offered to sell the telegraph to the government for $100,000. The government declined, concluding that the revenue from the line would not justify its expense.16 Morse turned to private investors, licensing the technology to commercial enterprises that expanded it rapidly. The system was a huge commercial success, and the companies that built it were later consolidated into Western Union. Within a decade, the Morse telegraph system had been adopted as the international standard, and lines were crossing continents.

Morse spent twelve years turning a sketch into a working line while battling poverty, failed patents, and a Congress that could not tell electromagnetism from mesmerism. He was not a scientist. He was an inventor who saw that electricity could carry intelligence. The telegraph was built on brilliant scientific integrations and the discipline to see a single idea through when virtually every practical circumstance was against it. Morse spent much of his later years defending his patents in court, fighting off rivals who sought to claim what he had built. By his death in 1872, his estate was valued at half a million dollars. He had lived to see telegraph lines cross continents and oceans, carrying the language of dots and dashes, all from an idea that he had devised aboard a ship forty years earlier.

Morse’s work stands as an outstanding triumph of engineering—a field whose value lies not only in uncovering nature’s laws but in bending them to human ends. His achievement shows that bringing an idea into existence demands not merely knowledge but its application and not merely ability but immense perseverance.

As an avid music fan, I’m constantly searching for good music. But I only find exceptional bands—the kind that blow my mind and join my all-time favorites—once or twice a decade.

Recently, one band—The Protomen—excelled beyond anything I’ve heard in the past fifteen years or so. To try to describe this band in terms of genres is somewhat futile. Their sound fuses elements of country, hard rock, electronica, progressive rock, blues, and several other genres. They took influence from Queen—a band they started their career by covering—by focusing on expressing their own artistic ideas rather than trying to fit into a particular genre. “Queen was independent in that they didn’t care about genre, they just wrote good songs,” said a band member in one interview. “In the end, no matter what genre or how you play the song, it’s still gonna sound like you.”1

The more useful way to describe what The Protomen make would be something like “story rock” or “rock opera.” Their three main albums are as much works of fiction as works of music; The Protomen (Act I), Act II: The Father of Death, and Act III: This City Made Us together form a grand dystopian story that can only be fully appreciated on repeat listenings while reading the lyrics. The band included passages of prose among the lyrics (found in the CD liner notes or online)—these are designed to be read during the instrumental and soundscape sections of the albums, moving the story along between the lyrical sections.

Each album has a distinct style and tells a separate chapter of the overall story, so it’s worth looking at each in turn to get a sense of the richness, musically and philosophically, that The Protomen offer.

The Protomen (Act I) (2005)

The first album throws us into a dystopian world loosely based on that depicted in the Mega Man video games. But whereas the games follow the titular superhero as he battles the robot army of the evil Dr. Wily in an effort to restore peace to an embattled world, The Protomen establishes a much darker setting—a city in which the population has given up on freedom. The opening narration sets the scene over an accelerating beat:

No one was left who could remember how it had happened
How the world had fallen under darkness
At least no one who would do anything
No one who would oppose the robots
No one who would challenge their power
Or so Dr. Wily believed . . .

That sets off the opening track, “Hope Rides Alone,” in which we meet Wily’s former associate Dr. Light, “an eccentric and brilliant man . . . a loner, a thinker, a man of ideas—ideas forbidden in Wily’s society.” Light creates the part-man, part-machine Protoman, a hero “hell-bent on destroying every evil standing between man and freedom” to save the city from Wily’s robotic tyranny.

Toward the end of the song, the core theme of the album starts to come through. Light wants to save the city, but the people don’t want saving—they are too apathetic and dejected to fight for freedom. They stand by and watch Protoman get pummeled by Wily’s robots, and the song ends with a crowd chanting “We are the dead”—a direct reference to George Orwell’s 1984—as they look upon the beaten hero who could have saved them.

In the third track, “Unrest in the House of Light,” we follow a grief-stricken Light as he sings about his previous “son”—Protoman’s forerunner, Mega Man—who suffered much the same fate. Light tries to dissuade Protoman, who wants to continue the fight:

For if you leave now, you will be fighting
For a people that refuse to comprehend
They have chosen their own end

Unlike the opening two tracks, which have a lo-fi, almost industrial sound symbolizing the mechanistic inhumanity of Wily’s regime, the third track is a gently swinging country song with the sombreness befitting Light’s dismay at the people’s continued lack of appetite for freedom and his remorse at his part in creating this society (detailed in Act II). Throughout the rest of the album, the style continues to change, although generally returning to an alt-rock sound reminiscent of early Muse. Also adding to the variety are the different singing and speaking voices that the band members use to capture the characters of Wily, Light, Protoman, and Mega Man, who often exchange dialogue during the songs.

Thematically, the album continues to explore the questions of whether a hero should fight for people who don’t want saving and whether a few voices for freedom can overcome a mass who willfully live at the feet of a dictator. Those people rouse, not at the appearance of a hero, but at the regime’s broadcast chant of “We have control, We keep you safe, We are your hope.” All three albums are, in their own ways, tragedies, and the tragedy of the first album is that Light is trying to use technology—Protoman—to solve a philosophic problem: the apathy of the city’s population.

Act II: The Father of Death (2009)

With Act I depicting a society clearly unready for change, one might expect its sequel to progress the story to a later stage, but instead Act II is a prequel, showing how Wily’s society came to be in the first place. After a short instrumental, it opens with “The Good Doctor,” a far cleaner track than any on the first album that signals this album’s higher fidelity production. The song is a slow, melancholy ballad backed up by a somber string section that follows a conversation between Light and Wily, both inventors looking to change a society in which many (including Light’s father) work to their deaths in toxic mines. They design robots capable of replacing men in the mines and extracting far more of the resources the city needs, but whereas Light is content with this, Wily wants to turn the robots into tools for controlling people and achieving his vision of an orderly, centrally planned society.

The first chorus is sung by Light, but the second features Wily responding to him—an example of a technique The Protomen often use called “overlapping polyphony” in which two voices deliver the same section at the same time, offset enough that each can be understood but with some overlap as though the two voices are competing to dominate the song:

They’ve waited so long for this day
(They’ve waited so long for this day)
Someone to take the death away
(There is no price they wouldn’t pay)
No son would ever have to say
(For someone else to lead them)
My father worked into his grave

As the song concludes, the two characters get to the root of their philosophic disagreement—their differing views of human nature:

I only want to help . . .
(You are a fool!)
You underestimate the character of man
(They are weaker than you think!)
You think that they’ll surrender
If you bind their working hands
But they are strong!
(Just wait and see . . .)
We will build cities in a day
(Men would cower at the sight!)
We will build towers to the heavens
(Man was not built for such a height!)
We will be heroes!
(We will BUILD heroes!)

The two singers “playing” the two characters imbue them with different qualities, helping accentuate their differences. Raul Panther III (all Protomen members use stage names) gives Light a deep, reflective, Johnny Cash-esque voice whereas Turbo Lover gives Wily a shrill, barely controlled style in which his madness regularly breaks through. This album also introduces Gambler Kirkdouglas, who not only adds a female voice (voicing Light’s girlfriend and Wily’s heartthrob Emily) but brings a more operatic style to the mix, her vocals soaring above the male voices at times while bringing a raspy, hard-rock energy to other parts. Her character’s inclusion personalizes the human cost of Wily’s regime and of Light’s efforts to oppose it, which place her in the line of fire. Later in the album, the two men’s conflict becomes as much about her as about the city itself.

With this album, the band’s Nashville roots come through strongly. In place of the first album’s industrial sound, this one features more acoustic guitar, piano, and slide guitar, giving it a much more Southern sound that also drifts into Ennio Morricone-esque Western territory at times. As the story progresses, more styles come into play, often capturing the spirit of the character each song is focusing on. “The Hounds” (focusing on the increasingly maddened Wily) features circus-like trumpets blasting over a danceable, pulsing rhythm, after which “The State Vs. Thomas Light” returns to a thoughtful, orchestral sound. Later, as the conflict between Light and Wily intensifies, the songs get faster and adopt more of a 1980s-inspired synthwave style, exemplified best in the songs “Break Out” and “Light Up the Night.” This sound points the way to the band’s third album, for which fans—aside from a tantalizing preview in the form of the 2022 stand-alone single “The Fight”—would have to wait seventeen years.

Act III: This City Made Us (2026)

Act III is the culmination of The Protomen’s story—not just of the literal story that the three albums tell but also of the band’s musical growth. Here, they perfectly realize their fusion of upbeat hard rock and expansive, synthwave electronica. Taking place some years after the events of Act I, it introduces a new, unnamed character: a budding revolutionary (also voiced by Gambler) who, much like Light before her, is determined to bring about a change for which the passive masses aren’t prepared to fight.

The story kicks off with “Hold Back the Night,” a galloping revolutionary anthem driven as much by Gambler’s energetic, soaring vocals as by the driving guitars, synths, and percussion. After each verse describing her struggle to survive in Wily’s world, she opens each chorus by bellowing “But I know a hero will come!” This refers to the aging Light, whose distant figure she has seen observing the increasing disorder as some of the young people start to oppose Wily’s control. Eventually, after she finds Light during a slowed-down instrumental interlude, he bursts into the song with a counterpoint to her optimistic choruses, driven by his deep regret over his part in creating Wily’s world:

But all of your heroes are gone
And the blood that they spilled is on my hands
A darkness will block out the sun
Not a thing can be done with so few men
That a hero couldn’t do!

She responds to his guilt with an appeal to his sense of responsibility:

When the voice from the shadows calls you
When the wind whips past your ears
Will you stand when the weight is upon you
Or will you go to your knees in fear?

There’s a chance, though I know it’s a long shot
And the city’s out of time
All for naught if your heart stops beating
’cause you’re the only one that keeps it alive
God, keep it alive!

Then, in the final chorus, the two voices debate in another instance of overlapping polyphony, driving the song to a powerful release of energy in its conclusion.

Following the example of “Hold Back the Night,” most of the album is brighter and more upbeat than its predecessors. Whereas the previous albums focused heavily on the consequences of widespread apathy about freedom, this album focuses more on the fact that hope endures as long as some are willing to fight.

With fifteen tracks, This City Made Us is a rock opera in its own right, taking us on a whole journey of a grassroots revolution and a state’s efforts to suppress it. This is The Protomen at their most Orwellian (a descriptor the band readily embraces), with the full apparatus of Wily’s regime directed at not merely suppressing the dissidents but also turning the masses against them with false-flag attacks and incessant, inescapable propaganda.

The dramatic story that The Protomen tell across their three-album series is a tale of individuals with a vision of freedom fighting against collective apathy. In a recent interview, the band members expressed their sadness that real events have paralleled the story they set out to tell in 2005, demonstrating the difficulty of motivating people to stand up for important values in a society driven by groupthink and emotionalism:

Our storyline that we’ve been writing all these years is happening all around us now. . . . As a human being in the year 2026, I didn’t know that I could get more jaded with society than in 2005.

Our first record is very much about the failure of mankind as a whole to rise to heroism or to rise to the place that they needed to be—the lowest level of making an effort. So we started out from that place and I think as we’ve gone through the acts, we try to keep hope alive. Even if it perhaps gets more and more difficult to do it, it’s still there. You have to search for the hope. That’s really what it comes down to.2

The Protomen’s rock opera series is a musical voyage exploring responsibility for one’s choices, the human cost of tyranny, and the nature of heroism. It ultimately conveys the theme that whatever physical strength a hero may possess, freedom depends on a substantial number of people understanding its importance. On the surface, it’s a riveting story told through colorful, complex, emotionally charged music. On a deeper level, it’s a warning to stand up for freedom and human life before it’s too late.

Few philosophers are as widely quoted as Friedrich Nietzsche—yet few truly understand his ideas. To do so requires disentangling his own contradictions and 150 years of his ideas being misconstrued by those entrusted to convey them. But, with the assistance of a capable, objective guide, it’s possible to get real value from his many powerful insights and novel ideas without falling pray to his misintegrations. One such guide is Sue Prideaux’s I Am Dynamite, and Margherita Bovo’s new review of this book demonstrates how it dispels many of the misconceptions that abound regarding Nietzsche’s philosophy, leaving the way clear to appreciate his many significant steps in the right direction.

Also this week, Craig Biddle discusses the nature and existence of free will with Gregg Caruso, and we celebrate the birthdays of swing music legend Duke Ellington and prolific author of Western novels Elmer Kelton.

I hope you enjoy this week’s articles,

Thomas F. Walker
Managing Editor

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This Week’s Birthdays

“I believe the work The Objective Standard is doing is imperative to the future of our nation.” —Miguel

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London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 2018
452 pp., $19.14

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) has become one of the most widely studied thinkers in the history of philosophy.1 On one hand, he offered valuable tools to conduct one’s life independently and without fear of mystical superstitions while on the other, he denied free will and often conflated religious ethics with morality. A lot has been said about him—some fair praise, often focusing on his individualism and rejection of Christian morality, and some reasonable criticism, such as that about his rejection of “absolute reason.”2 However, many critics falsely paint him as a thinker who sought to justify violence as the primary way to defend one’s ideas, as a precursor of Nazism, or as an extreme relativist.

Without a capable guide, unpacking his ideas to understand and get value from his work without falling prey either to the same errors he did or to the many popular mischaracterizations of his ideas is challenging. Sue Prideaux offers that guide in her book I Am Dynamite! A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche (2018). In a welcome change from the common tendency to misconstrue him, she precisely reconstructs Nietzsche’s philosophy as he developed it throughout his life. The work is biographical, chronologically recounting the main events Nietzsche lived through and how they affected his intellectual development.

It begins with a description of Nietzsche’s childhood and the oppressive Protestant environment in which he grew up. His mother and sister were devoted Christians, and they intended Nietzsche to become a Protestant pastor like his father, who had died during Nietzsche’s infancy due to a cerebral condition that was not understood at the time. Prideaux then describes the education Nietzsche received at the famous Pforta School, at that time a respected institution for humanities yet “an ecclesiastical fortress” permeated with mysticism (25). The book’s description of his childhood and youth clarifies the root of Nietzsche’s later hostility toward religion and his intellectual background—including the fact that he was never formally trained in philosophy (he enrolled to study theology first and later switched to philology).

This background enables Prideaux to properly contextualize Nietzsche’s first work—and arguably one of his least understood. In The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Nietzsche introduced two categories that, according to him, explain the Greek sense of life that this genre embodies: Apollonian and Dionysian.3 These would later become key parts of his philosophy, so Prideaux expounds this framework. She explains that the Apollonian worldview is made of images, geometry, and steadiness and is embodied in the god Apollo. On the other hand, the Dionysian artistic impulse is a stronger force in the human mind, embodied by the god Dionysus, which makes an individual’s certainty crumble and leads him to realize that life is often dark and chaotic. In Nietzsche’s view, the cooperation of these seemingly opposed forces helped the Greeks embrace life without idealizing it or fearing it. Many scholars focus on these two concepts, but they do not always explain them accurately or recognize the importance of The Birth of Tragedy in Nietzsche’s development of this idea; they claim that to embrace the Dionysian side of life meant to pursue an “intoxication” of whims, lust, and drunkenness—even though he remarked that most Greeks were wise enough not to embrace such hedonistic behavior.4 Prideaux is aware of this balance and is precise in describing “Apollonian and Dionysian” as two spheres “responsible for the development of art and culture” in Nietzsche’s view (111). She also points out that with this work Nietzsche became a philosopher, even if many academics were horrified by the lack of footnotes, his decision not to include a meticulous analysis of ancient texts, and his supposedly imprecise vocabulary.

Prideaux also mentions a collection that scholars often do not engage with enough: the Untimely Meditations (1873–1876). In one of these volumes, On the Use and Abuse of History for Life (1874), Nietzsche described the main ways that people approached history and identified the main points of weakness in each approach. Prideaux is clearly aware that Nietzsche was trying to elaborate a new method to approach history, philosophy, and reality in general at this point, whereas most scholars admit this only in relation to Nietzsche’s later works, such as The Gay Science (1882), Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–1885), or Beyond Good and Evil (1886). By considering Nietzsche’s earlier works, the book shows a philosopher who grappled with reality and with the mystical premises widely accepted in his own time to gain enough tools to later show that what Christians and most people consider “good”—including selflessness, obedience, and humility—is bad for individuals and derives from hypocrisy and envy rather than from a proper view on life.5 This reconstruction refutes the popular misconception that Nietzsche rejected morality merely for the sake of dismissing it.

In describing his later works, Prideaux connects them to his close friendships with the author and psychoanalyst Lou Salomé (1861–1937) and the philosopher Paul Rée (1849–1901). The three thinkers aimed to live according to their own ideas about morality and philosophy rather than accepting the dominant Christian ethics (255). Nietzsche devoted himself to that cause in an unconventional way, often writing aphorisms rather than linear treatises, because he associated the latter with academia, which—as Prideaux shows—was an environment in which Nietzsche felt uncomfortable. This way, he was able to reach a broader audience, but it also made it easier to misinterpret his meaning. Prideaux systematically analyzes Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which acknowledges that only this world exists and that, despite life being hard, we have no excuse for dismissing and evading it. She is interested in this work because Nietzsche presents here his concept of the “Übermensch” (generally translated as “Superman” or “Beyond-Man”), whose aim is to live beyond the average man’s religious framework. The prophetic character of Zarathustra proclaims the aim of the Übermensch as giving meaning to life on this planet, admonishes the readers to ignore those who promise otherworldly fulfillment, and reminds them to “remain true to the earth.”6 Many critics claim Nietzsche’s philosophy aggrandizes violence against weaker people, particularly focusing on his description of the Übermensch, but Prideaux provides evidence to reject this claim.7 While recounting Nietzsche’s youth, she mentions his unease toward Prussia’s brutality during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) and his disillusionment in seeing the newly united Germany being ruled by nationalists who supported and further spread antisemitic ideas (103). Prideaux also highlights what Nietzsche later wrote in one of his notebooks: “[I]f we could dissuade from wars, so much better” (369).

Prideaux is aware that some of Nietzsche’s statements have been controversial and that many interpret them as racist, especially when he criticizes the “morality of resentment” that, according to him, started with early Jewish religion. She focuses on his claims in On the Genealogy of Morality (1887) to clarify their real meaning. She points out that in this work Nietzsche claims that those who embraced this moral code condemned other individuals rather than working on themselves and labeled as evil what they were not able to achieve, such as self-interest, strength, or independent thought.8 This is how he believed the morality of altruism was invented: For such individuals, life in this world became irrelevant because they couldn’t succeed at it. So, exceptional individuals ought to feel guilty because of their success and sacrifice themselves for mediocre people, and their virtue was portrayed as vice. This kind of morality must be rejected, Nietzsche held, so he traced its development through time to attack its foundations. However, he did not believe that every Jew was responsible for altruism only by being a Jew. Any individual who embraced this wrong view was guilty, regardless of his race. Further evidence of this is Nietzsche’s decision to end his friendship with the well-known composer Richard Wagner (1813–1883): Prideaux highlights that he could not tolerate Wagner’s antisemitic and nationalist ideas any longer and that, in response, Wagner spread rumors about Nietzsche being a dissolute who built a whole philosophic system to justify his sins (233). She also recounts that when his sister, Elisabeth (1846–1935), and her husband, Bernard Förster (1843–1889), left Europe and founded an Aryan colony in Paraguay, Nietzsche was horrified.

Prideaux also describes the moments when Nietzsche’s disagreements with his family reached a peak, and his friendship with Salomé and Rée was ruined by a rivalry with Rée (as they had both developed feelings for Salomé). Nietzsche became deeply lonely while his physical health continued to deteriorate. The context provided is useful to better understand why his thoughts became even more focused on suffering even if he did not accept pessimism. According to him, an individual who embraces life rather than relying on mysticism despite all the challenges reality presents is able to live fully and love his existence. The concept of “will to power” is related to this, but Nietzsche never had the chance to develop it. He was beginning to work on an outline for his new book, The Will to Power, when his mental health was seriously compromised. Prideaux tries to reconstruct what happened on the morning of January 3, 1889, when Nietzsche had a serious mental breakdown after seeing a horse being beaten by its owner. For the following eleven years, his sister insisted on being the only one to look after him. Prideaux examines Nietzsche’s father’s undiagnosed condition, which Nietzsche might have inherited and would explain his later decline. This is useful to readers who might have heard rumors about Nietzsche contracting syphilis in his early twenties, which some claim both as the cause of his decline and as evidence of a hedonistic lifestyle. Prideaux’s examination of the evidence indicates that this is not the likely explanation, dispelling the idea that Nietzsche was a hedonist rather than a sophisticated thinker.9

The following chapters focus on the damage Elisabeth caused to her brother and his intellectual heritage. She never approved of his anti-religious ideas or his friendship with Salomé. While he was losing his ability to move and speak due to a progressive cerebral paralysis, Elisabeth edited Nietzsche’s notes, omitting or editing some passages that were openly against her and focused on spreading decontextualized statements from his unpublished aphorisms that could look close to her own antisemitic ideas. She manipulated his drafts to convey that Nietzsche regarded the will to power as the will of superior people to gain power and use force against weaker individuals.

Friedrich Nietzsche died on August 25, 1900. Later, the Nazis fully supported Elisabeth’s portrayal of Nietzsche’s ideas and considered him an Aryan hero. They presented him as a leader whose ideas would bring about a nation of Übermensch who could embody the will to power, which many interpreted as the desire to obtain power over others by force. None of this is true. Prideaux knows it and firmly condemns what Elisabeth did. She also remarks, “[T]o be a source of political theories had never been Nietzsche’s aim” because “he was only ever interested in man as an individual, rather than a herd animal—be the herd political or religious” (375).

The book’s main strength is the way it combines biographical data and philosophic explanations. The wording is precise yet nonacademic, so a broad audience can benefit from it. Prideaux knows that it is almost impossible to separate Nietzsche’s ideas from his life, especially his rejection of mysticism and violence and his thoughts on suffering. She also concentrates on the misinterpretations of Nietzsche’s ideas and explains why they are wrong. Her focus on the distortion that Elisabeth and the Nazis made of the Nietzschean philosophy demonstrates that scholars’ misunderstandings of Nietzsche’s ideas in the last century come from his sister and not from his words.

Prideaux does not fully cover one major point of Nietzsche’s philosophy: the fact that he rejected the idea of universal morality. She partly explains the reasons for this, such as the fact that he rejected religious absolute views on good and evil, but she does not identify the fact that his conflation of religious absolutism with morality as such created a self-contradiction in his work, much of which consists of moral proclamations.

Although Prideaux’s book does not exhaustively deal with Nietzsche’s view on morality and is not a fully evaluative work, it provides a valuable guide to his philosophy and successfully shows that Nietzsche’s ideas are a useful tool for rejecting dogmas and understanding the roots of Judeo-Christian morality. She describes the way he advocated for a form of individualism that leads to work on oneself rather than blaming others and the reasons that led him to reject any form of conformism (or “herd instinct”). Nietzsche is an interesting yet still often misunderstood thinker, and Prideaux’s analysis of him is a good starting point to discover his ideas without demonizing or idealizing them.

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Great artists—be they writers, musicians, painters, poets—are true heroes who enhance our lives by bringing us joy and helping us deal with life’s questions and challenges. In this week’s new article, Rebecca Day profiles one such artist: Little Feat founding member and former frontman Lowell George. Her article has left me eager to dive into George’s impressive creative output from his sadly short life.

This week we also celebrate two literary anniversaries —Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid’s Tale on April 17, 1985, and Charlotte Brönte was born on April 21, 1816." Both penned works that, in very different ways, concretized the importance of independence. Alongside them, we also celebrate baseball legend Jackie Robinson and hero of the American Revolution Joseph Warren.

I hope you enjoy this week’s articles,

Thomas F. Walker
Managing Editor

What’s New?

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“I believe the work The Objective Standard is doing is imperative to the future of our nation.” —Miguel

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The musical landscape of the 1970s was filled with artistic rule breakers, and singer-songwriter Lowell George was certainly one of them. His dynamic approach, a sort of controlled chaos, produced melodies and musical works that are still being performed and covered today. His devotion to creative freedom shaped his entire body of work and produced one of rock ’n’ roll’s most innovative, original bands. George’s career path was harder than most because of his uncompromising mindset. His wife, Elizabeth, alluded to the fact that for him the road less traveled was inevitable. “There was nothing regular about the guy,” she said while reflecting on his lasting legacy.^[1]

His group was called Little Feat, but George’s fusion of genres from folk to funk was anything but. He created momentous songs by pulling inspiration out of everyday experiences, including such classics as the band’s breakout single, “Willin.’” Trips to New Orleans were catalysts for George’s stylistic innovation, reaching a peak with the landmark album Feats Don’t Fail Me Now. Even lesser-known tracks from his repertoire show an artist determined to scale a musical summit of his own making. His enigmatic artistry spanned genres, and his label struggled to put his music in a mainstream stylistic box, making it harder to sell records. But dedicated listeners who showed up in droves to his shows with Little Feat helped him become one of rock’s unsung heroes. And his discography, showcasing melodic ingenuity, emotional depth, and artistic passion, made him one of rock’s most skilled explorers.

From Setback to Launch Point

In 1969, legend goes that George was fired by one of music’s most mysterious yet influential figures, Frank Zappa. George’s termination from Zappa’s group, The Mothers of Invention, was for good reason. Zappa thought the budding performer was too good to be in a supporting role in a band; he advised George to found one himself. And in the dawn of a 1970s Los Angeles music scene caught between the haze of the folk revival of the 1960s and the forthcoming progressive rock movement, George did exactly that. He teamed up with keyboardist Bill Payne, drummer Richie Hayward, and bassist Roy Estrada to form Little Feat.

In George’s own band, he encouraged and supported his bandmates’ creative experimentation with their instruments and musicianship as long as it stayed true to his overall genre-bending vision for soulful melodies and grooving rhythms. An excerpt from the Rock and Roll Doctor biography highlights Zappa’s influence:

George saw in Zappa’s management of the Mothers a model of how a band could be run. It was a model that worked, that was productive, and that allowed for individual creativity—but within the clear boundaries set by the bandleader. This idea of how things might be was to stay with him throughout his career.^[2]

By 1971, Little Feat released its debut self-titled album. It featured “Willin,’” an acoustic-based, easy-listening ballad about the adventures of a trucker and his perseverance and personal triumphs through the twists and turns of his journey. George came up with the idea for the song before forming his band. In his college days he often drummed up inspiration outside the classroom. “Willin’” was inspired by his time spent working as a gas station attendant, and it would become one of his signature songs.^[3]

George loved studying philosophy, and in interviews he sometimes quoted classical philosophers such as Socrates. For him, everything was interesting, and his insatiable curiosity made him a fount for songwriting and creative playing.

“Lowell quickly developed his own ‘sound’ which featured clean compressed notes played with precision and filled with sustain,” Gelinas writes:

Along with Lowell’s unique slide guitar, he was also developing a distinctive vocal style which employed the technique of melissima by which the singer melodically embellishes certain syllables within a [phrase]. This style of singing, much like Lowell’s slide guitar, would become a critical element of Little Feat’s musical identity.^[4]

After the group’s Sailin’ Shoes album in 1972, George especially wanted to expand the band’s artistic dimensions. Bandmate Bill Payne shared in an interview the talks he and George had when they first started playing together that reflected this creative desire:

We talked about the kind of band we wanted it to be. Should we have a horn section? What should the bass player play? Are we going to relegate ourselves to one style of music? We decided there shouldn’t be any limits to what we would do. If we wanted to play a waltz, great. If we wanted to play a straight-ahead song, fine.^[5]

By 1973, Little Feat’s third album, Dixie Chicken, featuring the popular title track and deep-cut-turned-cult-classic “Roll Um Easy,” marked the arrival of the sound that George had been experimenting with for years—a fresh integrated style he formed out of countless others. The album features an expanded sound (the band was now a six-piece) and boasted Cajun stylings, blues influences, and folk nuances, all with a classic rock ’n’ roll feel.

For a while, Little Feat averaged one album per year, made possible by George’s unrelenting work ethic. In a 1994 interview with Mojo, British musician Robert Palmer chatted about going on tour with Little Feat and how impressed he was with George’s commitment to his musical vision. “Lowell George was extremely bright, with a surreal sort of wit, and he was basically a workaholic. Day and night, all he did was make music.”^[6]

In 1974, Little Feat reached a peak with its critically acclaimed record, Feats Don’t Fail Me Now. The band hailed from California, but their sound was unmistakably southern-inspired. George took naturally to the stylings of New Orleans musicians when he and the band visited the bustling city. Present throughout each song were a horn section, syncopated rhythms common in Louisiana, and lyrical stories with equal parts glamor and grit.

Fearless Creative Approach

“We were very eclectic. We took a lot of chances,” George explained during an interview with Little Feat about his time.^[7] His penchant for creative risk-taking fostered the band’s innovative, wide-ranging sound. Journalist Elizabeth Nelson described his fearless approach to creativity: “Like a method actor, he had an eerie way of fully transforming himself into whatever a project required. Chamber music, blue-eyed soul, and avant-blues all came to him without inhibition.”^[8] Gelinas noted that the American musical landscape of the 1970s often featured “musical primitives with more enthusiasm than dexterity.”^[9]

But George possessed both, and for him, dexterity was more than a skill: it was a mindset, and he applied it to technology as much as his artistry. During the evolution of rock ’n’ roll in the 1970s, musicians embraced technological creativity while forging new sounds. Nowadays, digital audio interfaces make it easy to experiment with harmonies, instruments, and overdubbing—the process of recording different tracks over one another to create a layered final song. But when George was in the studio, he didn’t have any shortcuts. So, he helped pioneer a technique that became a defining recording tactic before digital recording software became available in the late 1980s—one he had begun toying around with during his days playing with Zappa. To layer tracks over one another, George physically altered the tapes he recorded onto by cutting sections with a razor blade and rearranging them with special adhesive. In a 1975 interview in zigzag magazine, George relayed his experimental approach with tape when he stated, “I use tape like someone would use manuscript paper.”^[10] Although this was time-consuming and costly, it was essential to his creative process. Tape splicing helped him come up with new ideas for songs and show bandmates how he wanted specific sections to be played. The editing technique helped add to Little Feat’s genre-blending, no-holds-barred style because it gave him ultimate control over the feel of the band’s sound, rather than experimenting for its own sake.

George was a skilled musician and audio engineer, but his artistic perspective was as influential to his studio sessions as his technical prowess. Little Feat’s sound gave listeners welcome surprises. One could never quite predict when George would cue a bass solo or a drum breakdown, and his lyrics and song narratives were anything but formulaic. He understood that this liveliness needed to be contrasted with steadiness. And that steadiness could be found in the silence he left between notes.

“Space is a place” was his studio motto.^[11] As rock music got busier, sometimes producing noise for noise’s sake, George’s compositions were guided by breathing room as much as the notes themselves, making for a dynamic listening experience no matter the album. Because of this motto, his slide guitar solos sang rather than screamed; they didn’t demand attention: they beckoned listeners, pulling them in.

His ingenuity didn’t stop at the studio. When performing, he often played slide guitar with a spark plug socket wrench rather than a traditional bottleneck slide, allowing him to sustain notes longer. His slide setup also gave his playing a distinct texture that evoked some of his heaviest blues influences.

The Inspiration of Howlin’ Wolf

No other musician influenced the California songwriter more than black Chicago blues vocalist Chester Burnett. Better known as Howlin’ Wolf, he remains one of America’s legendary bluesmen, releasing such enduring classics as “Smokestack Lightning.” During his heyday in the 1950s, yodeling was still popular among genres such as country, blues, and folk, but Howlin’ Wolf couldn’t yodel. Instead, when he sang in falsetto, he created a vocal slide up to a note, then held it, adding plenty of vibrato to give his vocal runs a melodic howl in place of yodeling (artists such as Adele use this technique often nowadays, but Howlin’ Wolf helped pioneer it). George followed in his footsteps in creatively overcoming musical limitations. Due to a hand injury sustained while working on model planes, it was hard for George to fully fret all six guitar strings with his left hand. So, he mastered slide guitar instead.

George was so taken with Howlin’ Wolf that he created a litmus test in his honor, which he used to decide with whom he wanted to work. If someone mentioned a player who wanted to collaborate with him, George would ask, “Is he versed in the ways of Chester Burnett?”^[12] If the player didn’t know that Chester Burnett was Howlin’ Wolf’s real name, George wasn’t interested.

In the 1960s and 1970s, it was common for musicians who happened to be white to be influenced by the blues, a historically black genre. George covered Howlin’ Wolf live with such songs as “How Many More Years.” Some critics worried that these white artists were committing what some would now call “cultural appropriation,” the supposed co-opting of a “marginalized” culture by a “dominant” one. But in a 1967 interview, Howlin’ Wolf highlighted how foundational blues musicians could profit from their music becoming mainstream. When asked about the prevalence of musicians, including young, white musicians, recording blues music from the past, he responded by pointing out that music has the power to connect different musicians through the shared love of a melody. He explained, “It doesn’t matter no different who sang your song. They sang because of the way they feel.”^[13] Adopting an entrepreneurial mindset, he also remarked, “Well I’ll tell you, there’s nothing wrong with that. I want all of them to make my records, because I gets money out of it, see,” he said, referencing the royalty payments he would receive when someone covered his songs.^[14]

For George, Howlin’ Wolf’s catalog and the blues genre as a whole didn’t represent an opportunity for appropriation, but appreciation and innovation. In the blues he found artistic alignment and inspiration.

“What Is Success?”

Among their loyal following, the visionary rock group was known as a must-see live band for their energetic performances. While writing for Let It Rock magazine, journalist Mick Houghton highlighted the band’s tight-knit sound, a foundation that anchored performances through lengthy solos and various reimagined versions of their originals. “As musicians Little Feat are as compatible an outfit as you could hope to find,” he writes.^[15] But George also felt right at home in a recording studio.

“Lowell George’s distinctive style of slide guitar and vocalizing,” writes Gelinas, “helped create a style of music that was a unique blend of second-line funk, gospel, Chicago blues, jazz and country balladry that still stands today as one of the most unique developments in American popular music during the 1970s.”^[16]

For George, music was all about exploration. But for his band’s label, Warner Bros. Records, music needed to be about replication. It was hard for a label to promote a band it struggled to define stylistically. George would not renounce his artistic vision for anyone or anything. He understood the importance of being a profitable act. But for the visionary musician, profit had to be married to passion no matter the project. “What is success?” he asked during an interview. “It certainly isn’t money,” he answered. He then clarified, “Money helps. But doing something that you really like doing as a profession is really success to me.”^[17] After album release days, George would visit various stores in person, only to find their new record wasn’t stocked.^[18] Instead of changing his band’s sound to a more mainstream rock to boost sales and please the label, he and his bandmates toured extensively to make up the difference. The pressures of being a band manager, frontman, producer, and songwriter wore on George over the group’s ten years together from 1969 to 1979. As Little Feat disbanded due to personal differences and professional fatigue, George set out on a solo career. In March 1979, he released his debut solo album, Thanks I’ll Eat It Here. But poor health and substance abuse caught up with the dedicated musician. In June 1979, George passed away from a heart attack at the age of thirty-four. Although he battled and sometimes succumbed to vices, his artistic virtue eclipsed them.

Little Feat’s heroic legacy is not that of record label darling or radio-friendly band but of a group revered by record label darlings and radio-friendly bands. Little Feat was a band’s band, and George was a musician’s musician. Led Zeppelin founder and lead guitarist Jimmy Page once called Little Feat his “favorite American group.”^[19] His bandmate, singer and frontman Robert Plant, once got a slap on the wrist for playing Little Feat records too loud in a hotel. Both modern blues icon Eric Clapton and one of rock’s most famous bands, Van Halen, covered George’s originals live and on records. Folk-rocker Jackson Browne was so taken with George’s magnetism that he called him “the Orson Welles of rock.”^[20]

At Little Feat’s helm was an imperfect but ingenious captain who navigated and explored the islands of musical genres and built from his discoveries a new melodic world—a world today’s musicians continue to mine for their own artistic gold.

^[1] Mark Brend, Rock and Roll Doctor, Backbeat Books, 2002, 6, https://archive.org/details/rockrolldoctorlo0000bren/mode/2up.

^[2] J P Gelinas, “Lowell George, Perfect Imperfection,” Furious magazine, August 2008, https://www.furious.com/perfect/lowellgeorge.html.

^[3] Gelinas, “Lowell George, Perfect Imperfection.”

^[4] Gelinas, “Lowell George, Perfect Imperfection.”

^[5] Gelinas, “Lowell George, Perfect Imperfection.”

^[6] Paul Sexton, “Pursuing Atmosphere in Music: Robert Palmer in 20 Quotes,” udiscovermusic, 2006, https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/robert-palmer-in-20-quotes.

^[7] Earl Guthrie, “Lowell George Interview WXRT Chicago, June 15, 1979,”

.

^[8] Elizabeth Nelson, “Lowell George in Eight and a Half Songs, Oxford American, December 2021, https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-115-winter-2021/lowell-george-in-eight-and-a-half-songs.

^[9] Gelinas, “Lowell George, Perfect Imperfection.”

^[10] Gelinas, “Lowell George, Perfect Imperfection.”

^[11] “Lowell George: Feats First,” directed by Jon Storey, 2015, https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B078TNR4J9/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r.

^[12] Albert Corey, “Lowell George—Feats First,” Life since the Baby Boom, July 2023,

Life Since the Baby Boom

Lowell George - Feats First

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3 years ago · 2 likes · Albert Cory

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^[13] Chris Stratchwitz, “Howlin’ Wolf Interview,” The Chris Stratchwitz Collection, Arhoolie Foundation, April 1967, https://arhoolie.org/howlin-wolf-interview-2/.

^[14] Stratchwitz, “Howlin’ Wolf Interview.”

^[15] Michael Houghton, “Little Feat Albums,” Let It Rock, March 1975, Rock’s Backpages, https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/little-feat-albums.

^[16] Gelinas, “Lowell George, Perfect Imperfection.”

^[17] Guthrie, “Lowell George Interview WXRT Chicago.”

^[18] Jon Storey, “Lowell George: Feats First,” Pride Studios, 2015, Amazon.

^[19] Jackson Maxwell, “Eric Clapton and Van Halen Covered His Songs, and He Led Jimmy Page’s Favorite American Band: Watch Overlooked Guitar Genius Lowell George Demonstrate His Slide Technique on German TV,” Guitar World magazine, July 2023, https://www.guitarworld.com/features/lowell-george-slide-guitar-german-tv-1977.

^[20] Maxwell, “Watch Overlooked Guitar Genius Lowell George.”

Human civilization is capable of reaching far greater heights than anything seen until now, and this week’s Artemis II flight around the Moon is a tantalizing glimpse of the future we could have. But the fact that it has taken fifty-four years for humans to return to the Moon is a stark reminder that we could have been much closer to that future by now.

In my new article on the flight of Artemis II, I explore the story of America’s space program from the Apollo to the present day, identifying why it’s failed to achieve its long-held goals of a permanent human presence on the Moon and the manned exploration of Mars and beyond. In answering that question, it becomes clear that the Artemis Program shares many of the same flaws that undermine its predecessors, and that if we want to see a spacefaring future for humankind, a different approach is needed.

I hope you enjoy this week’s articles,

Thomas F. Walker
Managing Editor

What’s New?

From the Archive

This Week’s Birthdays

“I believe the work The Objective Standard is doing is imperative to the future of our nation.” —Miguel

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Human beings are finally visiting the Moon for the first time since 1972, flying past the far side further than any human has gone before. NASA intends the Artemis II mission as the first step toward a permanent human lunar presence. In the fifty-four years since Apollo 17, humans have only left the relative safety of “low Earth orbit” (up to about four hundred miles) once, during SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission in 2024.^[1] That flight reached a maximum orbital height of 870 miles—a record for humans in Earth orbit but a tiny fraction of the 250,000 miles to the Moon that Artemis II’s Orion spacecraft has now traversed.

The fact that we have returned at last to our nearest cosmic neighbor is cause for celebration. A permanent human presence on the Moon could unlock tremendous benefits. The Moon has naturally occurring helium-3, an incredibly energy-dense isotope not found on Earth that could revolutionize power generation. It also has abundant precious metals.^[2] A human settlement on the Moon could serve as a scientific outpost, a waypoint for flights to Mars and beyond, a site for prosperous mining operations, an opportunity to build innovative new societies in a demanding frontier environment, and even as a lucrative tourist destination. All these things would also act as economic and technological turbochargers for innovation and industry back on Earth.

But the flight of Artemis II also shines a spotlight on a critical question: Why has this taken so long? And now that we’re going back, this time will we stay? Answering these questions reveals serious problems with the Artemis program and how successful this attempt at lunar colonization is likely to be.

How We Got Here

To answer these questions, we need to understand the motivations behind the way the American space program has been managed until now, beginning with the Apollo program. Although the Apollo Moon landings were hailed as a step forward in the human exploration of space and they did contribute valuably to many fields of science, neither scientific exploration nor the establishment of a viable colony in space was their principal purpose. Rather, the core purpose of the program was twofold:

1. Prevent the Soviet Union from establishing dominance in space and on the Moon, which it likely would have used for military purposes.

2. Demonstrate the superiority of American industry and technological capability over that of the Soviet Union (and thereby of capitalism over communism).^[3]

When Apollo 11 landed on the Moon in 1969 after a decade of the Soviets leading in the space race, many in the West assumed that America had, at least then, gained the lead in a race that was far from over. They didn’t know (and wouldn’t until the 1990s) that the USSR’s hopes for a lunar mission were literally crashing and burning. The Soviet lunar program was beset by two leading men aggressively competing for the favor of the Politburo, sometimes even sabotaging each other’s work, and a regime that threatened and silenced “disloyal” individuals who pointed out flaws in the rocket’s design and the program’s management.^[4] Accordingly, it failed catastrophically. Four of the colossal rockets exploded, one of them taking much of the launch complex and ninety-one lives with it, before the Soviets gave up their ambitions of a manned lunar program.^[5]

By the early 1970s, it was clear that the Soviets weren’t going to the Moon. They had refocused their space program on Earth-orbiting stations. At that point, a harsh reality set in: The Apollo program was not designed to facilitate development of an economically viable, long-term human presence on the Moon. It was designed to win the space race, and it had. So, Congress canceled the program. With the Russians focused on space stations, NASA tried instead to regear the hardware intended for future Apollo missions to develop an American space station. It had mixed success. But as relations between the United States and the USSR became less tense (the two countries even staged a joint manned space mission in 1975), the military justification for manned spaceflight seemed largely to have evaporated.

So, another harsh reality set in: For manned spaceflight to continue, it needed to have a sound economic justification. NASA saw the need to transform its manned space program into a commercial enterprise that could pay at least some of its own costs. But thanks to the program’s military origins, combined with the widespread belief at the time that government-planned programs were the road to prosperity, the prevailing mentality was still that manned spaceflight should be delivered by NASA. So, it developed a plan for a new type of spacecraft: the Space Shuttle. Unlike the single-use Apollo capsules, the Shuttle would be partially reusable, theoretically making it cheaper to fly. It would be limited to low Earth orbit, but it would have a larger crew and cargo capacity, enabling NASA to launch large payloads and repair satellites in orbit on a commercial basis. NASA envisioned a hundred Shuttle launches a year building a thriving orbital economy.^[6]

But it was not to be. The Shuttle program ran years behind schedule, and the vehicles proved extremely complex to manufacture and maintain. In a failed attempt to cut costs, NASA and its partners made changes to the design that negated the Shuttle’s efficiency benefits, resulting in an overweight craft that was more expensive to launch than a traditional rocket.^[7] Contractors, knowing that they were dealing with a government-funded program in which their profits were capped at a percentage of costs, made their processes inefficient to inflate their costs and maximize their profits.^[8] NASA officials attempted to bury reports that some of the Shuttle hardware was unsafe.^[9] The cracks were showing in the early 1980s with several near-miss accidents, but NASA pressed on, keen to demonstrate that the Shuttle could achieve its promises. After twenty-five flights, the illusion shattered. The Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated mid-launch live on national TV, destroyed by a fault that had been known about and covered up across countless flights. Seven astronauts died, including a schoolteacher who had been set to become the first civilian in space.

After Challenger, the Shuttle program never recovered. Terrified of another disaster, NASA implemented safety procedures that effectively limited the Shuttle to eight flights a year and dramatically increased launch costs. Nonetheless, another fatal crash occurred in 2003.^[10] On its final missions, the Shuttle had to sit rotating in space in front of the International Space Station (ISS) so that the crew could inspect its underside and confirm that it was safe to return to Earth.

After the Shuttle program ended, NASA became reliant on Russian spacecraft to service the ISS. But by this time the context had changed radically. Legal changes during the push to commercialize spaceflight in the 1980s had opened the door for private companies to develop their own launch systems, and by the end of the 2000s, several had done so. Further, China had developed and launched its own manned spacecraft, and China and several private companies were working on missions to the Moon and beyond. Keen to remove NASA’s reliance on Russian spacecraft, Congress ordered NASA to develop a two-pronged approach:

1. Develop a new launch system capable of reaching the Moon but build it using components from the Shuttle program to preserve existing jobs associated with Shuttle hardware.^[11] This became the Shuttle-derived Launch System (SLS) with the new Orion spacecraft riding atop.

2. Fund private companies to accelerate development of their launch systems and secure NASA’s use of them once they are serviceable.

Artemis II, launched fifteen years after the last Shuttle flight, is the first mission to use the SLS. That system, which relies on the same solid rocket boosters that caused the Challenger disaster, reportedly costs upward of $2 billion per launch.^[12] Meanwhile, NASA’s regular flights to the ISS are provided by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, a system that costs $140 million per launch and boasts a flawless safety record.^[13] SpaceX is now flying test missions of Starship, a radically new type of spacecraft that will, if successful, be able to reach the Moon and Mars while being far cheaper to launch than even the Falcon/Dragon system is.

This is the context of Artemis II. NASA is racing China and its own private-sector partners back to the Moon using an inordinately expensive rocket based on a failed 1970s program that only exists to protect special interests.

Will NASA’s Lunar Ambitions Succeed?

One significant advantage the Artemis program has is long-term establishment of an economically viable Moon settlement, one of its core objectives. Accordingly, early Artemis missions aim to do valuable work. Artemis II includes experiments that will study the effect of radiation on human bodies and on modern technology such as computer chips, especially during the passage through Earth’s outer magnetic field where solar radiation is concentrated. It will survey possible sites for future bases, including in the south polar region (never visited during Apollo) where water is known to exist. Following cancellation of NASA’s planned Lunar Gateway space station, the Artemis program now also includes use of that station’s already built components to construct the first permanent lunar base.

But how far any of this will get is in serious doubt. NASA’s funding has always depended on Congress; the amount and the way it must be spent swing wildly depending on its political makeup. One reason for the near-decade delay of the Artemis program is that funding and specifications for it and its precursor, the Constellation program, were changed repeatedly under the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations.^[14]

Then there’s the program’s enormous cost, brought about by its reliance on Shuttle-era hardware and NASA’s approach to developing new vehicles. SpaceX has adopted a “test and retest” approach, building vehicles it expects to fail and modifying them after each test flight until all the issues are ironed out. On the other hand, NASA, stung by its experience with the Shuttle, engages in a painstaking process of pre-flight simulations and testing with the goal of achieving a faultless first flight. This results in a long wait with many delays, during which costs spiral and NASA has zero return on investment. Whereas NASA took nearly twenty years to deliver one SLS launch, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets began earning money from customers barely five years after the company honed its design with four test flights of the Falcon 1.

SpaceX is motivated to develop a system it can use to make money from customers as well as advance its exploratory objectives, whereas NASA is creating a bespoke system that is only intended for launching Artemis missions and will never make back its development costs. SpaceX is motivated to create a highly reliable, low-cost product as quickly as possible, whereas NASA is motivated to prove to Congress that it’s delivering jobs in particular locations (whether or not those jobs are efficient), advancing the incumbent administration’s goals, and upholding American prestige in space. If it does those things, it gets funding, regardless of whether its programs make economic sense, provide a commercial service, or advance the exploration and colonization of space.

It’s important, given China’s lunar ambitions, that the spacecraft that take American businesses—and may one day need to take American military strength—to the Moon are efficient, reliable, and sustainable, not merely signs of prestige. Sadly, Artemis is hardly a poster boy for American innovation. Alongside the SLS with its Shuttle-era components, the Orion service module is based on the European Space Agency’s Automated Transfer Vehicle because the original NASA version was canceled to reduce costs. The main Orion command capsule takes direct inspiration from 1960s Apollo capsules and is, in many respects, less advanced than SpaceX’s Dragon.^[15]

With the way NASA’s deadlines slip, its goal of landing Artemis IV on the Moon by 2028 seems questionable. Because NASA canceled Orion’s lunar lander component, that mission depends not only on NASA’s test flights of SLS and Orion in Artemis II and III succeeding but also on either SpaceX or Blue Origin having a lander ready in lunar orbit for Orion to dock with. Meanwhile, China plans to land its first astronauts in 2030 with an integrated system of hardware it is already building and testing.^[16]

China’s lunar objectives are a legitimate reason for the U.S. government to invest in lunar transportation. A situation in which communist China dominates space doesn’t bear thinking about—the Moon’s resources would only be open to other countries through dealing with China, and China could develop the military capability to control the use of space for communications, Earth observation, and much more. But for Congress to fund development of the SLS and the Artemis program in parallel with Starship and other private lunar programs diverts resources into a system that will never be economical for long-term colonization. NASA and the Space Force would be far better off fully piggybacking on SpaceX and Blue Origin’s existing programs. That would rapidly open up the Moon to commercial development, save vast amounts of taxpayer money, and still provide the benefit that justifies any government involvement: the protection of commercial space activities from Chinese, Russian, and other threats by establishing the space equivalent of America’s domination—and the subsequent liberation—of the oceans.^[17]

Of course, NASA and Congress have far more objectives than just that. Through Artemis, they intend to oversee the progress of lunar science, colonization, and the Moon’s use as a gateway for further solar system exploration. In so doing, they will divert investment away from private attempts to achieve these goals. It may seem that science is better served by a government mission with scientific objectives than by a SpaceX mission designed to establish a tourist outpost, but the latter will create an economic incentive to build cheaper and better infrastructure for lunar operations. Before long, that will make doing science on the Moon far cheaper and more viable than launching a dedicated scientific mission there is today.

Ultimately, the job of government is to protect rights. NASA, as a government-funded body closely tied to the U.S. military, ought to focus on doing exactly that—developing its ability to ensure that America can protect commercial spaceflight and settlements from outside threats. In so doing, it will support those businesses in creating a truly viable lunar settlement. While China is learning from both the faults of America’s government space program and the innovations of its private ones, America has the opportunity to stay in the lead by focusing wholly on the latter. China has no private space industry remotely comparable to that of the United States. It will only win the race to the Moon if America continues to stumble along trying to make a zombie version of the Space Shuttle work instead of massively better alternatives.

Artemis II is certainly cause for celebration on many levels. Like Apollo, it is inspiring a new generation of people to take an interest in outer space. It will deliver a wide range of benefits, scientifically and technologically, that will help the future colonization of space. But it is also an embarrassing example of the consequences of government mismanagement of spaceflight going back decades.

Had NASA stepped back and truly opened the door to commercial spaceflight instead of developing the Space Shuttle in the 1970s, we’d probably have lunar settlements by now. Today, the private sector has developed spacecraft unlike anything NASA has ever had. If we want to see a flourishing future in space, we need to get behind private companies such as SpaceX and their incentives to commercialize space, not lumbering government programs that waste money constantly trying to adapt to the whims of politicians.

^[1] Kate Arkless-Gray, “Polaris Dawn—A New Dawn in Space,” Royal Aeronautical Society, 20 September 2024, https://www.aerosociety.com/news/polaris-dawn-a-new-dawn-in-space.

^[2] “Helium-3 Mining on the Lunar Surface,” European Space Agency, https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Preparing_for_the_Future/Space_for_Earth/Energy/Helium-3_mining_on_the_lunar_surface (accessed April 6, 2026);

John C.Johnson, et. al., “Understanding the Economic Worth of Precious Lunar Metals,” Universities Space Research Association, 2022, https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lunarsurface18/pdf/6001.pdf.

^[3] James Donovan, “Why Did the USA Have to Beat the Soviets to the Moon?,” History Hit, July 17, 2019, https://www.historyhit.com/why-did-the-usa-have-to-beat-the-soviets-to-the-moon.

^[4] Sven Etienne Peterson, “The Genius Who Launched the First Space Program,” Palladium, October 25, 2024, https://www.palladiummag.com/2024/10/25/the-genius-who-launched-the-first-space-program.

^[5] “Russian Space Disaster Revealed,” Flight Global, 29 March 1995, https://www.flightglobal.com/space/1995/03/russian-space-disaster-revealed.

^[6] T. A. Heppenheimer, “The Space Shuttle Decision: Chapter 6: Economics and the Shuttle,” National Space Society, 1999, https://nss.org/the-space-shuttle-decision-chapter-6.

^[7] Heppenheimer, “The Space Shuttle Decision.”

^[8] Thomas F. Walker, “How Going to Space Can Enhance Human Flourishing, with Dr. Robert Zubrin,” The Objective Standard, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer 2022),

^[9] Timothy Sandefur, “Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham (Review),” The Objective Standard, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Fall 2024).

^[10] “Columbia Disaster,” Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/event/Columbia-disaster (accessed April 6, 2026).

^[11] John Strickland, “The SLS: Too Expensive for Exploration?,” The Space Review, November 28, 2011, https://www.thespacereview.com/article/1979/1.

^[12] Eric Berger, “NASA Does not Deny the ‘Over $2 Billion’ Cost of a Single SLS Launch,” Ars Technica, November 8, 2019, http://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/nasa-does-not-deny-the-over-2-billion-cost-of-a-single-sls-launch.

^[13] Cassidy Ward, “How Much Does It Cost to Launch a Falcon 9 (and Other Rockets)?,” SyFy, May 10, 2024, https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/how-much-does-it-cost-to-launch-a-falcon-9-and-other-rockets.

^[14] Jonathan Amos, “Obama Cancels Moon Return Project,” BBC News, February 1, 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8489097.stm;
The timeline is complicated by President Obama’s 2010 cancellation of the Constellation Program, components of which then became components of Artemis. Artemis II, previously known as “Exploration Mission 2,” was originally meant to fly in the late 2010s.

^[15] R. D. Boozer, “The Future and the Past: Comparing Dragon and Orion,” The Space Review, May 4, 2015, https://www.thespacereview.com/article/2743/1.

^[16] Eduardo Baptista, “China’s Crewed Lunar Programme Eyes Astronaut Landing by 2030,” Reuters, April 2, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/science/chinas-crewed-lunar-programme-eyes-astronaut-landing-by-2030-2026-04-02.

^[17] Robert C. Rubel, “Navies and Economic Prosperity—the New Logic of Sea Power,” King’s College London, October 2012, https://www.kcl.ac.uk/dsd/assets/corbettpaper11.pdf.

In the philosophically muddled political culture we live in today, the prominent opposition to Marxism-inspired efforts to malign and undo the achievements of Western culture comes in the form of conservatism. In that context, it is increasingly common for conservatives to claim that Christianity was a key part of why the West became enlightened and industrialized, unlike other parts of the world. But is there truth to this claim? In his rigorous article, Frederick Seiler explores the role of religion in the scientific revolution to see how it may have helped or hindered the West’s embrace of science and reason.

I hope you enjoy this week’s articles,

Thomas Walker-Werth
Managing Editor

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Modern cinema is replete with movies that claim to be love stories, but what many of them depict as “love” is really infatuation rather than the esteeming of another person’s values and character. In his new review essay, Tim White highlights a recent example of this tendency, Luc Besson’s new adaptation of Dracula, noting the film’s merits compared to many modern movies while examining the errors it makes in depicting the nature of love.

True love can of course exist in the form of close friendships as well as romantic relationships. This week, I have decided to highlight a classicTV series—1971’s The Persuaders!—that depicts loving friendship exceptionally well, and that depicts the fact that a life of wealth and pleasure won’t be satisfying without a meaningful purpose.

I hope you enjoy this week’s articles,

Thomas Walker-Werth
Managing Editor

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Written and directed by Luc Besson
Starring Caleb Landry Jones, Zoë Bleu, Christoph Waltz
Distributed by SND (France)
Running time: 129 minutes
Rated R for graphic violence and brief nudity

Author’s note: This review essay contains major spoilers.

Dracula: A Love Tale (2025), arguably director Luc Besson’s most mature and ambitious film to date, elevates itself above most modern movies in two critically important ways: It engages deeply and sincerely with fundamental human values, and it respects its audience rather than lecturing them. It deserves meaningful praise on these grounds, but its reach ultimately exceeds its grasp because it tries to tell a love story without understanding what love is.

Sometime in the 15th century, Romanian prince Vladislav of Wallachia (a fictionalized version of Vlad the Impaler played by Caleb Landry Jones) leads a small army to victory against Ottoman invaders. He takes the field reluctantly; he would much rather be at home with his wife, Elisabeta (Zoë Bleu). They are in their mid-to-late thirties, but their relationship is passionate and youthful in its simplicity. They clearly adore one another, and their conversations imply that they would give up their political power in favor of a simpler life if they could.

While Vladislav is engaged in battle, a small band of Ottoman assassins hunts down Elisabeta, whom he believes has safely escaped the area. Vladislav rushes to her aid when he hears of the attack from a witness, but he is too late to save her.

Vladislav, enraged, confronts the local cardinal and accuses him of failing to “pray hard enough” for God to protect Elisabeta. When the cardinal protests that he is only God’s humble messenger and cannot force God to do anything, Vladislav responds, “Good. I have a message that I want you to deliver to him. Tell your God that, until he brings me back my wife, my life no longer belongs to him.” He then murders the cardinal and desecrates the chapel. For this transgression, God curses Vladislav with eternal unlife as the first vampire, Dracula. Over the next four centuries, Dracula scours the globe, searching tirelessly for Elisabeta, whom he is convinced eventually will be reincarnated.

Like countless stories throughout history, Dracula equates intense passion with love, but these are not the same thing. In the movie’s opening scenes, we see that Vladislav and Elisabeta have strong feelings for one another, but we never see where these feelings come from. Without knowing (or at least being able to reasonably infer) why they love one another, we cannot even say with any real confidence that the story we’re being told is a love story; we can, at best, only take the storyteller’s word for it.

Consider Bonnie and Clyde, who are almost always presented as having been deeply in love with one another. Together, they murdered at least twelve people, threatened and assaulted dozens of others, and stole around $2 million (in 2026 dollars). Both of them were evil—full stop. Does it make sense to say that evil people can experience true love? Most people can sense that something is deeply wrong with such a claim, even if they can’t articulate why.

Now consider Aragorn and Arwen from Lord of the Rings, arguably one of the best examples of romantic love in fiction. Both are exemplars of outstanding moral character, and both fight to shield Middle-Earth from Sauron’s relentless malice. They treat one another and their friends with sincere affection, respect, and kindness. They want nothing more than to live a peaceful life together, but both are willing to die, if necessary, in defense of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Undeniably, the love that Aragorn and Arwen share is romantic love in its purest form—its only real form, in fact. Does it make any sense to use the word “love” both in reference to them and to Bonnie and Clyde?

The essential (but not the only) element of romantic love is deep admiration of and respect for another person’s rational, life-serving values and character. Romantic love is a combination of such admiration and respect, and of physical (usually sexual) attraction.^[1] Without the former, the latter is nothing but infatuation or lust.

Throughout Dracula’s two-hour runtime, we see very little of Elisabeta’s moral character. In contrast, we learn a lot about Dracula’s character—and most of what we see is not good. He is driven by obsession bordering on lunacy, utterly indifferent to the hundreds of lives he destroys in pursuit of his goal. Realizing that finding the reincarnated Elisabeta on his own is impossible, he creates dozens of vampires to aid him in a worldwide search spanning centuries, condemning each of those people to the same eternal, unbearable curse from which he himself longs to be released. Perhaps Vladislav was a good person before Elisabeta’s death; we should concede that that is possible, and her love for him may initially have grown from genuine and legitimate admiration of his character. However, even if Vladislav were deserving of love before her death, he certainly is not afterward.

After four hundred years, Dracula’s search comes to an end when he meets Mina Murray, who looks identical to Elisabeta but is engaged to Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid). He inserts himself into Mina’s social life, carefully observing her mannerisms to ensure that she is indeed Elisabeta reincarnated. Once he is certain, he gives her a music box that he originally gifted to her before her death, and the melody reawakens her memories of her past life. When she learns what Dracula has become and of the atrocities he has committed in her name, she responds not with moral revulsion but with desperation: She begs him to turn her into a vampire so that they can be together forever.

Here, Dracula displays a glimmer of moral clarity for the first of only two times in the film. He initially refuses to turn her, saying “You have your whole life ahead of you, and I only offer death.” When she persists, he relents, condemning the woman he supposedly loves to the same endless pain he originally brought on himself and has since forced on so many others. It should go without saying that true love precludes inflicting horrendous, long-term suffering on one’s partner, no matter how great the immediate temptation or perceived short-term gain. True love requires thinking deeply and carefully about the long-term well-being of oneself and one’s partner, and about what is required to achieve and maintain the well-being of both partners in reality, in harmony with one another and without contradiction or rationalization. It requires taking all of this seriously and acting accordingly, consistently over time. True love is a profoundly emotional experience, but it is not solely an emotional experience; it depends on and requires rational thought. “Love” that defies reason—and thereby inevitably undermines or even destroys the well-being of either partner or of anyone else—is not love in any meaningful sense.

When Dracula retreats to his castle with Elisabeta, Harker and an unnamed priest heavily implied to be Van Helsing (Christoph Waltz), who has been hunting Dracula for decades, gather a small army of Romanian soldiers and assault the castle. Dracula kills dozens and vows to kill all who come after him or his wife. When only Van Helsing is left standing, he and Dracula share the best dialogue in the film:

Dracula: So you are the priest who has chased my people for so many years.

Van Helsing: Yes—but rest assured, I didn’t come to fight you.

Dracula: Nor I. I fight God; I’m not interested in his servants.

Van Helsing: No. You’re not fighting God, my son. You’re fighting yourself.

Dracula: No. No, no. I fought and I killed in his name.

Van Helsing: We live and we breathe in his name. Why would he want us to destroy his creation? Man kills in his own name—and you’re doing it again.

Dracula: That is all just very fine words. God sent you here to kill me.

Van Helsing: God sent me here to save you.

Dracula: So God wants to save me now, after he denies me the right to die for centuries?

Van Helsing: But this is not a punishment. This is an opportunity. Repent, Dracula, for your salvation.

Dracula: She is my salvation.

Van Helsing: But you are her damnation.

They are interrupted when more soldiers arrive and renew the assault on the castle. Dracula, appearing to seriously consider Van Helsing’s words, kills more soldiers but ultimately surrenders when the priest corners him once more and says simply, “Save her.” Dracula allows Van Helsing to mortally wound him, which breaks the curse of vampirism and makes Elisabeta human once again, along with the other surviving victims of Dracula’s power.

As Dracula is dying, Elisabeta, beside herself with grief, asks why he would choose to leave her behind just as they finally have been reunited. His last words to her are: “Because I love you.”

Narratively, Dracula’s sudden change of heart doesn’t work because it’s unearned; it happens too quickly and with far too little internal struggle on his part. Such an extreme one-eighty does not believably transpire in a matter of minutes after four hundred years of single-minded obsession.

Rushed ending aside, Dracula does have something important to say, although its message has little to do with love. Dracula’s final act, morally speaking, is not nearly enough to redeem his past sins—but it’s not nothing, either. The film makes important points about free will, partial atonement, and imperfect justice, but it ultimately fails as a work of art because its actual theme diverges sharply from its intended theme. Its actual theme—the central idea that integrates and follows logically from the events of the plot when all the characters’ actions are considered in full context—is something along the lines of “Not all evil men are completely beyond redemption.”

The movie’s intended theme—something like “the power of love as a force for good”—could not have followed from the events of the plot nor been earned artistically, even under the best of circumstances, because Besson (who also wrote the screenplay) does not understand what love is and what it is not.^[2] Love—real love—is one of the highest and most precious values possible to man, and consistent moral virtue is the only foundation on which it can be built. A single act of sincere atonement at the end of a lifetime of wanton butchery is not morally worthless, but neither is it remotely akin to an act of real love.

Despite its fatal thematic flaw, Dracula is a well-acted and beautifully filmed tale of obsession, hope, regret, and justice (mostly with respect to Harker and Van Helsing in the latter case). It’s worth watching, and it’s one of the better films of 2025—it’s just not a love story. Even though it fails to show us what love is, it shows us with inadvertent clarity what love is not, and that, too, is a valuable lesson.

^[1] Romantic love can exist without mutual sexual attraction, but this is exceedingly rare.

^[2] It’s possible that Besson understands what love is but nonetheless chose to fundamentally misrepresent it in his screenplay for some reason, but this seems highly unlikely.

The 1960s and ’70s were replete with glamorous spy shows and movies. Many, from the James Bond movies to Danger Man, focused more on style than substance, offering simple storylines that served primarily as vehicles for an escape into a world of suave spies, international intrigue, and indulgence in all manner of pleasures.

However, a few delivered richer stories interwoven with valuable ideas. A stand-out example of this is The Persuaders! (1971), a short-lived series telling the story of two wealthy hedonists who gradually discover the values of justice, purpose, and friendship.

At the start of the series, American street kid turned successful oil investor Danny Wilde (Tony Curtis) and British aristocrat Brett Sinclair (Roger Moore) are indulging in all the pleasures that the Côte d’Azur has to offer. After a chance meeting at Nice airport, the two clash like children, showing off to win over the same women, racing their sports cars along the Riviera, and even trashing a restaurant in a fistfight over how many olives should go in a drink. They are bailed out of jail by the retired Judge Fulton (Laurence Naismith) on the condition that they use their influence, wits, and resources to help him track down and expose a notorious criminal ringleader he was unable to put away during his legal career. In convincing them that the dangerous mission is preferable to sitting in a French prison, he admonishes the two men about their hedonistic lifestyles, delivering what doubles as a meta-critique of the playboy protagonists popular in spy shows of the time. Referencing Wilde’s past success in building his massive fortune from scratch, he remarks,

You were a nothing who became something. And now, you’re a nothing again. . . You have a remarkable talent. . . But what have you done with it? You just drift around the world, gambling and womanizing. . . Yours is the glib tongue at a hundred mindless parties. . . Two adult men, both with immense potential—and you fight over an olive!

Fulton talks them into using their connections, skills, and reputations to help him catch his target. Over the episodes that follow, Fulton regularly tasks Wilde and Sinclair with new missions as he works to settle his regrets about all the criminals who escaped justice during his time as a judge. As well as appealing to the two men’s egos, Fulton initially must remind them that he has the power to have them put away for their many legal transgressions in the pursuit of pleasure, but over time, they begin to savor their new sense of purpose. Eventually, they even begin some crime-fighting missions of their own, often motivated by the desire to rescue or protect an innocent person victimized by some kind of criminal operation.

Although this pursuit of justice drives the show’s action, the heart of its story lies in the friendship that develops between Wilde and Sinclair. Their relationship evolves from childish competitiveness and bravado into what in modern terms might be called a “bromance.” They continue to chide each other over everything from their backgrounds and dialects to their driving skills and drink choices, but that banter quickly shifts from derogatory to affectionate. Curtis and Moore excel at portraying a loving friendship hidden behind a veneer of masculine antics, making the two’s admiration and care for each other plainly visible even in interactions that otherwise would seem foolish and argumentative. The evolution of their relationship is a pleasure to watch, and it makes it natural and satisfying to see the two risk life and limb for each other when things get serious.

Wilde and Sinclair’s friendship, much like their crime-fighting escapades, fills their lives with purpose once again. This is what makes The Persuaders! such an extraordinary example among spy shows of its era: It’s really a story about discovering what’s important in life. At the same time, it’s a lighthearted adventure that oozes 1970s aesthetics—from cars to clothes and much more—and that revels in the more unrestrained attitudes of that time with its risqué humor, especially around Wilde and Sinclair’s constant attempts to woo the women they meet in the course of their exploits.

Like most classic spy shows, The Persuaders! is a fun opportunity to enjoy action, glamor, and intrigue—but unlike many, it has at its core a valuable message about why the pursuit of a life-serving purpose, not merely of pleasure, gives a man’s life meaning. Its fifty-fifth anniversary is a great time to revisit its short, twenty-four-episode run and enjoy how fun yet thoughtful TV shows once were.

Welcome to the Spring 2026 issue of The Objective Standard, the rational alternative to conservatism and regressivism.

This issue begins our twenty-first year of publication. 2025 was a challenging year for TOS as we relaunched the journal on our new home at Substack, but now that the final kinks are ironed out, we’re delighted with what we’ve built in this new space. And we love that Substack enables you to share, comment on, and post about our articles so easily. We hope you’re enjoying these features, too.

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Now, to the contents of this eighty-first issue of The Objective Standard.

First up, in “Think and Fly High: Inspiration from Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” Daria Topchii, a junior fellow at Objective Standard Institute (OSI), highlights the beauty and virtues of Richard Bach’s novella. Although the story flies into mystical territory at times, it is essentially about the importance of independent thinking, purposeful living, and loving one’s life. It also has some remarkable similarities to passages and ideas in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. I think you’ll be delighted.

Continuing with the theme of beautiful stories and storytellers, Tim Chermak chronicles the life, works, virtues, and vision of the father of animated cinema in “Walt Disney and the Business of Creativity.” In this article adapted from his talk at LevelUp 2025, Tim makes a compelling case that Disney was, in fact, the greatest capitalist in American history and leaves us wishing that the great man had lived to see his most ambitious project realized.

Next up, we have the first TOS article from musician and art historian Rebecca Day. In “‘Our Souls Were Mates’: The Loving, Values-Based Friendship of James Dean and Eartha Kitt,” Rebecca dives into this short-lived yet rich relationship, showing how non-romantic love can be profoundly life-enhancing.

After that, Tim White shines a light on an alternative to what currently passes for American education in his review of The Subversive Art of a Classical Education: Reclaiming the Mind in an Age of Speed, Screens, and Skill-Drills by Michael S. Rose. The book sets out a blueprint for a better approach to schooling based on objective communication and encouraging independent thought.

In “Character Arcs and the Arc of Your Life,” Angelica Werth explores the growth arcs of three great fictional characters: Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet, Ayn Rand’s Hank Rearden, and J. K. Rowling’s Neville Longbottom. In this article adapted from her talk at LevelUp Europe 2025, Angelica draws out the value from these stories and shows how the lessons these characters learn can help us turn our own lives into stories of virtue, growth, and success.

Next up, I explore the value and meaning of one of progressive rock’s seminal albums in “The Inspiring Individualism of 2112.” Not only are the album’s lyrics and the stories they tell powerful concretizations of individualism and reason—so, too, is Rush’s defiant refusal to compromise when their record label pressured them to abandon the style of music they loved. That steadfast commitment to their values earned them a place among rock royalty.

Moving from music to architecture, in “Can Robots Bring Back Beautiful Buildings?” I interview Arka Serezh, founder of Gondor Industries, a company dedicated to harnessing the power of robotics to bring beautiful stonework back into architecture in new and innovative ways.

I then review Mercy, directed by Timor Bekmambetov, an extreme example of the current tendency for some films to have high audience approval ratings but poor critical receptions. In this case, I believe many reviewers have mistaken the film’s core point, focusing on its depiction of AI rather than on its ideas about justice.

Then we have “Eleven Soaring Poems about Flight,” including works from Edmond Rostand, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and even such unexpected names as Wilbur Wright and our own Craig Biddle.

Next, in “Two Perspectives on Stopping Trump and Other Tyrants,” Nicholas Provenzo reviews two books, Robert Tracinski’s Dictator from Day One: How Donald Trump Is Overthrowing the Constitution and How to Fight Back and Ira Chaleff’s To Stop a Tyrant: The Power of Political Followers to Make or Break a Toxic Leader. Whether you’re concerned by Trump’s disregard for the Constitution, rights, and reason, or you’re battling rights-abusing leaders elsewhere in the world, Nicholas highlights the valuable insights these books contain for understanding and opposing the tyrants of today.

Lastly, OSI junior fellow Margherita Bovo makes her TOS debut with two philosophically rich reviews of important works: The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution by Carolyn Merchant and The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680–1790 by Ritchie Robertson. The first book pioneered the virulent movement known today as “ecofeminism” whereas the second is a welcome exposition on why the Enlightenment should be studied and lauded.

That’s it for this issue—I hope you enjoy the articles and reviews. If so, be sure to recommend and share them with friends on social media, in conversation, and especially on Substack. If you have a Substack publication of your own, please recommend The Objective Standard on your home page (see “recommendations” on your dashboard). And if you’ve not yet subscribed to the journal for people of reason, head over to TheObjectiveStandard.com and become a subscriber or upgrade your subscription today.

Thank you for your business and support,

Thomas Walker-Werth
Managing Editor
The Objective Standard

Author’s note: This article contains spoilers for Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull and for Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.1

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Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a live talk and has been lightly edited. It retains the cadence and idiosyncrasies of an oral presentation.

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