Whatever Happened to Perpetual Peace?
PLUS: How to Win Your March Madness Pool AND a review of "The Tourist"
There are three questions here, which really come to one.
Would it be expected from an Epicurean concourse of efficient causes that states, like minute particles of matter in their chance contacts, should form all sorts of unions which in their turn are destroyed by new impacts, until once, finally, by chance a structure should arise which could maintain its existence – a fortunate accident that could hardly occur?
Or are we not rather to suppose that Nature here follows a lawful course in gradually lifting our race from the lower levels of animality to the highest level of humanity, doing this by her own secret art, and developing in accord with her law all the original gifts of man in this apparently chaotic disorder?
Or perhaps we should prefer to conclude that, from all these actions and counteractions of men in the large, absolutely nothing, at least nothing wise, is to issue? That everything should remain as it always was, that we cannot therefore tell but that discord, natural to our race, may not prepare for us a hell of evils, however civilized we may now be, by annihilating civilization and all cultural progress through barbarous devastation? (This is the fate we may well have to suffer under the rule of blind chance – which is in fact identical with lawless freedom – if there is no secret wise guidance in Nature.)
These three questions, I say, mean about the same as this: Is it reasonable to assume a purposiveness in all the parts of nature and to deny it to the whole?
—Immanuel Kant, “Idea of a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose,” 1784
I have read some of the work of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and, take it from me, it’s not the easiest stuff to get into. Very important to the history of Western thought, but also very dense and very German. You may have read him at some point if you were ever enrolled in an undergrad western philosophy course. If not, you’re probably at least familiar with a few of his general ideas, most notably a moral precept called the categorical imperative, which states one should only act as if following a moral principle that would become a universal law once your action occurs (therefore, never ever lie, cheat, or steal) and the notion that human beings should be treated as ends in themselves rather than as means to something else (or, in other words, don’t exploit other people for your own personal benefit.) You’ve definitely encountered his ideas if you’ve ever watched the television show The Good Place.
I’ve been thinking about Kant a lot lately in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. My thought hasn’t drifted to his metaphysical or ethical ideas but to his political philosophy, which has informed the thinking of proponents of cosmopolitanism and liberal internationalism. Kant didn’t write a lot about politics so he never developed a comprehensive political theory. Instead, his political thought is more of a meditation on how the Enlightenment would shape the future—one might even say “destiny”—of European politics.
Kant’s two most important political essays are “Idea of a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose” (1784) and “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” (1795). Compared to his other tracts, they’re a bit more accessible to those unaccustomed to reading German philosophy, so dive in if you’re interested. If not, here’s his main argument, which is fairly straightforward.
Kant begins with the assumption that human beings are rational, self-interested creatures. Furthermore, like the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), Kant believes human beings in their original “state of nature”—that is, a condition without government or laws in which every human being is technically “at war” with one another—will rationally conclude the best way to ensure their individual safety is to band together and establish a government that can unite them under a common authority and common laws.
Unlike Hobbes, however, Kant believed individuals would be a little pickier when it came to choosing which political society to throw in their lot with. Hobbes so feared the insecure conditions of the state of nature (he described life there as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”) that he urged people to accept whatever system of government they could join, even if it meant being ruled by a tyrant. For Hobbes, being ruled by a cruel tyrant was infinitely better than living without the security provided by law and order. Kant, on the other hand, believed a rational individual would only agree to join a rationally-ordered political system that actually respected their rationally self-evident rights; that is, a political system guided by reason and the rule of law, one that reflected the reasoning of its citizens and allowed individuals to act in accordance with their own reason. In Kant’s terms, a republic. (While Kant disliked despotism, he also wasn’t sold on democracy, which he equated with irrational mob rule.)
Kant admitted enlightened republics weren’t always going to be on the political menu: Sometimes individuals would band together out of convenience or ambition and that political rivalries could emerge that would lead to conflict and the dissolution of rational political orders. But Kant believed in the promise of the Enlightenment, that just as Newton had used reason to discern the universal laws governing the natural world that it would also be possible to use reason to discern the universal laws governing the human world, and just as Newton’s discoveries led to significant scientific progress, the application of reason to the study of human nature would also lead to significant social progress, the benefits of which would become increasingly apparent to human beings over time.
What this meant was that as the Enlightenment spread across Europe, more and more enlightened republics governed by the laws of reason would emerge. And because these republics would be governed by laws of reason with universal application (say, that “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights” and that “These rights are Liberty, Property, Safety and Resistance to Oppression”) they would all tend toward a form of political compatibility. In other words, maybe instead of constantly warring with one another, Europe’s various enlightened states would eventually form some sort of transnational European union in which its citizens and constituent nations would live together in a state of “perpetual peace” that would allow all to flourish:
The practicability (objective reality) of this idea of federation, which should gradually spread to all states and thus lead to perpetual peace, can be proved. For if fortune directs that a powerful and enlightened people can make itself a republic, which by its nature must be inclined to perpetual peace, this gives a fulcrum to the federation with other states so that they may adhere to it and thus secure freedom under the idea of the law of nations. By more and more such associations, the federation may be gradually extended. (Kant, “Perpetual Peace”)
Notice how Kant moves from autonomous rational beings in rivalry with one another to the formation of a rational state that benefits its constituent members, and from there moves from autonomous rational states in rivalry with one another to the formation of a rational supranational state that benefits its constituent states. Kant is suggesting there’s a clear evolutionary process at play guided by the power of reason from the individual to the state to the federation/confederation. And Kant makes it sound like all this is just destined to happen.
And then destiny encountered the Russian army in Ukraine…
If you’ve been following the reaction in Europe to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the things you may have noticed is how shocked Europeans are that a war (particularly one of this magnitude and ferocity) has erupted on the European continent in the twenty-first century. Europeans, accustomed as they are to “perpetual peace,” had assumed war had been banished from their corner of the world following the fall of the Berlin Wall. (The ethnic powder keg of the old Yugoslavia stands as the lone unfortunate exception.)
It must be said some of that reaction is laced with racism: War, in this view, is something that is not waged in “civilized” (read: White European) society but between “less civilized” peoples (read: peoples of color) as if white civilized Europeans have somehow transcended the impulses that drive mankind to war. It’s also worth noting that when Europe and NATO (to draw the United States into this) do wage war, those wars tend to take place in this “less civilized” world that we in the West often assume is more inclined to violence, conveniently forgetting that these places in the relatively recent past had been violently subjugated by European powers and that twice in the past 110 years “civilized” Europeans absolutely slaughtered one another in two of the most destructive wars mankind has ever waged. So let’s not pretend war is somehow just not part of Europe’s DNA.
Yet there are also those in Europe who promote the European project as a means to keep the continent from revisiting its violent history. While the devastation wrought by the two world wars gave that project great urgency, it’s also worth noting that prior to the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Europeans had been in a near constant state of war with one another for centuries. Even in the (relatively) peaceful century that followed, wars between states would occasionally occur. Consequently, the goal of bringing together dozens of nation-states to create a politically unified Europe to avoid armed conflict between those nations represents a truly noble ambition. It’s also one of the reasons that makes the war in Ukraine so heartbreaking: That idea of a perpetually peaceful continent has been shattered.
Some might say, however, it’s worth taking a step back to observe what’s going on both geographically and historically before sounding the death knell for Kant’s ideas. In the first place, while Ukraine and Russia are European, neither is a full participant in the European project. There may be a war in Europe, but it did not originate between members of the EU. More significantly, though, Kant would likely argue the process of perpetual peace happens through fits and starts, which may be what we’re watching right now. The organizations that became the foundations of a unified Europe originated in western Europe after World War II during the tense early years of the Cold War. After the Cold War ended, the former communist nations of central Europe and even some former Soviet republics became part of that project. The war in Ukraine—which finds Russia trying to keep a nation it considers within its sphere of influence from gravitating toward Europe—represents the next (albeit fitful) phase of that expansion. The most optimistic of Europeans may believe there is even another step after this: The integration of an “enlightened” Russia into Europe.
Before imagining an EU stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok, however, let’s interrogate Kant’s ideas a bit more. I worry that his beliefs are suffused with the arrogance of liberalism and a misplaced faith in the ability of free market capitalism to promote the virtues of the Enlightenment. I’m particularly concerned he and his acolytes have convinced themselves that the success of the Enlightenment is a matter of destiny, thus blinding them to other aspects of human nature and politics that could ultimately roll back the Enlightenment project.
For example, here’s something Kant mentions at the end of his First Supplement to “Perpetual Peace”:
Just as nature wisely separates nations, which the will of every state, sanctioned by the principles of international law, would gladly unite by artifice or force, nations which could not have secured themselves against violence and war by means of the law of world citizenship unite because of mutual interest. The spirit of commerce, which is incompatible with war, sooner or later gains the upper hand in every state. As the power of money is perhaps the most dependable of all the powers (means) included under the state power, states see themselves forced, without any moral urge, to promote honorable peace and by mediation to prevent war wherever it threatens to break out. They do so exactly as if they stood in perpetual alliances, for great offensive alliances are in the nature of the case rare and even less often successful.
In other words, even nations that are not in a political union with one another or that do not share common political values will still tend toward perpetual peace if they trade a lot with each other. Spoken like a truly enlightened free market capitalist!
Proponents of free trade often argue that encouraging trade between countries can more effectively liberalize a repressive society than trade barriers or a program of punitive sanctions can. This, for instance, was the case some in the United States made in the past for normalizing trade relations with China. Yet nations like China, Saudi Arabia, and Russia have not become more open, liberal societies as their economies have become more fully integrated into the global economy over the past 30-40 years. Some even argue quite persuasively that the process of economic liberalization in Russia following the Cold War so upended Russian society—the conspicuous consumption of newly wealthy oligarchs stood in stark relief to homeless veterans of the Great Patriotic War begging for food outside grocery stores and the struggles of Russia’s working class—that it facilitated that country’s turn to Putin.
Furthermore, it seems just as likely (maybe even more likely) that deep economic ties and robust trade only encourage nations to turn a blind eye to their trading partners’ bad behavior. The West’s reluctance to use economic sticks to punish nations like China and Saudi Arabia for their human rights violations is an example of this. So is Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas, which was problematic even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine given Putin’s despotic tendencies. It truly is extraordinary, therefore, that the West has gone to such great lengths to cut Russia off from the global economy, since Enlightenment values usually end up taking a back seat when there’s so much money on the line. The point is, though, that there seems to be a tenuous link between the spread of Enlightenment values and the spread of free market commerce within and between nations. Enlightenment virtues are not carried along by the winds of capitalism or the flow of money.
But maybe this is all asking too much of commerce. If you re-read that excerpt from the First Supplement, Kant isn’t arguing commerce between nations will promote enlightenment, just peace (which, for the record, is not a bad thing.) So does free trade at least promote peace? Up until a couple weeks ago, I might have said it did, but if that was case, then Russia would have never invaded Ukraine, and I’m not inclined to write that off as an exception. Yes, one could argue progress toward perpetual peace moves in “fits and starts” (that point does make Kant’s whole argument rather unfalsifiable, which is a big problem with his argument) but still, it makes no rational sense for Russia to have started this war given the severe economic consequences that followed. Maybe Putin miscalculated and didn’t take the threat of sanctions seriously on the assumption the West itself would want to avoid the subsequent economic pain. Or maybe the West miscalculated and leveled the threat on the assumption Russia would have stepped back from the brink of war if it had to choose between a healthy economy and dominion over Ukraine. Either way, given Kant’s argument in “Perpetual Peace”, Russia’s integration into the global economy, which extends far beyond fossil fuels and other raw materials, should have kept this war from breaking out. Yet here we are.
If Kant was still alive, he may look at what Putin has done over the past few days and dismiss him as an irrational leader spitting into the wind of history, or better yet, destiny. But that could also be a complete misreading of Putin, who may completely reject Kant’s terms. Kant’s model of perpetual peace is one in which the world’s enlightened republics rationally come together based on shared liberal political values and a common free market. Yet the rules of that realm are still likely to be set by those with the most clout: The UK, Japan, France and Germany or the EU, and, most importantly, the United States. Russia would not be a small player in that club, but they’d still be treated as a junior partner (or, as Barack Obama called Russia after they annexed Ukraine in 2014, a “regional power.”) Would an enormous transcontinental nation with vast natural resources and a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons be satisfied with such a political arrangement?
Putin likely regards Kant’s theory of perpetual peace as a veiled scheme to maximize the interests of the United States and marginalize Russia. Perhaps he would prefer an older, different international order, one based on regional superpowers that viewed each other as rivals whose might (whether of the political, economic, or military kind) and ability to make right must be respected. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an effort to prove Kant’s model is completely wrong and force the West to accept his [Putin’s] framework for international politics.
I prefer Kant’s model to Putin’s model. I’d rather live in a world in which the humanitarian values of the Enlightenment have become embedded in countries around the globe to ensure the peace and personal security of those who live within and travel between them. But we should not be so arrogant to assume the triumph of the Enlightenment model and perpetual peace are rationally foreordained and inevitable, or that the rest of the world accepts Kant’s framework as the terms of international politics. I made that mistake in assuming Putin would never invade Ukraine. So did the ever-so-rational Barack Obama, who dismissed Putin as an irrational relic of a bygone age pushing against the post-1989 world order. It turns out Mitt Romney had a better read on Russia in 2012 when he declared Russia the United States’ biggest geopolitical threat. Perhaps Romney had a sense for the way superpower politics could still exert itself on the international stage, although I’m less convinced he had a way to respond to Putin beyond escalating tension with our old Cold War rival. I’m even less convinced he appreciated the way Russia’s sudden embrace of capitalism in the 1990s destabilized the country and led it to turn its back on liberal political values.
It’s also worth noting the other person who appreciated Putin’s embrace of superpower politics was Donald Trump, who has always admired strongman-style politics, bristled at international cooperation and moral norms, and has little time for Enlightenment values. In fact, Trump’s political rise should stand as a warning to those who assume the triumph of a liberal world order is inevitable. Change a few votes in Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia and it wouldn’t be hard to characterize the United States as backsliding on its liberal values. And who knows, maybe we are regardless. It also isn’t as though the European Union is the story of the inevitable triumph of liberalism, either, as the rise of authoritarian leaders in Poland and Hungary demonstrate.
It’s impossible to predict how the war in Ukraine will end. Ukraine and its people could be crushed, ushering in a new era of superpower politics. Russia could suffer a humiliating defeat, leading to an affirmation of Kant’s neoliberal world order. Regardless, those of us who value the virtues of the Enlightenment need to learn from this moment. We need to understand the moral principles of the Enlightenment are not necessarily incubated in free markets or spread through commerce. We also cannot arrogantly assume the triumph of the Enlightenment project is inevitable, particularly since we so often struggle to understand how to properly nurture it and how others perceive it.
**More on Kant and that vandalized statue. As mentioned above, the statue is located in Kaliningrad, Russia, an enclave on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania that is the home of Russia’s Baltic Fleet. Kant was born in this city in 1724, when it was then called Königsberg and part of Prussia. Kant spent nearly his entire life there, where he taught at the town’s university. Königsberg was captured by the Soviets in 1945 near the end of World War II and incorporated into Russia. The statue was vandalized in 2018 when the Russian territory held an online vote to rename the city’s airport. During the run-up to the election, Kant was denounced as a German “traitor” by a Russian Vice-Admiral. The airport was instead named for the Russian Empress Elizabeth, who ruled Königsberg for five years after capturing it in 1758 and to whom Kant pledged his loyalty. And who exactly was Elizabeth, you may wonder. Well, she gained power in 1741 by deposing a one-year-old in a coup, and she is considered a good emperor for modernizing Russia’s roads, supporting institutions of higher learning, undertaking numerous construction projects (including the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg), and not executing anyone during her reign.
Signals and Noise
From “Putin Has No Good Way Out, and That Really Scares Me” by Thomas Friedman (New York Times): “[E]ither [Putin] cuts his losses now and eats crow — and hopefully for him escapes enough sanctions to revive the Russian economy and hold onto power — or faces a forever war against Ukraine and much of the world, which will slowly sap Russia’s strength and collapse its infrastructure. As he seems hellbent on the latter, I am terrified. Because there is only one thing worse than a strong Russia under Putin — and that’s a weak, humiliated, disorderly Russia that could fracture or be in a prolonged internal leadership turmoil, with different factions wrestling for power and with all of those nuclear warheads, cybercriminals and oil and gas wells lying around.”
Are sanctions and other economic measures the best way to squeeze Putin? Simon Jenkins (The Guardian) doesn’t think so, as they may only end up hurting average citizens around the world and drive Russians into Putin’s embrace.
I’m glad Europeans have been so willing to welcome refugees from Ukraine. But remember when they resisted accepting refugees from Syria? Tazreena Sajjad (The Conversation) certainly does.
In an article titled “Republicans Are Laying a Trap for Biden on Russian Energy Sanctions” in the Washington Post, Catherine Rampell writes that after having demanded Biden ban Russian oil imports, Republicans will then turn around and blame Biden for rising gas prices due to his hostility to domestic fossil fuel production. As Rampell points out, there are all kinds of problems with that argument, but it has an intuitive, short term appeal to it. So why not get ahead of it if you’re the Democrats? Try this on for size: “For years now, Democrats have been arguing the United States needs to ween itself off fossil fuels, but every step of the way Republicans have responded with ‘Drill baby drill.’ Not only is that bad for the environment, but it’s left this country’s economy tethered to petrostates like Putin’s Russia. We could have softened this hit we’re taking from the rise in energy prices by transitioning to renewable energy sources years ago, but now we’re paying the price for our dependence on fossil fuels because the Republican Party doesn’t have the guts to stand up to Big Oil.”
Former Attorney General and Fred Flintstone body double William Barr is out with a book that spills the beans on his time in the Trump administration, but don’t worry, you don’t have to buy it because he took some time this past week to share its juiciest details with NBC News’ Lester Holt and Savannah Guthrie. SPOILER ALERT: Barr—who considers himself a reasonable and responsible public servant, of course—thought Trump was “off the rails,” “hard to work with,” “resistant to advice,” motivated not by ideology or principle but “revenge,” and unfit to be his party’s nominee for president. Yet asked by Guthrie if he would vote for Trump if he won his party’s nomination for president in 2024, Barr replied, “
Absolutely not. Because I believe that the greatest threat to the country is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic Party, it’s inconceivable to me that I wouldn’t vote for the Republican nominee," Barr told Guthrie. "It’s hard to project what the facts are going to turn out to be three years hence, but as of now, it’s hard for me to conceive that I wouldn’t vote for the Republican nominee.” That’s right: The “greatest threat to the country” is the “progressive agenda” and not, say, oh I don’t know, maybe Vladimir Putin? And I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of these tell-alls. They’re like autobiographies written by the individual members of Mötley Crüe: “The sex, the drugs, the alcohol, the fights, the ODs, the trashed hotel rooms, the car crashes, the bodies…yeah, they took it way too far, but for me, it was always about the music, man.” Yeah, but you were in the band!Speaking of Trump, I love this: What’s the basis of Trump’s power? It’s social media. He needs a direct line to his groupies if he hopes to recreate that old 2016 magic. But he’s been kicked off Twitter and Facebook. So what does he do? He starts his own social media platform. Only problem is it’s bombing. Maybe someone at the Mar-a-Lago IT Department will take some time to look at it over their lunch break, but it’s not like the guy didn’t have the time and money and connections to get this right in the first place! Yet folks like Bill Barr are still like, “Yeah, he has no idea how to scramble an egg, but I’d put him in charge of the country again.”
In local monorail news: “Trump Touted a Contest For Small-Dollar Donors to Dine With Him in New Orleans. But No Winner Met Him.” (Washington Post)
Quick, how many Nazi sympathizers are you friends with? None? Yeah, that’s pretty reasonable. So how come Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) knows so many? Don’t worry, though, Speaker-in-Waiting Kevin McCarthy has assured us Gosar and fellow white nationalist sympathizer Marjorie Taylor-Greene will get their seats on congressional committees back if Republicans win control of the House again in the upcoming election. So let me get this straight: Republicans are saying the way for voters to prove the libs wrong on CRT and white supremacy this fall is to actually empower the party with white supremacists in it? They make this too easy! I long for the good old days when Republicans kicked white supremacists off congressional committees for merely wondering why white supremacy was offensive (although, in truth, it took them a long time to get around to that too.)
This is vile: From the Washington Post (WARNING: The following contains offensive references to sexual assault): “A Republican candidate favored to win a seat in the Michigan House said he tells his daughters to ‘just lie back and enjoy it’ if raped, as he attempted to make an analogy about abandoning efforts to decertify the results of the 2020 election. Robert Regan, who is running to represent Michigan’s District 74 in the state legislature, made the comments during a Facebook live stream Sunday. The discussion was hosted by the Rescue Michigan Coalition, a conservative group that supports former president Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him….During the discussion, fellow panelist Amber Harris, a Republican strategist, told the group that it is ‘too late’ to continue challenging the results of the 2020 election, suggesting Republicans should instead move on and focus on future races, to which Regan replied: ‘I tell my daughters, ‘Well, if rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it.’’” The Michigan state Republican party condemned the comments but have not encouraged Regan to withdraw from the race. Two years ago, his own daughter encouraged voters not to vote for him; Regan blamed his daughter’s plea on the fact that she had gone to college.
Florida was at it again this week. The state legislature passed a law prohibiting schools from teaching topics connected to sexual orientation or gender identity to K-3 students, which I assume means a teacher can no longer explain to a class that some kids have a mommy and a daddy and other kids have two mommies without having to pay a fine. That same law also requires lessons on similar topics taught to older children be “age appropriate” (whatever that means.) Then the state’s surgeon general recommended children not get vaccinated for COVID. And then on Thursday the legislature passed another law saying teachers can’t make students feel guilt or shame over the past actions of their racial group (although there’s some doubt about whether that law has any teeth, but wait until it ends up before a Gov. DeSantis-appointed judge.) Some will argue there may be merit to these actions, but that’s not what this is about. This is simply using the government by trolling.
This is sobering, and goes way beyond the issue of COVID to how this country thinks about preventable death in general: From The Atlantic, “How Did This Many Deaths Become Normal?” by Ed Yong (“After many of the biggest disasters in American memory, including 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, ‘it felt like the world stopped,’ Lori Peek, a sociologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder who studies disasters, told me. ‘On some level, we owned our failures, and there were real changes.’ Crossing 1 million deaths could offer a similar opportunity to take stock, but ‘900,000 deaths felt like a big threshold to me, and we didn’t pause,’ Peek said. Why is that? Why were so many publications and politicians focused on reopenings in January and February—the fourth- and fifth-deadliest months of the pandemic? Why did the CDC issue new guidelines that allowed most Americans to dispense with indoor masking when at least 1,000 people had been dying of COVID every day for almost six straight months? If the U.S. faced half a year of daily hurricanes that each took 1,000 lives, it is hard to imagine that the nation would decide to, quite literally, throw caution to the wind. Why, then, is COVID different?”)
Vincent’s Picks: The Tourist
In The Tourist, a six-episode miniseries now streaming on HBO Max, Jamie Dornan (The Fall, the Fifty Shades franchise, Belfast) stars as...well, we don’t know who he is exactly. After stopping to take a leak at a gas station in the middle of the Australian Outback, he finds himself pursued across the arid landscape by a semi-truck with murderous intent. The chase leaves him hospitalized with no recollection of his identity nor his past. He also, conveniently, has little on his person that might help identify him. Given this mystery’s many twists and revelations, I’ll leave it at that, but I will say the plot also involves another stranger who’s been buried alive in a metal drum somewhere between New South Wales and Perth.
At times, The Tourist is deadly (even gruesomely) serious, but it just as easily leans into the absurd. Some of that comes from the local color, but it’s also derived from the sense that it’s absolutely ridiculous that a man who has no idea who he is, what he’s supposed to be doing, or what he supposedly knows becomes involved in so much mayhem. While the plot is thrilling enough, the show also ponders questions about guilt, responsibility, and redemption. Dornan's amnesiac wishes no ill will on anyone but he begins to wonder if once upon a time he wasn’t a good guy. How responsible is he for the sins of his past? What does he owe others for the harm a different version of himself may have brought upon them?
The Tourist features memorable performances from Shalom Brune-Franklin as a friendly waitress who lends Dornan’s character some help and Danielle Macdonald as a traffic cop who gets more interested in the case than she probably should. Macdonald is great in the role, which finds her adopting a cheery persona as she struggles with insecurity over her body size, her job status, and her relationship with a fiancé who domineers and shames her. The case gives her a chance to prove she’s got what it takes to herself and others. She just may wish her first foray into police investigation involved fewer people armed with guns, though.
The show's other star is the Outback itself, so wide, expansive, dusty, and dry. Like the amnesiac's memory, it is empty yet full of danger. Dornan’s character explores it at his own risk. At times I found myself thinking I’d like to see the Outback for myself one day; at other times, I hoped I’d never find myself driving across the wasteland, especially in a car low on gas. The show’s setting also lends the show—a brisk six hours—some temporal heft as characters embark on journeys that in real-time would take hours upon hours to complete. Yet still, so much happens; while watching Episode 4, I recounted the events of Episode 1 and remarked it felt as though much of the story had happened seasons ago. This isn't slow TV, but it also isn’t rushed. I’m not sure the show’s mystery sticks its landing, and there’s a whole season’s worth of character development crammed into its final 15 minutes, but it’s still worth a visit.
Garbage Time: How to Win Your March Madness Pool
(Garbage Time theme song here)
If you love dribbling, poor officiating, more dribbling, free-throw shooting, and even more dribbling, then you probably love college basketball, which means this is your favorite time of the year: March Madness! Actually, March Madness is great. Who doesn’t love a good old survive-and-advance bracket competition? No matter the problems with NCAA athletics (and there are so many) the format is pure, and if you can set aside the fact that the NCAA, college athletic departments from coast to coast, and a bunch of coaches are making millions upon millions upon millions of dollars off the uncompensated labor of their 18-22 year old players (who, no matter which way you cut it, are owed way more than the cost of a college education despite the fact that they can now make some cash by marketing their names and likenesses) then these next three weeks are close to sports heaven.
It’s also the time of year when one of your co-workers or acquaintances will approach you to ask if you would perhaps like to join their March Madness pool for a small fee, perhaps $5 or $10 or $20. Understand, they’re not doing this just to be friendly; no, they’re doing this because they want your money, sucker! They’re banking on you saying, “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t follow college basketball much,” because they’ll respond, “Oh, don’t worry, it’s just for fun. A lot of people in the pool don’t follow college basketball,” which translates into, “I’ve talked a lot of people who don’t know much about basketball into contributing to a pot only me and those other two guys I’m always talking about sports with have a chance at winning.”
But don’t worry, I’m here to help you win that money. I’m an expert at this. Three years ago, my apartment community hosted a March Madness contest that residents could enter for free. The prize for winning was a $20 gift certificate to a nifty little local boutique called Target. Challenge accepted! I know all about the sports! So I completed a bracket and submitted it. Did I win? Of course not. But do you know who did? My eight-year-old daughter, who had watched not a second of college basketball all season!
So let me share with you the secrets of the Madness of March that I passed on to her, secrets I myself in all my vainglory chose not to follow but that she heeded to a T.
It’s simple, really: You see those numbers 1-16 next to the teams on your bracket? They represent each team’s seeding in their region of the tournament. The important thing to remember about those numbers is this:
Lower number = Higher seed = Better team
In other words, the people who put this bracket together have RANKED THE TEAMS FOR YOU. That makes this all very easy: Pick the teams seeded 1-8 to win their games and advance them to the next round. After that, take the teams seeded 1-4 and advance them to the Sweet Sixteen. As my daughter would say, “Easy peasy lemon squeezy,” which translates to “Show me the money!”
Now many will respond to this strategy by declaring, “But the upsets? March Madness is notorious for the upsets! I’ve got to be able to pick the upsets!” To which I will reply, no, you don’t have to pick the upsets. When it comes down to it, there usually aren’t that many upsets. We remember the upsets because it’s fun watching scrappy underdogs dunk on major conference schools, but there’s a reason they’re underdogs in the first place. Let’s not get carried away here trying to discern which team no one expects to win will actually emerge victorious.
But there are other reasons to avoid picking upsets. First, due to analytics, it seems the selection committee has done a better job in recent years correctly seeding teams. Things like “reputation” and “the eye test” play less of a role in the selection process than they did in years past. This means it’s much less likely that an overrated team gets a high seed and ends up paired against an underrated low seed.
Secondly, it’s become much harder recently for dangerous mid-major teams to land at-large bids and pull off an upset. It all comes down to RPI, Quality Wins, and Strength of Schedule, which are ways of determining how good a team is by looking at how good the teams they play (and how good the teams those teams play) are. Mid-major teams automatically make the NCAA tournament by winning their conference tournaments, but beyond that, good mid-major teams will need some quality wins under their belts to crack the tournament just like any other team in the nation. The problem is major conference teams (teams from the ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12, and PAC 12, where most of the nation’s powerhouse teams reside) don’t schedule mid-majors to avoid embarrassing losses that could not only damage their own strength of schedule but also the prestige of their program, which can harm recruiting. (For example, the Big 10’s University of Iowa avoids scheduling the Missouri Valley Conference’s University of Northern Iowa, which has a solid basketball program.) That means a good mid-major school that could hold its own against major conference teams may lack the quality wins and strength of schedule to qualify as an at-large tournament team. In their place, the selection committee is more likely to take a mediocre major conference team.
The third reason to avoid picking upsets is that they tend to mess you up down the line. You may feel real good about that 14-seed knocking-off that 3-seed, but when that doesn’t happen and the 3-seed is now playing the crappy 6-seed you had beating the 14-seed in the next round, you’re just going to end up with a busted bracket. Finally, remember that upsets are going to happen almost randomly. A good team can go cold on a day their opponent shoots lights out. For the most part, you can’t predict that. If you try to, you’re going to get hit in two ways: You’re going to lose the upset you incorrectly called AND lose the upset you didn’t call. It’s better to just ride the upsets out.
That last point is very important: Most people aren’t going to pick the upsets correctly. If you miss an upset, so did most of the people in your pool. Sure, some of them will have picked it. Maybe it’s because they’re homers from Annapolis thinking their local school is going to do what no other 16-seed has done before and trounce a 1-seed, but there’s nothing you can do about that when that happens. That’s just luck. It’s also luck when someone rides a 13-seed or a 7-seed into the Sweet Sixteen. That same person, however, is likely to have made some bad picks elsewhere and so long as you picked high seeds, you’ll still be in pretty good shape. And don’t worry if there are a lot of upsets because that’s going to mess everyone up. Your bracket may not look pretty if that happens, but neither is anyone else’s, and you’ll probably still be better positioned to pick up points going forward than a lot of other people.
If, however, you feel the urge to pick a few upsets, let me give you a few tips. First, don’t (see above). Secondly, games featuring numerically-adjacent seeds (8/9 seeds in the first round, 4/5 seeds in the second round) are often coin flips. They’re also often not considered “upsets,” but if you’re looking to advance an underseed, that’s a safe place to do so. Third, try to pick upsets that limit the damage they do to your bracket if they do backfire. For example, let’s say you really think that 6-seed is going to beat that 3-seed in the second round. Go ahead and pick them if you must so long as you think the 2-seed they will probably be playing in the next round will end up beating the 6-seed or the 3-seed regardless who wins. Just remember, though, that the further you drag that 6-seed along, the more damage it will potentially do to your bracket if they lose early in the tournament. Fourth, for whatever reason, 5-seeds have a tendency to get upset by 12-seeds. I don’t like picking against 5-seeds because I don’t know which ones are going to flop, but it usually doesn’t do too much damage to your bracket because you should pick the 4-seed to beat either the 5-seed or the 12-seed in the subsequent round regardless. Finally, every year there’s at least one upset every pundit picks correctly because the higher seed is in a skid and all their players are hurt and they draw a bad match-up. If you spend enough time listening to sports media, you’ll figure out who this is. If not, don’t worry about it; it’s just one game.
As for what you should do in the final four rounds of the tournament, yeah, that gets a little trickier. I’m just laying a foundation for you here so you can tally as many points as you can early on and put you in contention down the stretch. You may want to take the following into account, though, as you complete your bracket. I reviewed every men’s Final Four since the 2005-06 season; that’s when the NBA implemented its “one-and-done” rule for the draft. That pushed elite high school players into college programs for at least one season before going pro, which significantly altered the college game. That’s also around the time the selection committee began relying on more advanced analytics. Here’s what I found:
Initial Seeds of Final Four Teams (Men):
1-seeds: 38%
2-seeds: 20%
3-seeds: 10%
4-seeds: 8%
5- or higher seeds: 23% (3 5-seeds; 3 7-seeds; 2 8-seeds; 1 9-seed; 1 10-seed; 4 11-seeds)Initial Seeds of Runner-Up Teams (Men):
1-seeds: 40%
2-seeds: 20%
3-seeds: 13%
4-seeds: 7%
5- or higher-seeds: 20% (1 5-seed; 2 8-seeds)Initial Seeds of Championship Teams (Men):
1-seeds: 73%
2-seeds: 7%
3-seeds: 13%
4-seeds: 0%
5- or higher seeds: 7% (1 7-seed)
By my tally, of the 30 teams that made the championship game, 17 of those teams were 1 seeds. Yes, the Final Four consisted exclusively of 1-seeds only once in that time frame, and yes, it’s unlikely there will be more than two 1-seeds in the Final Four, but I wouldn’t hold it against you if you still picked all 1-seeds for your Final Four just to maximize your chances.
You might also want to consult FiveThirtyEight.com, which usually runs thousands of simulations to determine each team’s odds of advancing to every stage of the tournament. Additionally, ESPN’s John Gasaway has written an article every year since 2016 listing the 345+ teams that WON’T win the tournament, leaving only eight teams that can, and he’s never been wrong. This year, the eight teams he’s listed are Arizona, Baylor, Duke, Gonzaga, Houston, Kansas, Kentucky, and Villanova. (He also seems favorably disposed to Arkansas, Iowa, and Tennessee, so keep on eye on their draws.)
As for the women’s Final Four, well, their numbers are even more stark:
Initial Seeds of Final Four Teams (Women):
1-seeds: 62%
2-seeds: 22%
3-seeds: 7%
4-seeds: 7%
5- or higher seeds: 3% (1 5-seed; 1 7-seed)Initial Seeds of Runner-Up Teams (Women):
1-seeds: 47%
2-seeds: 20%
3-seeds: 13%
4-seeds: 13%
5- or higher-seeds: 7% (1 5-seed)Initial Seeds of Championship Teams (Women):
1-seeds: 87%
2-seeds: 13%
While it’s still rare, it is certainly not unheard of for the women’s Final Four to consist entirely of 1-seeds. And it would be crazy not to pick a 1-seed to win the national championship. But…the best player in women’s college basketball, Paige Bueckers, just returned to UConn after being sidelined for most of the season. Without her, UConn was a 2/3 seed; with her, they can make a claim to being the best team in the nation. Choose carefully.
Remember: A lot of people—mostly men who watch a lot of SportsCenter, and, if they’re really into college basketball, maybe like 20 games a year, if that, which is not nearly enough games to watch to be an expert on a 68-team tournament field—are going to sprinkle their brackets with upsets because if they get an upset right it makes them look like a Brain Genius in front of their bros. But you know what doesn’t make them a Brain Genius? Picking a clearly designated underdog to win. Feel free to hold that against them when they’re bragging about how they correctly picked the University of Southeastern West Virginia State to upset UCLA when they also thought Tallahassee Tech was going to beat Kansas in the first round.
Some will say it’s the spirit of the tournament to pick a few upsets here and there. Those people are also interested in taking your money. Don’t listen to them. Don’t you want to take their money? Don’t you want your cash back and then some? Do you know what $20 can get you at Target?!? Not a lot these days (actually a Lego set) but whatever: What you’re really striving for is that Tuesday morning a few weeks from now when a shell-shocked ESPN junkie hands you of all people an envelope stuffed with the dollar, dollar bill y’all. One shining moment indeed.