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(2) Neither Dr. Fauci nor the national security official appeared to be aware of this work before I shared the information about it with them. This also seems like normal behavior from public officials working to uncover the origins of COVID-19. 9/9

Congratulations to my colleagues at HHS for winning their arbitration case. Here's to hoping for a similar result for those of us at Commerce.

And like if it’s not clear, the decision to make Menelaus a “not quite villain,” even if it’s very clear he has put his wife through some shit, is extremely fucked up and absolutely not ok.

Wow we are doing the whole arc tonight If there is one thing you don’t do at a State Department conference with other people it’s show the wrong map. When I was an intern, a delegation stopped listening and protested an aid event the moment they saw a particular version of a map.

A lot of these ideas keep showing up, and it’s notable that as Odysseus escapes the cave (which is his ocean), he sails off into the sunset, having abdicated power. Now that he’s philosophical, he no longer is in a position to rule or something like that.

The other thing: Man of Steel, which he produced but did not direct, is basically like the purest distillation of this. A Pa Kent who is like hey maybe letting people die to keep good knowledge secret is good. A Superman who is separated from politics but does the just incomprehensible thing, etc.

I am on cold meds no I do not

PS: Also, I’ll note that while Agamemnon is this dark and looming figure, I don’t think he’s actually intended to be a villain in this. He’s the one who gives Odysseus the lesson to be careful when he gets home. He’s this juggernaut of power, but I’m pretty sure Nolan isn’t actually opposed.

… I feel an obligation to engage for the same reason that I read these OSTP papers and talk about why they’re flawed. Nolan is not that problematic, but that’s how I view it. /end.

Anyway, there is my addled brain for the evening. Even if he doesn’t intend to deliver these specific messages, it’s a pattern that’s laced through his work, and usually is timed to react to significant events that are ongoing at the time of writing. It’s very uncomfortable for me, but again…

The rest of the message is extremely blatant and aimed at the broader audience: hey be a good guest and a good host and be good to one another. That is almost comically situated to beat you with a stick. The lack of emotion is kind of a feature, because as a director he’s not looking for it.

Basically it’s a very conservative message: the reason that civilization is falling is that people have forgotten the gods, and giving onesself to god, even if you don’t yourself believe in it, is necessary to be a just person (man) in an unjust society.

I actually think that the absence of the gods is a deliberate choice. The decision to make Athena a priestess, and to make us question whether or not she is a vision or not, is consistent with the idea that belief in the gods is a necessary noble lie, and it’s significant that Odysseus knows it.

So that offers a bit more leeway than I’d normally offer as I still see the whole esotericism and elitism as extremely problematic. So it’s like “I’m glad you’re doing some of this stuff, but I’m going to be clear-eyed about what you’re still about.”

Whether he knows it or not, I’m not as into this project, but I feel like I have to engage with it to understand how it’s influencing culture, especially online culture. What is comforting is that a lot of the Straussians have remained anti-authoritarian, which I worried they wouldn’t…

Nolan is very much into elite power. He is skeptical of populism. He likes the idea that certain special people have special knowledge that lets them succeed where others fail. This is extremely Straussian. The influences are unmistakable. You don’t just pick THAT Plato translation in that scene.

It’s hard to separate Odyssey from Nolan’s bigger project, which since The Dark Knight Rises I’ve interpreted as largely a Neo-Straussian effort. This was vindicated when I watched Man of Steel and I was convinced of Nolan’s hand as producer and they used Bloom’s Republic translation.

Ok, so I wondered if I wanted to do this, but I figure what the hell since we’re all academic homerposting right now. I am both a white man with an opinion on the internet and a former great books student so I’m sorry to the rest of you. RIP my follower count 🧵

I’ve gone from space posting to homer posting At this rate we’ll be entrepreneurship pitching contest posting to diplomacy posting later on this evening

As I’m sure you’re going to get a lot on this thread, thank you for doing this.