For a long time, I have been a Tolstoy skeptic. It wasn’t that I found him uninteresting or unimportant––I knew that War and Peace and Anna Karenina could be counted among the highest achievements in literature, had far-ranging influence, and so on. I was simply unsure whether I would want to spend so much time reading one book. Of course, I could always start and see as I read whether I wanted to keep going, but I worried about falling victim to the sunken cost fallacy––that is, that the book would start off really well then tail off, so I would be compelled to drag myself along for 800 pages just to see if it would ever recover itself. (A bit like Anna’s relationship with Vronsky, actually.) But, then again, I have known for the longest time that Anna Karenina was consistently rated as one of the greatest novels written, period, and that made me want to read the book. I found myself stuck in an aporia of sorts: I wanted to read Tolstoy, but I also didn’t.

My chance finally came when I saw that the Bowdoin Russian Department was offering a course on Tolstoy’s (taught, of course, in English––I do not admit to knowing Russian). For once, I would not have to decide. I would have to work through Tolstoy, even if I find him unreadable. If I could not force myself to read him, then the course would.

Then I actually began to read Anna Karenina (the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation), and my doubts largely vanished. Here’s the thing: as easy as it is to be skeptical about what are considered classics, the fact remains that classics are, well, classics, and they often have pretty good reason for being considered as such. My point here is this: Anna Karenina is rightfully considered a classic, and it is still most definitely worth reading today. Here are a few reasons why.

Reason 1: Leo Tolstoy is a really, really skilled writer. (And he’s entertaining, too.)

Read the following passage:

The terrible snowstorm tore and whistled between the wheels of the carriages, over the posts and around the corner of the station. Carriages, posts, people, everything visible was covered with snow on one side and getting covered more and more. … She breathed in once more, to get her fill of air, and had already taken her hand from her muff to grasp the post and go into the carriage, when near her another man, in a military greatcoat, screened her from the wavering light of the lantern. She turned and in the same moment recognized the face of Vronsky.

Time––time itself––seems to have stopped here.

We first see that there is a magical quality to the snowstorm at the train station. It is, in a word, captivating. But it is only briefly so. The magic seems to wear off. Anna, who has been standing on the platform and watching the snowstorm for quite some time, is about to head back onto the train. She is ready to move on. Nothing is keeping her where she is. But it is in this final, transitory moment, when Anna is between one thing and another (that is, the platform and the train) that she is suddenly stopped in her tracks––by Vronsky. She is stopped in her tracks despite herself. She isn’t paying attention, but Vronsky catches her attention anyway. He stands out against the world––he seems to be something beyond the world, the only thing that can catch Anna’s attention. And when the two of them start talking, it is as if the world has simply disappeared or melted away and the two of them are all that is left. Talk about romantic. And all this happens in the span of a single paragraph––a real testament to the depth and subtlety of Tolstoy’s craft.

Another closely related technique that Tolstoy often deploys: the private conversation in a public occasion. How do you show two characters to be intimate without having either of them make clumsy overt proclamations? Here is how Tolstoy does it: you start with a some gathering, some loud, lively public occasion, such as a party. What this does is that it establishes other possibilities and, with that, choice––the characters can wander around, chat with other people, have drinks, play cards, and so on. This means that, when the characters do choose to be with each other, they have chosen to forego all the other possibilities. Once again, the sense of intimacy is achieved through a contrast with the greater world:

When they got up from the table, Levin wanted to follow Kitty into the drawing room, but he was afraid that she might be displeased by such all-too-obvious courtship of her on his part. He remained in the men’s circle, taking part in the general conversation, but, without looking at Kitty, sensed her movements, her glances, and the place where she was in the drawing room.

Levin is here, with the other men, but he does not want to be here. He wants to be with Kitty, who stands apart from the crowd, the generality. He is here without being here––his mind is elsewhere. And she is, in being that elsewhere, special, drawing him away from where he is presently. It is this sort of push-pull dynamic between the characters that make reading about them so interesting, so entertaining. When the two do end up spending time together, the result is one of the most romantic scenes I think I have ever read. But I won’t spoil that here.

Reason 2: Anna Karenina is not just about an unfaithful wife––it is also a vivid portrait of life in imperial Russia

As a title, Anna Karenina sells itself rather short, because Anna Karenina is not just about Anna Karenina. There is, firstly, a whole other plot revolving around Dmitri Levin and the development of his worldview and self. But, really, that still sells the novel short, because Anna Karenina is also about just about every other aspect of life in the Russian Empire of mid-nineteenth century––at least for the aristocracy. Characters, in passing conversations, discuss war between the Empires Russian and Ottoman, new works of philosophy, various religious and social movements––and they gossip, too. It resembles a whole lot the kind of things we talk about today, in day-to-day conversation, and the level of detail is often astounding.

Here’s an excerpt––and a short one––from a chapters-long description of an Orthodox wedding:

When the rite of betrothal was finished, a verger spread a piece of pink silk in front of the lectern in the middle of the church, the choir began singing an artful and elaborate psalm in which bass and tenor echoed each other, and the priest, turning, motioned the betrothed to the spread-our piece of pink cloth. Often and much as they had both heard about the belief that whoever is first to step on the rug will be the head in the family, neither Levin nor Kitty could recall it as they made those few steps. Nor did they hear the loud remarks and disputes that, in the observation of some, he had been the first, or, in the opinion of others, they had stepped on it together.

But why does it matter? Why should Tolstoy write about such things, so mundane, so every-day, so insignificant? Why all the fuss? A simple answer––and simple answers always run the risk of being reductive––is that Tolstoy is committed to such realism and such level of detail because he loves his characters. This is, at the very least, the sense that I get when I read Anna Karenina. By including such mundane moments in his novel, thereby elevating them to the status of ‘art’, Tolstoy is saying that these rather banal things are, in fact, significant. And the fact is that they are significant. Levin and Kitty in the passage above are getting married––this is a momentous occasion in their lives. And, even in less apparently important situations, we still see characters take themselves seriously. They are always trying to connect, to communicate, to understand one another, and there is often a sense of injury or hurt when they fail to do so––just like any person would. Take the following passage when Anna waits in torment for Vronsky to come see her:

‘But where is he? Why does he leave me alone with my sufferings?’ she suddenly thought, with a feeling of reproach, forgetting that she herself had concealed from him everything to do with her son. She sent for to him asking him to come to her at once; with a sinking heart she waited for him, thinking up the words in which she would tell him everything, and the expressions of love with which he would comfort her. The messenger came back with the reply that he had a visitor but would come presently, and with the question whether she could receive him with Prince Yashvin, who had come to Petersburg. ‘He won’t come alone, and yet he hasn’t seen me since yesterday,’ she thought. ‘He won’t come so that I can tell him everything, but will come with Yashvin.’ And suddenly a strange thought occurred to her: what if he had stopped loving her?

That final thought occurs as if the ground beneath her feet has suddenly fallen away. It is a real shock: what if? And what if indeed––Tolstoy captures the torment, the doubt brought about by that thought. It is the possibility––the distinct possibility––that what one has lived for is not, after all, worth it, that what one has constructed one’s own life around is a falsehood, an illusion, a hoax. It is a powerful realization, a painful one, and it is what makes Tolstoy’s work so powerful: even when the character in question is a member of the Russian aristocracy, living a life of leisure and decadence, her emotions are no less real, no less direct. And Tolstoy achieves his realism through his attention to detail.

And I want to insist upon this point: Tolstoy’s commitment to realism is motivated by his love for his characters. Tolstoy loves his characters, he loves the world that they live in, and this is why he takes so much care to include so much detail––he genuinely believes that the world and the people in it deserve his and our attention. Contained here is a sort of ethics, a way of interacting with the world, that I really admire in Tolstoy (another discussion for another day, perhaps). In any case, it is this ethics, I think, that makes Tolstoy’s work so enduring. He remains magical to this day. Read him.

When Elgin arrived in Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire was still geographically powerful. It governed much of the Middle East, northeastern Africa, and Greece. This last territory no doubt intrigued Elgin, a man known for his interest in antiquities. In Greece, Elgin saw an opportunity. The over 2,000-year-old Parthenon had fallen into disrepair due to age, and to an extent, a lack of attentive stewardship. Its condition was only made worse by a Venetian bombing in 1687. By the time Elgin reached Athens, the Parthenon was far from the great monument it had been in millennia past. 

The scene lends itself easily to the imagination: a desperate nobleman and a destitute monument covered in priceless art. Claiming he was concerned with the dangers posed to the future of the surviving marble reliefs, Elgin sought a permit from the Ottoman government to remove the sculptured ornaments and to “rescue (them) from such impending ruin”. While the British Museum bases its right to the marbles off the existence of this permit, others, including the Greek government, the former head of the Acropolis Museum in Athens, and Turkish academics, deny that this permit existed. 

Elgin quickly began his removal of the sculptures now known as the “Elgin” or Parthenon Marbles. According to a report he published, Elgin demolished the homes of those living on the Acropolis during the excavation, “selected and purchased” items from Athens’ poor, and, of course, cut statues and reliefs off of buildings on the Acropolis itself.

Here lies the fundamental contradiction of Elgin’s enterprise: how could he claim to act in the interest of preserving the marbles while at the same time blatantly deface them? Elgin literally tore the marbles out from their foundations and shipped them across the world. As if by an Olympian curse, one of these ships sank, entombing numerous sculptures in the Mediterranean. 

Today, Elgin’s self-perception as a savior seems incomprehensible, but it makes some sense in the context of his time. What Elgin feared was not a damaged Parthenon, but a Parthenon damaged by “barbarism” and “peasants.” What to the modern eye is destruction was, to Elgin, an act of heroism. Removing the Parthenon’s reliefs removed them from the Eastern sphere of influence. Not only did this wound the East’s cultural wealth, but it enabled what was, in his view, a more enlightened audience to gain access to important historical artifacts. As Elgin saw it, there were no downsides to his actions. He would gain fame and fortune for himself and would contribute to the education of his fellows. The reliefs, he reasoned, did not belong in Athens. To him, the marbles represented a civilized ideal incompatible with his contemporary, “uncivilized” Athens. Removing them was not really an act of charity but of self-assured superiority. Even ancient stones are not above the evils of imperialism. 

It is possible to dismiss Elgin’s hypocrisy as a product of his time, but even when Elgin returned to Britain in 1806, he incited mass controversy. Many of his countrymen published bitter criticisms of his conduct, including Lord Byron, who wrote a poem, “The Curse of Minerva”, chastising the “Scot” (Elgin) who hailed from a “bastard land”. Byron’s poem rejects and curses Elgin’s actions. The poem shows that bringing the marbles back to Britain was not a universally accepted action. Evidently, there were those of Elgin’s contemporaries who did not condone his theft. It is also important to note why Byron disliked Elgin’s actions. In Byron’s poem, the speaker describes Scotland’s “barren soil” that “stints the mind”, birthing a people “foul as their soil”. Clearly, Byron was not a man outside his time. He was not above colonialist thinking. Byron’s love for Greece was not a love for its inhabitants, but for those who had lived on its land thousands of years ago. Byron falls prey to a temptation extremely prevalent in historical studies, a romanticization of the past. So, while Elgin engaged in more explicit colonialism targeted abroad, Byron too expressed colonialist tendencies, only targeted towards England’s neighboring subject, Scotland. Despite his colonialist attacks on Elgin’s homeland, Byron remains proof of the fact that there was backlash against Elgin, however misguidedly it was framed. 

While Byron’s lines themselves contain colonialist sentiment, the point stands: it is anachronistic to shield Elgin from judgment entirely through claims of ignorance. There was greater nuance in Elgin’s age than he displayed. So great was the debate over Elgin’s actions that a special Parliament committee formed to determine the marbles’ fate. Shockingly, Parliament decided the best course of action was its own acquisition of the marbles, which it could then entrust to the British Museum. 

Attempting to save face, Elgin designed a response to his critics. In Memorandum on the Subject of the Earl of Elgin’s Pursuits in Greece, Elgin extensively listed the marbles he removed and the conditions these marbles faced in Athens. When explaining these conditions, Elgin played on the colonialist fears of his contemporaries, continuously noting the “backwards” habits of the Ottomans and Greeks. This succeeded in quelling public anger, but it did not stop Parliament from forcing Elgin to sell the marbles to the crown for £35,000, less than half what it had cost him to acquire them. That Parliament could force such a sale implies there was more than just money at play. Elgin, according to Memorandum, took great pains to get the marbles to Britain, it doesn’t follow that he would sell them for such a small sum. Why didn’t Elgin resist this decision? His future depended on these marbles; he had made a name for himself with them. Elgin had removed the marbles with the motivation of profit, yet Elgin sold the marbles for half his costs, essentially agreeing to financial ruin. Elgin’s acceptance of Parliament’s decision suggests he was avoiding criminal charges.

All that was 200 years ago. Though Memorandum silenced British anger against Elgin, Greek independence inflamed a new battle. Athens, the capital of the Hellenic Republic, wanted the return of the marbles as a symbol of the nation’s democratic establishment. Ancient Athenians originally constructed Parthenon and its adorning marbles to commemorate their victory over the Persians and retention of their independence. Millennia later, modern Greeks sought the return of these marbles to assert a new independence. 

In 1983, Greece submitted its first formal appeal for the marbles’ permanent return. Since this official proposal, the British Museum has waged a public relations war to hold the marbles in its halls. Under a section of its website titled “Contested objects from the collection”, the British Museum outlines its case. Among its claims, “It is universally recognized that the sculptures that survive are best seen and conserved in museums.” As the Greek government makes clear, that isn’t the case. The website also describes Athens’ new Acropolis Museum as a place built to hold the marbles which remain in Greece.  The museum was, in fact, built with empty display spaces waiting to be filled by the marbles Elgin took. A final highlight, “His (Elgin’s) actions were thoroughly investigated by a Parliamentary Select Committee in 1816 and found to be entirely legal.” This is disputed; moreover, the investigation was conducted by members of Parliament who stood to gain great prestige were they to declare these famous treasures legal British property. The British Museum attempts to justify holding the marbles, and, to an audience without much exposure to Elgin’s history, likely succeeds. The website gives a cheery overview of why the marbles should remain in Britain, but the reasons outlined don’t survive scrutiny. The Greek government has waged a sustained campaign to reclaim the marbles, yet they remain in Britain. Why?  

The answer, the more accurate answer, has to do with bureaucracy rather than with noble humanism. Quite simply, the museum asserts that the British government gave the marbles to the museum, so by British law the museum trustees own the marbles. To return them would violate the law, meaning any potential return would require new Parliamentary legislation. 

This is a convenient shield. Museum trustees have no responsibility to return the marbles. There is no accountability. No public outcry at the injustice of keeping the marbles in Britain can harm the museum itself. Moreover, the Greek government cannot force parliamentary action, and neither Parliament nor the British public have an incentive to push for necessary legislation. 

Without bureaucratic restrictions, the return process is more straightforward. In 2022, the Hornian Museum and Gardens, a charity museum in London, announced the return of six of their 72 looted Benin Bronzes, in addition to a plan to return more of the bronzes in the future. As it functions independently, the museum was able to, in response to criticism, deal with the Nigerian government directly. This isn’t the case for the British Museum. 

Recently, the potential for a deal between the Greek government and the British Museum has made headlines. This deal, according to George Osbourne, the museum chair, would send some of the marbles to Greece for a period, in exchange for artifacts never before shown outside of Greece. This quid pro quo of art is common in the museum world. Some objects are lent in return for others, usually when one of the museums is creating a themed exhibit. That any marbles could return to Greece is promising, but this exchange maintains the possibility that the British Museum may demand the marbles back. This possibility is a major sticking point in the negotiations, one the Greek government refuses to yield to. The Parthenon marbles belong alongside the Parthenon. Unlike many thousands of other objects decorating museum walls and archives around the world, these marbles are explicitly tied to Greece. They were designed to decorate the Parthenon; they should be viewed in the context of Athens. Today’s dialogues are more promising than those of the past, but much more is necessary. 

The current discussions will not end with the marbles’ permanent return. They may not even end with temporary returns. They have at least succeeded in creating a new bout of controversy surrounding the British Museum. With more public awareness and interest in Elgin’s story and his wrongdoings, there is greater hope for a permanent return. Bureaucracy and governments, the two greatest bulwarks against the marbles’ return, are purposefully structured against change. One can only hope that, however gradually, the British will come to acknowledge their history, and the Greeks will be reunited with theirs. 

I didn’t hate the Queen. I don’t hate King Charles or his family (except Prince Andrew). But the institution they represent is a vestige of colonial authority and legitimizes colonial ideas. And Charles himself could not be more out of touch with the nations of which he recently became head of state of. Charles visited Canada earlier this year to meet with its indigenous peoples who suffered under the residential school system, the purpose of which, according to Sir John A. McDonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada, was to “take the Indian out of the child.” Children were abused mentally, physically, and sexually. Thousands would die of various causes in what was, by no exaggeration, a cultural genocide. One survivor, Chief Mi’sel Joe, reported what Charles said: “I hope we weren’t too bad on you.” Mi’sel Joe would not get a chance to respond to Charles. 

Charles is unwilling to confront and comprehend what had happened in Canada in the name of the monarchy. It was clear from his comments that he did not understand the plight of the indigenous people and the horrors of the residential schools. He does not understand the political or social changes happening in response to the residential school system, either. Yet he serves as the Canadian head of state. And while the Catholic Church ran most Residential Schools, the Anglican Church ran around three dozen residential schools, giving up control of the last one in 1969. Charles is now the head of the Anglican Church, and while he acknowledged the past of residential schools, he hasn’t apologized for the atrocities carried out in them. Neither did his predecessor.

The cost of maintaining the monarchy serves little purpose. According to CTV News, the same trip to Canada this year by the King, then Prince of Wales, cost Canadian taxpayers at least 1.4 million Canadian Dollars. At the time of writing, that is equivalent to just over 1 million US dollars. Overall that cost is higher. According to The Monarchist League of Canada, a pro-monarchy group, the monarchy cost Canadians 58.75 million Canadian dollars in the 2019-2020 fiscal year, equivalent to a little over 43 million US dollars at the time of writing. While that may not be a significant amount of money in the budget, it is still $58.75 million too much. Why should Canadians fund a monarchy that neither represents them nor understands the history of the country or the current political climate? If the King, living thousands of miles away, cannot understand the plight of the residential school system, why should Canadians pay him anything? It would have been better to spend the $58.75 million improving education, water quality, and social services for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people. And while that may only help one First Nation, Metis, or Inuit community, it is still one more indigenous community.

Other countries likewise have the British Monarchy linked to heinous acts in their history. When Prince William and Princess Kate visited the Caribbean earlier this year, they faced many protests for the visits; countries like Jamaica were subjected to the horrors of the British slave trade.  In the 17th century, King Charles II granted the Royal African Company, the purpose of which was to bring enslaved people from Africa to the Americas, a charter. King James II, brother to Charles II, would eventually become its governor, meaning that the British monarchy profited from slavery directly. And the Royal African Company was not a small operation by any means: between 1651 and 1700, The Royal African Company transported 132,676 people across the Atlantic, with 127,913 slaves transported to Caribbean nations such as Jamaica. These values only represent the number of slaves we have records for. 

The Royal African Company/The British monarchy continued to be involved in the Slave Trade until 1731. Many people in Jamaica descended from enslaved people. When the Slave Trade ended in 1807, almost 2 million people had been brought from Africa to Jamaica. It took another 21 years before slavery was abolished in Jamaica entirely in 1838. While the monarchy has acknowledged the relationship between itself and the slave trade, it has yet to formally apologize or participate in meaningful action to repair its relationship with Jamaica and other Caribbean nations.  

Jamaica has already started the process to become a Republic and get rid of the monarchy by 2025. A referendum is already being planned and if a majority of the population supports the removal of the King as head of state and Parliament passes a  two-thirds majority vote, Jamaica will become a Republic. Many other Caribbean nations are likely to follow; Barbados abolished the monarchy back in 2021. These countries are forging their own paths by trying to cut their direct link to the British monarch once and for all. 

But other countries, like Canada, are more likely to continue with the institution. In Canada, getting rid of the monarch as head of state requires not only the approval of the House of Commons and the Senate, but also all 10 Canadian provinces voting to approve the change. In some provinces, such as Quebec, the population would likely support the monarch’s removal. The current government of Quebec, led by premier François Legault and the Coalition Avenir Québec, passed a bill making the part in the Oath of office to King Charles and his heirs optional for politicians, which was adopted unanimously. Additionally, an Ipsos survey asking Canadians whether they should sever ties with the crown after the death of Queen Elizabeth II found that 79 percent of Quebecois were in favor of doing so. But the fact that one province can prevent the monarch’s removal will certainly prevent King Charles from being removed as head of state. There isn’t enough National Support for abolishing the monarchy either. The same Ipsos poll found that only 54 percent of Canadians support severing ties with the crown in Canada. Attitudes towards the monarchy can change. Australia famously underwent a strong Republican movement in the 1980s, and while Republicanism has become less prominent, it could undoubtedly resurge.

As the populations of countries such as Canada and Australia become more diverse in terms of ethnicity and origin, the attachment to the monarchy shrinks further. In the 2021 Census, 23 percent of the population of Canada were immigrants at some point in their lifetime., which represents an increase from 20.6 percent of the population who were immigrants in the 2011 Census. And these immigrants are overwhelmingly not European. The overall share of immigrants from Europe in the 2021 Census was 10.1 percent. In 1971, the overall percentage of immigrants from Europe was 61.6 percent. These populations are more disconnected from the idea of a monarchy. Today, new Canadian citizens are allowed to disavow the message of the Oath of Citizenship, specifically the part about swearing allegiance to the monarch by handing in a letter to the officiating judge after the ceremony. This practice was made legal by an Ontario court in 2014 after immigrants challenged the nature of the Oath, specifically the part about the monarch. While the court ruled that it was still necessary to pledge allegiance to the monarch, it said that the Oath was merely an acknowledgment of Canada’s governmental system rather than an implicit acceptance of it, allowing immigrants to disavow the Oath. Dror Bar-Natan, an Israeli-born mathematician and one of the people behind the challenge to the Oath, said that he found it similar to hazing. He further argued that the Oath was an imposition of views opposite to the values the country is supposed to represent: “I don’t think it is part of Canada to impose political speech on others. To impose opinions on others.” Bar-Natan’s experience highlights how immigrant populations are disconnected from the monarchy, going against their values. Bar-Natan was the first to disavow the Oath as an immigrant in 2015. He certainly will not be the last.

Younger generations also have less attachment to the monarchy than older generations. In a Nanos poll conducted for CTV News between September 30 and October 3, only 13 percent of Canadians between the age of 18 and 34 thought that King Charles would do a good job, while 29 percent thought he would do a poor job. Older populations who remember the monarchy are more likely to support its continuation. 41.5 percent of respondents over the age of 55 expected that the King would do a good or very good job, while only 12 percent over the age of 55 thought the King would do a poor or very poor job. But as newer generations become a larger proportion of the population, support will likely dwindle in this age group.

The passing of Queen Elizabeth marked an end of an era. Countries outside Britain should move away from British colonial history and form their own paths. The monarchy is separated from the political and social aspects of the countries it is supposed to represent. And if The King cannot understand the political and social changes in places where he is head of state, and the monarchy cannot understand their colonial history, then The King should not be head of state. While the monarchy is likely to endure abroad in countries like Canada, it is weakening. There are countries like Jamaica that will likely abolish the monarchy in the next ten years. And perhaps within our own lifetimes, it will cease to exist in any countries outside of the UK.

A friendship like ours appeared so real
but its imprints could never harden to steel
around the words we once had sworn.
My hair once let long, now freshly shorn
with an old ax of yours, brandished in secret
once I knew I could never keep it.

I thought doing away with you would do me good,
the weightless ease of chopping dead wood,
the lapping of night wind slipping away,
this lensed shroud lifted from my wet face.
Instead, this steering wheel sears my hands,
and the rearview glints with a disfigured man,
an insect belly-up in soiled bedsheets
lost in the haze of the unlit street.
This street we used to drive.

What tired fables I once would contrive,
on wiry wooded paths, from junction to bend,
on green-and-white blankets at trail’s end,
on mountains of mulch, furry with moss,
through fields of prairie grass, thin like floss.

Now, my fascination drags like a pearled train
in mud so human, so fresh, blood-stained,
past the liquor pond and its peppery brine
that I now wash my hands of; it’s not mine.

Oh, if only we had known
that eighty years would wither to bone
and funerals could be watched from beyond the grave
and from umbrellas, we could again emerge onto the stage.

And so, I’ll clog the craters in time and let its smoke blacken me.
I’ll let it fill every nostril, make every hair reedy,
my limbs a limp glue in the asphalt cracks.
Oh, if only we could just go back
to see the steam rise from the harbor, street lamp lit,
before I knew I could never keep it.

And if only we had recognized
the gem-strewn steeple holding us in holy time
before the scroll is undone, this lensed shroud torn
to expose my wet face, contorted and worn.

I’m sore of this game, this ladder draped across a cliff,
the sand there to catch me, there to swell, to lift.
I’m sore of this tapestry, its enslaved golden hook
looping my string into taut patterns, willing the world to look
and have them say, I see, I understand.
The sole witness being the broken hand
severed in secret in those yellow fields I choked
with your ax, those pruning branches I chopped, flames I stoked
with your blade. Oh, I wanted to give this ragged ache a name.
I wanted you to understand me the same.

But the disfigured man still stands in my periphery,
you, the backseat sleeper, asking, Who is he?
and though we laughed and sped fast from that ripped seam,
we all knew what we’d seen

as the car left Earth on the downhill slope
and we eclipsed the moon, scummed with soap,
and we whipped the curve by the tooth-white house
that reaches through the trees, past a doe in a crouch,
waiting for its cue and leaping too late.
Another prop of this scenery to sedate.

Untouchable dream, the roof undone
and our arms out the side, sugarspun,
the night wind lapping on our shore,
dyed too indigo to view anymore.

At home that night, the feeling bathed me, twilit,
and oh, how badly I wanted to keep it.
The hilt of the rusted ax overgrown.
Oh, if only we had known.

Through it, we obtain the capacity to revise – or might I say, reimagine – the world around us; to create, alter, and improve that which is tangible and arcane. From J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis to George R. R. Martin and J. K. Rowling, authors of the fantasy genre utilize this gift to spin tales of tragedy, utopia, and romance – after all, fantasy is derived from phantasia, the Greek word for imagination. While these fantastical universes seemingly breach the boundaries of reality at every turn, their conceptions are products of this earthly plane. The worlds of these narratives in some way mirror our own, whether through direct reference – Harry Potter – or subliminal allegory – Lord of the Rings. Indeed, although not preventable, this foundation in reality taints the process of world-building, by which it becomes nearly impossible to separate non-fictional knowledge from fictional creations. Thus, while the fantasy genre inherently symbolizes a sort of escapism from the tribulations of contemporary society, its fictional world-building actually serves as a more profound reflection of the opinions – and prejudices – that plague reality.

This article, therefore, means to examine the integration of real-world stereotypes into the world- building processes of the fantasy genre, most notably J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Originally published in the 1950s, the series is considered by most to be the literary paradigm for modern fantasy fiction, especially in high-fantasy circles. The story, split into three volumes – The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King – of two books each, follows Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin, four hobbits from the Shire, across Middle-Earth to destroy the One Ring in the fires of Orodruin. On their journey, they encounter among others: Strider, a ranger of the Dúnedain and the heir-apparent of Gondor, Legolas Greenleaf, a Silvan elf from Mirkwood, Gimli, a dwarf from the Blue Mountains, and Gandalf, an istar. Now, if absolutely none of that made sense, then Tolkien was successful in devising a world different from our own – hence why many refer to him as the father of modern fantasy.

Thus, it is not a surprise that the novels and their world grew to be so popular in the 1960s, and not only in Tolkien’s native Britain. In fact, this fascination with Middle-Earth continued in the 20th century with the publication of The Silmarillion, a sort of prequel-slash-lore compendium, in 1977, as well as the animated versions of The Hobbit (1977), The Lord of the Rings (1978), and The Return of the King (1980). However, the series only truly penetrated mainstream consumption with the release of Peter Jackson’s live-action film trilogy in the early 2000s, which won several Academy awards and remains some of the highest-rated movies to date. Today, this love of Tolkien’s world has paved the way for the production of more stories, including the Hobbittrilogy and Amazon Prime’s highly-anticipated – and widely-criticized – The Rings of Power.

An attempt to capture The Silmarillion on screen, the series was first bashed for its bastardization of the source material – it does, after all, condense three millennia of Middle-Earth history into a few, short years; however, over time, further reproval arose over the constitution of the cast, particularly its inclusion of people of color. This is not a new issue. Just earlier this year, for instance, Moses Ingraham, who played Reva Sevander / Third Sister in Disney’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, faced severe racial abuse from Star Wars fans online. However, the apparent ubiquity of this variant of abuse, especially in the context of fantasy literature, raises questions about the construction of race in these novels. Indeed, J.R.R. Tolkien has featured at the center of modern discussions on race and stereotyping in fantasy literature. A prolific world-builder, his Middle-Earth is home to nine different species, each bearing immutable character traits: Elves, Men, Dwarves, Orcs, Hobbits, Trolls, Ents, Maiar, and Valar. Now, the existence of separate races itself is no issue. However, when attributes are juxtaposed with specific physical characteristics, it becomes problematized.

Consider the Elves. Throughout the novels, they are repeatedly referred to as ‘the fairest creatures’ in all of Middle-Earth, extraordinarily tall and slender, wise and learned. The term ‘fair’ could be in reference to their ethereal, other-wordly beauty – after all, one of the word’s archaic definitions simply pertains to attractiveness. And yet, ‘fair’ also suggests fair-skinnedness, fair-hairedness. Indeed, this latter interpretation appears to be more accurate to Tolkien’s visions, as Elven hair has a proclivity for being blonde, as noted through descriptions of Legolas, Galadriel, and Glorfindel – arguably, the most famous Elves from Lord of the Rings. Of course, Arwen Undómiel, the fairest of all Elves, is the notable exception. Instead of silvery hair, she possesses long dark tresses; nevertheless, all of them share grey eyes. Here, then, one starts to conceptualize the Elf: a tall, light-skinned, grey- eyed figure – an image that could be easily equated to the conventional figure of Northern Europeans. There is no inherent issue with drawing on the physical appearances of a group as inspiration – after all, it is incredibly challenging to conceive an idea that is entirely divergent from reality and lived experience. However, the subsequent addition of biologically-determined attributes complicates matters. Tolkien’s Elves, for instance, are viewed as the wisest and most cultured inhabitants of Middle-Earth, a convention that is applied to every Elf, not simply the scholars and rulers. With how easily the appearance of Elves and Northern Europeans is conflated, there is a suggestion – however subliminal or subconscious as it might have been – of white supremacy.

Similarly, J.R.R. Tolkien’s characterization of Orcs comments on race and ideas of biological determinism. Throughout the novels, the Orcs are servants of Sauron – the series’ ‘big bad’ – and his ally- lieutenant Saruman, which naturally frames them – all of them – as evil and malignant. Indeed, there is very little multiplicity or depth in character, with shallow generalizations describing the entire species rather than individuals. Despite this, however, their physical appearance is never actually described in The Lord of the Rings, only in one of Tolkien’s many letters. In Letter 210, the author writes that Orcs are “squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.” Whereas Elven descriptions tout their beauty, grace, and intelligence – as well as visually equating them to Northern Europeans – this depiction is underscored by revulsion, a disgust of their physical appearance that acts almost as an extension of their character traits. It is important to acknowledge and dissect the terminology being implemented in this passage, as it bears direct connections with historical eugenics movements.

By the late 18th century, ideas of race and biological determinism had infected the academic discourse of European intellectuals. While there were many theorists, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach’s theory of race gained the most traction. By collecting and examining human crania, he concluded that the human species could be split into five categories or races: the Caucasian, the Mongolian, the Aethiopian, the American, and the Malayan race. As with many theories of race during this period, Blumenbach’s ‘discoveries’ were grounded in a desperate need to differentiate and distinguish, to justify systems of racial hierarchy and power, rather than science and logic; and, graciously favoring them, European high society perpetuated these notions. The fact that Tolkien uses “Mongol-type” in his treatise, then, cannot be treated as coincidental, even if his novels were written after eugenics became unfashionable. Indeed, this language is calculated in its use and thus informs the audience about the author’s perceptions on race. Here, the author is understood to share, or at least entertain,these antiquated and erroneous notions, which colors his characterization of a main antagonist as “Mongol – type” as all the more important.

Furthermore, while the genesis of Orcs is contested within canon, one theory suggests that the species is descended from Elves; specifically, it posits that Morgoth, Sauron’s predecessor, captured and corrupted a handful of Elves at the beginning of the First Age, creating a sullied and twisted version of the originally pure race. In the contemporary context, this fictional explanation eerily aligns with several historical race concepts which further demonstrates the intertwinedness of racism and Tolkien’s works. By conceiving Orcs as lesser iterations of Elves, he replicates the systems of power constructed through the eugenics movements, those institutions that endeavored – and still endeavor – to subjugate and suppress the ‘other.’ This, then, is where biological determinism enters the discourse. As aforementioned, Tolkien assigns particular, fundamental attributes to each of his species – a method that greatly simplifies the process of world-building, but reduces the dimensionality and potential of many characters. Though perhaps a harmless practice on the page, the determinism in this fictional universe is complicated by its extensive connections to the real world.

Indeed, throughout The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, one can link J.R.R. Tolkien’s physical conceptions of species – whether that be Elves or Orcs, as investigated in this article – with their assigned immutable character traits to produce a firm image of his authorial prejudice – and thus, the temporal zeitgeist. Of course, there are those that dispute his racism, his bias. This is unsurprising, despite the fact that his characterizations establish astoundingly simple syllogisms that join his fictional Middle-Earth with the social atmosphere of his era. On the one hand, there are Elves: beautiful, graceful, sage. On the other hand, there are Orcs: ugly, savage, obtuse. At the end of the day, to him:

Elves are good. Elves are “fair.” Thus, the “fair” are good.

Orcs are “Mongol-types.” Thus, “Mongol-types” are bad.

Though this article scrutinized the influences of personal and socially-instilled prejudice and racism in Tolkien’s works, this is not a call to “cancel” this fandom. Rather, it is a request to more deeply examine the faults of the author, of his depictions of race, and work to forge a more inclusive, more diverse portrait of Middle-Earth. Moreover, the discussions broached in this article are meant to serve as pipeline for a broader evaluation of stereotyping in the fantasy genre – and, in truth, literature en masse – as these generalizations have by no means been abandoned in the 21st century. Rather than disregard the ongoing issue or simply “cancel” the subject without further thought – as is the contemporary norm – it is important to critically scrutinize the manners in which racism and stereotyping is promulgated in popular literature so that we may understand and more successfully eliminate their continued existence.

GPT-3 was released in 2020, so I thought it would be more accessible than Dall-E. After surfing the internet, I found a few websites that use the GPT-3 model or something similar. By this point, most existing language-generating programs used at least GPT-2, a previous iteration of OpenAI’s GPT series, or something similar. 

After playing with different websites that use some iteration of GPT for a while, I had a lightbulb moment. My classmates and I recently received our third paper assignment for our Philosophy of Mind Class. As soon as I saw the topics listed, I thought, “Yup, I am definitely using my essay pass on this.” Although I knew I didn’t want to write the essay, I saw some potential for it. Instead, I emailed Professor Sehon asking if he would be interested in grading an AI-written essay. I told him I would like it to be graded as if it were a regular student. He responded with something better: “Don’t tell your classmates and we’ll review it together as a class!” I knew it would be a great low-stakes opportunity to test the ‘mind’ of AI.

I used two websites to produce the paper: chibi.ai and shortlyai.com. The AI’s assignment was to explain, evaluate, and argue against Professor Sehon’s philosophical claim that “common-sense reason explanation of human action is irreducibly teleological.” To briefly summarize the claim, Professor Sehon states that explanations for actions are teleological or goal-oriented. For example, the statement “Juan went to the kitchen in order to get coffee” explains Juan’s action in terms of goals – his whole reason for going to the kitchen is the goal of getting coffee. But I do not want you to stop reading from any unnecessary confusion, so I’ll leave the explanation there for now. 

All in all, I was skeptical of how well the language model would respond. I thought most of what would come out would just parrot whatever words were fed and even told Professor Sehon not to put much faith in the paper’s quality. In my mind, there was no way that AI was going to write an even decent philosophy paper.

I got to work by writing a sentence on shortlyai.com for the program to riff off. The first few generated sentences were utterly off-topic. I kept writing a sentence or two, then deleting what I wrote until I finally got a decent starting point for the first paragraph. As soon as the sentences made sense, I kept hitting the ‘Generate New Text’ button. When I felt the first website wrote a decent amount, or as if I was just going in circles with typing and deleting text, I switched to chibi.ai. 

Using chibi.ai turned out to be extremely entertaining. The AI understood this was a philosophy essay and started its first sentence with, “Famously, Kant argued that…” I was shocked. It was impressive that the program recognized it was writing about philosophy, but I guess when you use words like ‘teleology,’ there aren’t many subjects to turn to.

Soon enough, the artificial intelligence started developing its own thought experiment! I thought it was one of the funniest thought experiments I had ever read, mainly because it was such an absurd case. The AI considers the case of the hypothetical Emperor of China and his five-year-old son with Downs Syndrome. The Emperor’s advisors tell him he would be happier if his son did not have Downs Syndrome. They tell him that if he let the doctors operate on his son, he would be cured. But the Emperor is adamant about not curing his son; he takes great pride in his son’s condition.

Somehow the AI ties all this back to Immanuel Kant and then says, “If you find the view that it is wrong to treat people with Down Syndrome with medical intervention to make them more similar to the Emperor’s other children surprising, then ask yourself why that view is mistaken.”

After the absurd Emperor example, I wanted to get the AI back on track to the main prompt surrounding teleological action explanation. I wrote in a sentence with the word ‘Sehon’ so it could start writing more about the original prompt. When ‘Sehon’ was put into the program, the AI finally did what I thought it would be doing the whole time – parroting the inputted words. I assume that because ‘Sehon’ was not a familiar word for the language learning model, it spewed the original prompt three or four times. That is when I decided the AI had finished – it had written its first philosophy paper. I sent the completed paper over to Professor Sehon, and in one of the following classes, we went over it, paragraph by paragraph, giving it feedback under the guise that this was a past student’s paper.

The first paragraph was no big deal. The AI did its job in introducing the topic, with some slight misunderstandings, but it had the general idea down. The mistakes did not seem peculiar; any average student could have similar misunderstandings. 

Paragraph two explains teleology so any reader can understand what it means. As the artificial intelligence says, “Teleology is a form of reasoning that makes use of purpose or goals to explain an action instead of using other causes.” I’d say that its definition is probably more succinct than the one I gave above. The program also came up with an example of teleology and the class tended to like it. “The examples are useful,” they said. “I like how they did X, Y, and not Z.” “I have a decent understanding of where the essay is going.” Generally, no big issues in this part of the paper other than my trying to hold in some laughter. Now came the AI’s magnum opus: the Chinese Emperor thought experiment.

Professor Sehon started to read through the chunk of text as we followed on the screen. He calls out the mention of Kant, saying something about how it was vaguely relevant. But what caught everyone’s attention was the Chinese Emperor. As soon as we hit the portion on curing the Emperor’s son’s Downs Syndrome, there were a few bursts of laughter and some comments on concerns for the student who wrote the paper. Through some laughter, some of my classmates said, “They do know Downs Syndrome isn’t curable, right?” But, overall, people generally liked the essay. It got the point across, they thought. It still leaves us with the question of what causes the Emperor’s actions, but it provides some imagery and examples that the class liked and was easy to follow.

When we arrived at the final paragraph, everyone was confused – this was when the AI had regurgitated the prompt three or four times. Each sentence started with “explain and evaluate” or something like it, but Professor Sehon said, “I think the student had some problems with submitting or something like that.” That seemed to be enough of an explanation for the class.

Professor Sehon also loves doing polls during class. We usually all have a clicker and express an opinion by pressing a letter on the clicker. So Professor Sehon asked us, “What grade would you give the paper?” I gave it a D. I was biased because I knew an AI had written it but did not expect the class results. I was assuming plenty of people would give it Ds and Fs. Surprisingly, most people gave it Bs and Cs. The AI had passed! 

When my classmates found out that an AI wrote it, they were stunned and impressed. How could an AI write a convincing essay on such a specific topic? Considering the paper was for a philosophy of mind class, I’d like to say the AI’s product supports a stronger case for the intelligence of AI. The task may be narrow, but it is still exciting to see where artificial intelligence technologies could go. But still, this feels like an all too easy explanation. Does the artificial intelligence’s success with the paper say more about AI or about us? 

For instance, my classmates were told the paper they were looking over was written by a past philosophy of mind student. I am sure that if most Bowdoin students had their paper up for class review, they would want their classmates to have a certain level of kindness in grading. Does the AI’s success tell us more about its mind or college student collegiality and kindness? 

Furthermore, large language models learn from sentences that humans have created. It is through what humans have already written that the large language models start to make their sentences (but perhaps in many senses so do we). So, did the AI come up with something original? Or simply calculate a probability and output the most probable word or sequence of words? Does the AI know what is true? Or, again, is it just calculating probabilities? 

When confronted with a new word, like ‘Sehon,’ the AI didn’t face much success, but I’m sure if it had faced some success with ‘Sehon,’ we wouldn’t be as critical of what it is capable of. Still, it does not tell us if the AI knows anything. If anything, it seems to tell us that there is no understanding from the program. Sure – the AI assigned weights and biases to its probabilities in what is meant to be an analogous procedure to our brain processes. But I find it hard to believe that this artificial intelligence has assigned meaning and truth values to statements. 

Despite the lack of meaning in the AI’s outputs, I think these programs will be most beneficial when paired with human intelligence. For instance, the AI’s paper may have been more believable if I had been editing what it generated and added any other relevant information to the argument as it came up. It could help clear up writer’s block by bringing in new ideas. I don’t think I would have ever come up with an original thought experiment about a Chinese Emperor’s pride in his son with Downs Syndrome for a class paper, but I can use it as a springboard for a thought experiment of my own that makes more sense in the given context. In this sense, AI can prime new kinds of creativity in us.

Of course, ethical questions always ensue with artificial intelligence. Most professors don’t want their students to turn in AI-generated papers for ethical and learning reasons. If students use AI-generated content for their papers, they may be getting the work done but not retaining much of the course’s information. In the words of the artificial intelligence, “if you find the view that it is wrong to [claim AI-generated content as your own] surprising, then ask yourself why that view is mistaken.” Or maybe students need to know the information to revise the AI-generated content correctly and could gain a deeper understanding by applying the technology in a productive way. (My younger self would likely use a program like this as a cop-out, but perhaps most other writers are not as lazy as I was.) 

Maybe journalists or creative writers can find AI helpful in treating their writer’s block. Still, if AI is used in articles, who gets the credit – the writer, the AI, or the program’s creators? Also, because AI does not understand what it produces, it could produce vulgar or insensitive content. Like most technologies, we shouldn’t defer our knowledge to them. They are helpful but should not be overbearing and we should make sure to keep them in check.

Link to AI-made essay: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KIjDqQMKuBrEcnK5y05J9XCIsZUTocAxNrGMZE-zWWA/edit?usp=sharing

YouTube, launched in February of 2005, began as a fun place to share silly cat videos and grainy homemade clips, but has since evolved to host a myriad of content. From news segments to full documentaries to feature-length movies, YouTube now accounts for around 35% of internet traffic worldwide. 

While a variety of genres have found success on YouTube, political content has exploded in recent years. For decades, television was the only place to find news, commentary, and other videos about current events. With the YouTube boom, this has quickly changed. As audiences began to turn off the TV and consume more short-form videos online, a demand for short, digestible, political videos emerged. In response, a large variety of pseudo-intellectuals, conspiracy theorists and independent journalists emerged to fill the void. However, unlike cable news companies, these new creators had limitless freedom to publish news without any sources, evidence or true liability. In addition, YouTube and its algorithm are designed to keep viewers watching by feeding them more radical and extreme content. As the website generates revenue based on advertisements, the site is incentivized to keep their audience glued to the screen through carefully selected recommended videos. When viewers are interested in politics, what is often recommended becomes increasingly extremist and controversial as that generates more clicks. 

As a direct result, a few channels, particularly those with conservative and alt-right views, quickly gained thousands of subscribers. These include channels featuring independent political commentators such as Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder, both of whom have had their share of scandals. Crowder once stated that “Islamophobia was a perfectly rational phobia.” While channels like Shapiro’s and Crowder’s have large followings, they remain only individual pundits whose credibility relies on the trust of their viewers.

On the other hand exists one of the largest political channels on Youtube, PragerU. Short for Prager University, PragerU has a stated goal of “Serving all ages.” In their own words, their content “offers a free alternative to the dominant left-wing ideology in culture, media, and education.” They too publish right-wing videos, but utilize a plethora of academic or political figures to generate credibility. Its founder, Dennis Prager, is a right-wing talk show host and writer. Notorious for his extreme positions, he once wrote a series of columns named “When a Woman Isn’t in the Mood,” which seriously argued that a wife should have sex with her husband even if she doesn’t want to, lest she hurt his feelings and make him feel “emasculated.”

Through short form videos, PragerU brings in a range of speakers from professors, to radio hosts, to politicians, who all use cute infographics and animations to discuss right-wing ideas. Over the history of the channel, PragerU has published episodes supporting American policing, advocating against “transgenderism”, and decrying Critical Race Theory. 

In one especially charged video titled “Who Needs Feminism?”, guest speaker Andrew Klavan argues that “Feminism is a mean-spirited, small-minded and oppressive philosophy that can poison relations between the sexes.” PragerU has since expanded into podcasts, longer length videos, debates, and even children’s shows. Having gained millions of subscribers and billions of total views, PragerU is arguably the most influential political channel on YouTube. However, unlike other independent creators on Youtube, PragerU makes a great deal of their money from affluent donors. Notably, they have received a significant amount of funds from the Wilks brothers, both billionaires who became successful through oil and fracking profits. While other creators such as Shapiro and Crowder exist alongside PragerU, the professional quality of PragerU’s videos, in addition to having a large range of apparently qualified speakers, uniquely gives right-wing ideas credibility.

While there are some online leftist creators, such as Anita Sarkeesian, and YouTube shows like Chapo Trap House, they are often unable to advertise in the same ways that channels like PragerU can as a result of their wealthy right-wing donors. Additionally, the online left hasn’t had the same hub of intellectual legitimacy for its ideals which the right has found in PragerU. That’s where The Gravel Institute comes in.

The initial idea for the Institute came at the end of Mike Gravel’s 2020 bid for presidency. Gravel had long served as a senator for Alaska, supporting many left wing positions throughout his career such as free healthcare and expanding public safety nets. Famously run by college freshman Henry Williams and high school senior David Oks, the campaign never intended for Gravel to become president. Rather, the end goal was to make it to the democratic debate stage, bringing truly left wing ideas to the table. Following the end of the presidential campaign, The Gravel Institute was founded to continue to promote the same ideas Mike Gravel championed. As co-founder of the Gravel Institute, Henry Williams puts it, “The real goal of the institute is to create a new language for young people to express their political views and then to articulate some of the reasons why our generation is further to the left … to educate people and push them towards the left.” 

A few months ago, I was given the opportunity to interview Williams about his political origins and those of The Gravel Institute. When he was in middle school, Williams says he picked up his passion for politics from his mom, a registered Democrat voter. However, it was the 2016 primaries that really awoke Williams’ passion for politics. After mostly being exposed to more moderate democrats, the race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders showed that voters did not need to settle. “Seeing that Bernie represented an almost entirely different kind of politics showed a different possibility for what politics could be about.” Says Williams. 

Over the next four years, the Trump administration radically changed American politics. Pulling out of climate agreements, rolling back taxes on the wealthy, and suppressing the true nature of the Covid-19 pandemic all represented the rise of the alt-right ideology that was fueling organizations like PragerU. Williams notes that this period of time was incredibly influential in developing his own views, citing the regressive policies of the Trump administration as only further evidence that the left needed its own online platform.

The Gravel Institute specifically calls out right wing think tanks and organizations, writing on their website, “Conservative groups like PragerU flood the internet with slick misinformation, pulling huge swaths of Americans to the right. We’re building an institution of popular education to fight them on their own turf – and spread progressive ideas to new audiences.” While on a rudimentary level the Institute spreads left wing ideas through producing digestible and engaging videos, Williams also acknowledges that there is another key role the Institute serves: “On a bigger level,” he says, “I think there’s a signaling power that comes about when you start putting out polished, authoritative messaging online.”

While there was already a demand for a channel like the Gravel Institute, the pandemic only increased this demand.  “Ever since COVID, we basically all spend a lot of time online,” says Williams, “I mean, that’s almost a universal cache to people. If they work professional jobs, they work from home.”

The Gravel Institute began as a Twitter account, one which now boasts nearly 400,000 followers. Through this account, the Institute posts about salient political issues and comments on current events. Their Twitter is also used to post updates on videos and inform their audiences about other future projects. While Twitter was a great place to begin, The Institute quickly realized YouTube made more sense for the future of the platform. “When we were first thinking of getting started, it seemed clear to us that YouTube was that platform. It still remains the largest website and largest video media website in the US. It’s used heavily by young people. And so the goal and the idea was to let us really build a platform on YouTube. We knew that Twitter was not going to be the place that we could start to do these videos.” 

Among their published Youtube videos, many of which have hundreds of thousands of views, some of the Institute’s most popular titles include “Why America Throws the Poor in Prison” and “The Murderous Police Gangs of Los Angeles.” While all the videos unabashedly express left wing ideas and points, they are diverse in their lengths and styles. Many are similar stylistically to PragerU videos — roughly ten minute snippets that use interesting graphics and animations to make their arguments more compelling. Others are longer documentary style videos that are closer to 30 minutes and focus on interviews and narration to drive home the point.

While YouTube may be The Institute’s main platform, that certainly does not box them in or limit the numerous plans they have to expand. With the hope to eventually offer a complete crash course on leftism, Williams described how “[we] want to greenlight and back a few more ambitious documentaries in the 30 to 40 minute bridge that really go deep into a topic. We also want to do a sort of podcast interview series with some of the people who have been in our videos and with interesting people on the left in general.” Diversity in formatting their content is important because “not everyone likes the same kind of thing online. There’s a lot of specialization and differentiation. And so we have to keep that in mind…The goal is to find maybe five or six sorts of shows or formats that we then produce multiple of each.”

While The Gravel Institute quickly found its footing, having amassed over 350,000 followers in under two years of video production, competing with PragerU is no small task. One challenge that emerges revolves around funding. Without the backing of oil billionaires, The Gravel Institute runs off of many small donations through sites such as Patreon. But while this may limit the budget, Williams points out the upsides to their method of raising money. “We’ve been very heavily crowd-funded since the beginning,” he says, “Funding has come from Patreon. It’s come from ActBlue. It’s come through merch sales, and a very small number of larger donors. That gives us a lot of flexibility. It means that we have a lot of room to kind of decide our destiny, decide what content we make.” While relying on crowdfunding to keep funds coming in is inherently less reliable than using large donors, Williams explains that their funding methods highlight the importance of listening to their audience and producing high quality videos. While PragerU can spend tens of millions (40% of their budget every year) on marketing, “we simply can’t do that.” says Williams, “We need our videos to actually be good, they have to go viral. [We] have to build [our] own diehard audience and the people who want to watch all our videos.” 

They are not the first leftist advocates online, but their impact already far outpaces most attempts to bring new ways of thinking to a younger crowd. As we continue to shift into a world where the Internet is the dominant political battleground, organizations like The Gravel Institute will become increasingly vital in the left’s fight against a predominantly right-wing online sphere.

Despite the futility of the January 6th insurrection, American democracy, or what’s left of it, is gravely endangered. Big business corruption, media manipulation, and other authoritarian methods have already insulated our politicians from the people’s will for decades and made the USA more of an oligarchy than a true democracy. A Princeton study in 2014 found that “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance classified the United States as a “backsliding democracy” for the first time in 2021. The Republican party has driven this transformation of politics for one reason: with the US’s shifting demographics, they cannot remain politically competitive with their current ideology. When the US becomes majority-minority by 2045 – meaning white people will no longer make up over half the population – white supremacy, whether covert or overt, will likely be a failing strategy. Fortunately for Republicans, institutions like the Senate and the Electoral College serve to undemocratically boost the political power of citizens in majority conservative, rural states. In terms of electoral college votes, one vote for president in Wyoming equals 3.7 votes in California. With distortions like that, it’s not surprising that the last two Republican presidents got to the Oval Office while losing the popular vote. Although neither Trump nor Bush still occupies the White House, the five Supreme Court justices they appointed are still with us. With no democratic mandate and often against public opinion, the Supreme Court has started handing down decisions that could’ve been written by Ben Shapiro. The court has overturned Roe v. Wade, kneecapped the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon emissions, and nullified New York gun control laws. The upcoming case Moore v. Harper, which will be heard during the 2022-2023 session, and likely decided upon in July of next year, pertains directly to how states’ electoral systems are organized and is especially keeping legal scholars up at night.

To get a sense of what we should expect on the national level, we can look at a state-level Republican success story in killing democracy. In Wisconsin’s 2018 midterm elections, Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives received 1.3 million votes, while Republican candidates got 1.1 million. However, Republicans held on to their five seats, while Democrats only won three. The results were even more jarring in state legislature elections. While Democrats won 54% of the votes, they gained only 36% of the assembly seats, while the voting minority of Republicans walked away with a nearly veto-proof majority. Simply put, in Wisconsin, voters may be equal, but some voters are more equal than others. This deformed system is the result of partisan gerrymandering, or the redrawing of electoral districts, pushed by Republicans in the state since 2011. As the urban centers of Milwaukee and Madison were growing and becoming more diverse, Republican politicians decided to change the rules of the game while they still could. A Republican-dominated state legislature redrew Wisconsin’s Congressional and state legislative districts to increase the weight of rural conservative voters relative to urban liberal voters. Republican legislators got to choose their own voters rather than let the opposite occur. The governorship of Wisconsin, which remained elected by popular vote, responded to changing demographics and public opinion when Democrat Tony Evers was elected in the 2018 midterms. However, as seen above, he had to contend with a Republican-dominated legislature that prevented him from enacting a popular agenda and preserved the policies put in place by the previous governor, Republican Scott Walker. In a government with checks and balances, undemocratic actors only need to corrupt the judiciary in order to maintain their power over the entire government.

Seeking to restore some semblance of democratic decision-making to Wisconsin politics, Evers and Wisconsin democrats drew up new districts which would loosen the Republican stranglehold. One crucial part of the plan was to increase the number of black-majority assembly districts from 6 to 7 and reverse the Republican policy of “packing” black voters into a small number of districts to reduce their political influence. Such racial gerrymandering strategies are far from new, first employed by white supremacist politicians in the Jim Crow South. Democrats argued that the redistricting would be necessary to fulfill requirements established in the Voting Rights Act, and in a 4-3 decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court supported that claim. Justice Brian Hagedorn, the court’s moderate who voted with the liberal justices, ruled that there were “good reasons to believe” that such a redistricting was necessary to bring Wisconsin’s electoral system today to the standards established in that key 1965 civil rights law. However, an appeal by GOP lawmakers and the Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty brought the case to a conservative-skewed Supreme Court in March 2022, which proceeded to strike down the Wisconsin Democrats’ redistricting plan based on Republicans’ argument that it violated the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause by redrawing districts based on racial demographics. Infuriatingly, the Court essentially argued that gerrymandering on racial lines that favored Republicans isn’t discriminatory but that reversing that same race-based gerrymandering is a threat to civil rights. Justices Sotomayor and Kagan were the only voices of dissent, calling the majority’s ruling “unprecedented.” As part of their challenge to the Democrats’ plan, Republican politicians also drew their own redistricting plan, which would further cement their advantage in legislative elections to the point where they could win a veto-proof majority in the state assembly while still receiving less than half of the popular vote. This would finally neuter Evers’ governorship and ensure Republican dominance. Although the decision stopped short of explicitly endorsing the Republican redistricting plan, the effect was the same. Since the ruling was made shortly before the beginning of the 2022 midterms campaigns for the state assembly, time constraints ensured that Democrats wouldn’t have time to draft a new redistricting plan. On March 23rd, in another 4-3 decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court followed the Supreme Court’s lead and confirmed the Wisconsin Republicans’ plan as the last one standing. “The remaining option is to choose one of the proposed maps we received as the baseline,” wrote Justice Hagedorn, who switched over to the side of his conservative colleagues. “Only one proposal was represented as race-neutral in its construction: the maps submitted by the [Republican-dominated] Legislature.”

Buried under all of this legalese and political maneuvering is a terrifying truth. Demagogues in the Wisconsin Republican party were able to exploit institutions created to ensure democratic accountability to establish the exact opposite of that. Then, the Supreme Court, the branch responsible for defending the Constitution and democracy from partisan overreach (at least according to the average high school civics class), not only failed in its chief responsibility but furthermore ushered in an even more authoritarian election regime. Even more concerningly, this entire episode took place with little to no national media coverage. Unfortunately, that shouldn’t be surprising for those familiar with today’s media environment. Electoral procedures aren’t sexy and certainly don’t garner as many clicks as photos of a scruffy Capitol rioter with his feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk. Additionally, our education system trains Americans to associate the collapse of democracy with the obvious signs of political violence and overt hatred and less so with the institutional failures and exploitations that lead up to that conflict. That’s a flaw that those who wish to undermine our democracy are well aware of. The smarter Republicans understand that something like January 6th will not secure minority rule for them. The heavy lifting has to be done by the states, and with the Supreme Court the way it is, they have a good shot at achieving that goal.

The question at the center of Moore v. Harper, is to what extent state legislatures should get the final word on how elections for federal offices should be regulated. Amicus briefs filed by Republican organizations are pushing the court to follow the controversial “independent state legislature” theory, which argues that state legislatures can override governors, state courts, and even state constitutions and non-partisan state redistricting committees (created to combat gerrymandering) in deciding how elections should be run. Although such a decision wouldn’t allow state legislatures to reject election results with which they disagree, it gives a lot more room to tilt the scales. Voter ID laws, gerrymandering, insufficient polling stations in urban areas, and restricting mail-in or drop-box voting have all proven to be successful measures for advantaging Republican candidates. A decision favoring the “independent state legislature” theory would allow such policies to be pursued with fewer limitations. Considering what Republicans in Wisconsin were able to achieve within those boundaries, it’s scary to think where they could go without them. Since this ruling would only apply to federal elections, governors and state constitutions would maintain their power in regulating state-level elections. However, ensuring that the above mentioned undemocratic measures apply only to federal elections could make the electoral system even more chaotic and susceptible to manipulation by creating a two-tiered voting system where totally different rules apply to elections that appear on the same paper ballot. This opens up a startling possibility where, according to NYU professor Richard Pildes, “state legislatures might try to insert themselves into some state of the vote-counting process” and claim they were seeking to prevent election fraud, which is exactly what Trump was calling on Republican legislators to do in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Arizona after the 2020 election.  

The conflict that precipitated Moore v. Harper is another case in point. After the 2020 census, The Republican-dominated legislature in North Carolina used this legitimate opportunity for redistricting to push through an electoral map that favored Republicans. Critics argued that, in the situation of a 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans, ten of the state’s fourteen members of Congress would be from the GOP. Although North Carolina courts struck down the map for violating the state constitution’s guarantee of free and fair elections, the case has been successfully appealed to the Supreme Court. That’s why this case now presents Republicans with their long-desired opportunity to argue for the “independent state legislature” theory in front of a Supreme Court exceptionally stacked in their favor. If they win, it’s not just North Carolina or Wisconsin’s electoral system draining down the toilet. Ohio, Texas, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and other states with Republican-dominated state legislatures that are trending demographically toward the Democrats could take advantage of the decision. That’s tens of millions of citizens, and all of their corresponding Congresspersons and electoral college votes, that could simply cease to be represented on a democratic basis in favor of a destructive right-wing ideology. If Republicans can do away with democracy, there is little hope for expanding civil rights to racial, sexual, and religious minorities that continue to be systematically oppressed. The roadblocks in front of addressing impending climate change and increasing corruption and inequality will only grow larger. This slow, creeping advance of authoritarianism could pervade every part of our civil society and deprive us of the means, under this Constitution, through which to save ourselves and our future.