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When Saori Kawano arrived in New York City in 1978 from Yokohama, most Americans’ ideas of Japanese food ended at instant ramen and onion volcanoes. Since then, if you’ve enjoyed hand-cut soba noodles or an omakase dinner, or admired the graceful curves of a rice bowl or the flash of a Japanese knife blade, you can probably thank her.

Ms. Kawano is the founder and owner of Korin Inc., an importer of knives, kitchen tools and tableware from Japan that has become a place of pilgrimage for restaurateurs since opening in 1982. It’s the main U.S. supplier for big-name chefs like Nobu Matsuhisa, Daniel Boulud, Matsuharu Morimoto and Eric Ripert; restaurants like Buddakan, Sugarfish and Eleven Madison Park; and hotel chains like the Four Seasons and Mandarin Oriental.

Her TriBeCa showroom, packed with wares ranging from $20 kitchen shears to $2,000 sushi knives, hums with customers arriving with knives to be sharpened, and the spin of the custom-made Japanese whetstone that powers the business.

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The space is narrow, but it contains a vast network of connections and knowledge that has fueled the extraordinary rise of Japanese food in the United States.

“So much of the popularity and familiarity that we have now is due to her,” said Michael Romano, the chef of Union Square Cafe from 1998 to 2013. He was an early convert from European to Japanese chef’s knives, opened Union Square Tokyo in 2007, and now lives there part-time.

In her shop on a busy winter morning, Ms. Kawano, 68, beamed as her resident sharpener, Vincent Chin, described restoring dozens of knives in the kitchen of the Bellagio in Las Vegas. She tends to credit her success to loyal chefs and employees like Mr. Chin, but her combination of elegance, toughness and charm doubtless played a part.

“I always knew I was not going to live in Japan for my whole life and be a housewife,” she said — partly because her mother, a pioneering female insurance executive, told her so. “I never thought that Japanese food would become the focus of my whole life.”

Long before Amazon or Alibaba, Instagram and Line (Japan’s most popular social media and shopping app), Ms. Kawano was a direct link between the American culinary world and the most prestigious chefs, artisans and craftsmen in Japan.

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“She’s the only person who can pick up the phone in New York City and talk to anyone in Japan,” said Yukari Sakamoto, a sake expert who lives in Tokyo and leads high-end food tours. “Connections are everything here. Everyone knows that if Saori has vetted you, you’re worth their time.”

If you have a Japanese knife in your home kitchen, Ms. Kawano may have had a hand in that, too. American cooks have long relied on European-style knives, with one basic blade shape, descended from a butcher’s tool. Among other differences, Japanese knives evolved to cut fish and vegetables, not meat. They have many shapes and a thinner blade, making them capable of cleaner cuts.

The modern culinary conversation between Western and Japanese chefs started with Shizuo Tsuji, a writer and Francophile who opened a cooking school in Osaka in 1960. His relationships with influential chefs like Paul Bocuse and David Bouley laid the groundwork for high-end Japanese cuisine in the United States.

By the 1980s, Japanese food had a firm foothold in Europe; chefs adopted its plating, lightness and seasonality, and turned the traditional kaiseki meal — a progression of carefully ordered bites — into what we now know as a tasting menu. This nouvelle cuisine revolution, radiating outward from France, created an American market for the small plates, square bowls and Japanese knives that Korin stocked.

Ms. Kawano educated herself about the centuries-old Japanese craft of knife-making and its nuances — for example, a sushi chef might use a different knife for the same fish in different seasons, depending on its size and fattiness. She passed that knowledge on to her American customers.

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Through the Gohan Society, a nonprofit cultural-exchange program she founded in 2004 (now funded by Kikkoman, Kewpie and other global brands), hundreds of American chefs have followed her to Japan, entering through doors only she can open, visiting woodworkers, potters, glassblowers, sake brewers and miso producers.

When Ms. Kawano came to the United States nearly 50 years ago, it was for the music. Her husband, who had been accepted at the Juilliard School to study classical piano and teach Japanese string instruments, wore his hair long and his boots high-heeled; bands like Queen and the Beach Boys were his extracurricular passion.

She was also a pianist, and like most Japanese girls of her time, was trained in the traditional arts of arranging flowers (ikebana), archery (kyudo) and wrapping a formal silk kimono.

Worldly New Yorkers, she assumed, would have an appetite for learning about Japanese culture. “No one was interested,” she said.

The couple thought they’d brought enough money to last three years; it ran out after six months. So she began her culinary career in desperation, as a waitress at a posh Japanese restaurant near the Pan Am Building (now MetLife) in Midtown, where some of the biggest Japanese companies had their U.S. headquarters.

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Because she is that kind of person, it bothered her that the restaurant didn’t always use authentic bowls and plates. Having persuaded the owner to let her order some from Japan, she then decided that Americans would — or should — appreciate the graceful shapes of Japanese tableware.

From her mother’s work selling insurance, she had absorbed persistence, optimism and the art of the cold call. Every day after the staff meal, she shut herself into the restaurant’s pay-phone booth and called the housewares department at Bloomingdale’s. “I believed that someday, there would be someone on the other end who wouldn’t hang up on me,” she said.

Some months later, Ms. Kawano got through, talked the buyer into a meeting and left with a $1,500 order for plain white bowls. She began making sales calls around the city, armed with iron teapots and rice bowls.

“When I got into Zabar’s and Dean & DeLuca, that was my pride and my joy,” she said.

When Ms. Kawano started Korin in 1982, her only regular customers were Asian restaurant owners, who were rarely able to buy expensive tableware. (The era of the $400 omakase dinner was far in the future.)

There were difficult years, when she was in debt, divorced and in despair of finding a market. As a single parent, she could no longer afford child care, so she brought her daughter, Mari, along on sales calls, wrestling a stroller loaded with samples and snacks through the subway system.

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Then, in 1991, a young chef with an idea for a glamorous Thai-French restaurant showed up on her loading dock. Jean-Georges Vongerichten had lived in Bangkok for two years and was shopping for his second New York restaurant, Vong. “I couldn’t find the colors and glazes I’d seen in Asia anywhere,” he recalled.

Vong opened with Ms. Kawano’s golden plates, lacquered chopsticks and bamboo place mats, and Mr. Vongerichten spread the word to the city’s other top French chefs who, under the influence of nouvelle cuisine, had already become entranced by ingredients like rice vinegar and yuzu.

Those chefs also had deeper pockets than most of her customers. Instead of ordering wholesale, Ms. Kawano began making direct contact with artisans in Japan, researching the best makers of porcelain in Saga Prefecture and knives in Sakai. She persuaded Japanese chefs to come to New York for demonstrations of sashimi and sushi. She even talked her ex-husband, Chiharu Sugai, into becoming an expert knife sharpener, an educational process that took a decade and continues to pay off by bringing customers into the shop over and over again. (Mr. Sugai died in 2018; Mr. Chin was his protégé.)

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When the Japanese chef Noriyuki Sugie arrived in New York in 2003 to become head chef of the brand-new Mandarin Oriental hotel’s restaurant, his first stop was Korin. Entrepreneurs were opening Japanese-influenced restaurants around the world, Mr. Sugie said, with vast menus and themes like waiters dressed as ninja warriors.

“It was a bubble,” he said.

It was also the beginning of Japan’s first official foray into culinary diplomacy. Alarmed by the spread of such inauthentic places, and eager to replicate the successful gastro-diplomacy of countries like South Korea and Thailand, the government began a campaign in 2006 dedicated to spreading knowledge of traditional Japanese foodways — washoku — and informally known as “the sushi police.”

Through agencies dedicated to tourism, food and exports, young Japanese chefs were encouraged to go abroad, both to learn and to teach. “It’s very Japanese to care about whether people thousands of miles away are arranging the fish just right, or stirring wasabi into their soy sauce,” said Ms. Sakamoto, the sake expert.

In 2013, washoku was added to UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage traditions, alongside Neapolitan pizza and Korean kimchi. Today, according to Japan’s official tourism agency, food is the reason cited most often by tourists for their visit to Japan.

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Ms. Kawano’s connections to top U.S. chefs were invaluable in this educational project. Americans began to hear more about Japanese fermentation, specialties like Edo-style sushi, and ramen not microwaved in a cup. They traveled to Japan to visit fish markets and shop in Kappabashi, Tokyo’s ever-expanding “kitchen street.”

“When there was more respect for the tradition, and Japanese restaurants began to get Michelin stars, that is when the category began to bring in more money,” said Mr. Sugie, who is now a global consultant for Japanese-inspired restaurants.

Today, Ms. Kawano supplies 8,000 restaurants and hotels, has 34 full-time employees including her daughter, and travels constantly, guiding chefs from around the world through Japan.

Back in the 1990s, she almost moved back to Yokohama when things got hard, but said the same mantra that got her into Bloomingdale’s kept her in New York.

“I’d ask myself, ‘Have I tried everything I can think of?’ and I hadn’t,” she said. “And I remembered that a ‘no’ won’t destroy me.”

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On our flight home from Rome, we hit some turbulence — the borderline scary kind that turns your stomach and elicits the occasional gasp. I am a pretty seasoned traveller, so it would take much more than that to make me really fear for my safety. But my mind did wander: what if this was the end? And I thought about my improbably good life: a wonderful partner, a job that lets me genuinely contribute to society while challenging myself intellectually, a beautiful highrise apartment in a city we love, a lifestyle that accomodates frequent international travel…. It would be a shame not to get as much of this life as we could, but if a freak accident cuts it short, we have at least been living the life we want. My Esteemed Partner, happily engrossed in her movie, was apparently even less affected by the turbulence than me, but I imagined that if it really was a serious situation and she really was scared and upset, sharing thoughts along these lines with her might bring some comfort — maybe even some peace.

I sat with this line of thought for a few moments, savoring my sense of calm and equanimity. And then I thought: “Am I okay?” Is it normal for a person in the prime of life to be so comfortable with the thought of premature death? Is this a sign of wisdom and maturity, or of despair? Reflecting on this experience several times over the past few months, I have not been able to settle on an answer to that question. But what has become clear is that it was not about death as such, or at least not entirely: it was about Trump, the one force on earth that seems somehow even more inescapable than death.

Part of why I could imagine that flight home as the end is that we had joked, and maybe more than joked, about that trip being our last for the foreseeable future. The fears that motivated that speculation seemed distant and outlandish at the time — maybe My Esteeemed Partner, whose passport expires in a couple years, would not be able to renew it for some reason; maybe we would come to understand that we wouldn’t be guaranteed reentry if we left the country.

Now those fears seem somehow more realistic, not because of anything concrete that has happened in connection to the Trump administration’s policy on travel, but simply because everything feels like it’s up for grabs. I know that there’s always someone willing to claim they were the one voice in the wilderness that no one would listen to, but surely no one could have predicted how arbitrary and far-reaching the damage would be. Did Trump campaign on, for instance, suspending all medical research grants indefinitely? Did anyone really understand that he was going to hand the keys to Musk and completely ignore the Congressional appropriations process? Did anyone think the president would be openly musing about picking and choosing which government debts he regarded as binding?

And yet I still live my life, basically unaffected so far except for some mild anxiety about whether I will actually receive my tax refund. In fact, things are going well. I’ve been promoted, at long last, to associate professor, and though the Shimer faculty was not given the opportunity to gain tenure status, we have at least achieved some formal job security after many years of uncertainty. I’m enjoying my teaching this year — which is a good mix of familiar courses and challenging new material — and I’m happy to be serving my colleagues as chair of a major standing committee within faculty governance. My book Late Star Trek is coming out in a few short weeks, and I’m working toward establishing my scholarly expertise in the Qur’an.

In short, everything is coming together — but I’m not 100% sure there will even be college next year. Most are interpreting the assaults on federal research funding as attacks on higher ed more broadly, and the entire sector is deeply, deeply dependent on federal funding. Would they get rid of Pell Grants? That would be fatal for many institutions. Getting rid of federal student loans would be fatal for nearly all. I find myself in the bargaining stage as to whether North Central is likely to be affected by each step. I can even imagine scenarios, albeit highly improbable ones, where the loss of student loans is somehow survivable. But such speculation requires at least some stable background, some comprehensible context — and I will admit that I cannot process what a total repudiation of higher ed by the federal government does to the enterprise of higher ed, much less one particular school.

More radical thoughts present themselves as I go through the bargaining stage. What if I lose my job? I have savings that can last me a good long while, even leaving aside My Esteemed Partner’s income. And even if we both find ourselves out of work, we could probably survive for many years at a tolerable level of comfort. But that presupposes things like the continued viability of banks, or the continued value of money, or the stability of the power grid, or the safety of the water. John Quiggin introduced some nightmare fuel over at Crooked Timber: what if Trump announces the convertibility of US dollars with cryptocurrency? As recently as five weeks ago, I would have laughed off the idea. I’m not laughing now.

And it’s like this for everything. Will there be a flu shot next year? Will there be a Post Office next year? Will air travel remain viable? Will we be bogged down in a counterinsurgency in Canada? Will we join the Russian Federation? I threw the last one in there to test whether there’s a limit of what seems possible, and I find that I can’t dismiss even that — not after Trump’s insane lies about Zelinskyy and the origins of the war in Ukraine!

For a long time, I have been encouraging people to consider whether George W. Bush was even worse than Trump, but in a few short weeks Trump has demolished my case. Bush was an evil president using the power of the state to do evil things. Trump has effectively abolished the state. We do not have laws. We do not have a government. We certainly don’t have a Congress and we barely have courts. But in an important sense, we also don’t have a president. We have the irritable whims of two billionaires, handling domestic and foreign policy, respectively, and we have a bunch of psychos in charge of more detailed policy portfolios. The goal is not to change public policy, but to render public policy impossible. The goal is not to transform American society, but to destroy it completely, to destroy everything that makes it possible to call this great and terrible nation a human society.

Everything is up for grabs, because there is no limit to how capricious and spiteful and short-sighted the people ostensibly “in charge” will allow themselves to be. There is no possibility of any positive outcome until they are removed from office and replaced by literally anybody else — even J.D. Vance, who at least lacks Trump’s demonic charisma and who certainly does not inspire the same kind of fear and pathetic self-abasement and hence might get some pushback from someone.

Yet we all live our lives, day to day, as though we still live in a society, as though promises mean something, as though it’s possible to tell the future more than a week in advance, as though there’s anything we can be sure they won’t take from us. And as I think about that, I can sometimes even work myself into a state of calm resignation where I can contemplate the possibility of my life becoming much different and worse due to circumstances beyond my control and conclude that I will survive and find ways to affect the world positively and maybe even still experience moments of satisfaction and joy. But there are other times where I read the latest headline and spontaneously think: I don’t want to live in this world anymore.

When I’m in that mood, sometimes I think back to that turbulence. The strange thing about being in a plane crash, at least to my mind, is that you are going to be falling — for the rest of your life. The sick roller coaster sensation — at least this is how I imagine it, though it’s presumably much worse — is what you are going to be experiencing for the rest of your life. With one major exception, of course! But maybe one is accepting of that outcome in a different way in an endless moment of perpetual falling than in a moment of abstract contemplation. Food for thought, certainly!

Am I okay? I don’t even know what that would mean under these circumstances. And I — a white, straight, monogamously partnered, property-owning male with a savings account — am certainly the least of anyone’s worries. All due respect to those who are being more directly victimized! But what I’m sure we can all agree on, regardless of privilege level, is: This can’t go on forever. It can’t even go on for four years. And yet it might go on for four years and maybe even longer. For some people, it will last — perhaps already has lasted — the whole rest of their lives.

Agamben is best known for his critique of sovereign emergency powers and their tendency to reduce all legal subjects to a homo sacer-like state of absolute exposure to violence. But in more recent years, he has written more often about a seemingly opposite, but actually deeply correlative problem: the attempt to legislate every area of life. On the political level, this means collapsing legitimacy (our sense of what the law should be and do) into legality. Whatever the law is, must be legitimate, simply because it is the law — meaning that the idea of legitimacy as a critical standpoint over against the law is lost. One can see this on the level of constitutional law in the United States, where establishing the Founder’s intent, or simply repeating the way the existing institutions function, often suffices to establish the legitimacy of a particular outcome, at least in the minds of many liberals.

The same dynamic holds at an interpersonal level. On the one hand, we have increasingly lost any sense of the distinction between the legal and the ethical. I think here of the frequently given advice that after a car accident, one should not apologize, because it would mean admitting fault and could put you at a legal disadvantage. In a sane society, though, a person who believes themselves to have caused serious harm to another should apologize — and the person receiving the apology should not seize on that natural human reaction to maximize their legal advantage. On the other hand, people increasingly seem to believe that their interpersonal relationships can and indeed must be structured according to strict contractual terms. This comes up especially in sexual contexts, where one might expect legal niceties to be out of place. I look at the vogue for polyamory, for instance, and wonder at people’s apparent belief that anyone can “promise” that their feelings won’t be hurt. We could say something similar for people’s love of inscribing themselves into ever more precise identity categories that come complete with their own list of demands — or for other’s apparent belief that merely being asked to acknowledge the existence of unfamiliar gender or sexual identities is an unjust imposition to which they did not consent.

For me, the distinction between legality and legitimacy — or, more vividly, between law and justice — is pretty foundational. This is, blessedly, not because of Schmitt’s book by that title, but because it was foundational for Ted Jennings’ teaching when I was in grad school. This was when he was working on his two career-capping works on Paul, Reading Derrida / Thinking Paul and Outlaw Justice. As is well known, Paul’s mission in life was to vindicate the full inclusion of non-Jewish or Gentile believers in the Jesus movement — without requiring them to fulfill the Jewish law. And he argues for this position theologically by taking a fairly extreme position: “works of the law” cannot be necessary to save the Gentiles, because they have never actually saved anyone. What is salvific is actually faith or trust in God, apart from any external work. Although he would probably resist this description, in both books Jennings “secularizes” Paul’s argument by claiming that he is pointing to a universal dynamic in the relationship between law and justice. Law always points beyond itself, toward the principle of justice, and that principle means that law can always be called into question. When law claims to be fully self-sufficient, it betrays itself and becomes a tool of injustice.

In those days, there were many clear examples of what happens when law is separated from justice. George W. Bush was president, having taken office with a minority vote after a deeply questionable Supreme Court decision. No one had won the Electoral College without winning the popular vote in over a century, and the Supreme Court had never intervened in an election case in such an overtly partisan way. But the Electoral College was technically the law, and the Supreme Court is the last court of appeal, so he took office. After 9/11 — somewhat contrary to Agamben’s analysis — Bush did not claim sweeping emergency powers so much as fashion himself “legal tools” to wage his War on Terror. New legal categories were invented (“enemy combatant”), loopholes relating to territoriality were exploited (Guantanamo and CIA black sites), and the use of military force was authoritized even if war was not declared (in either Afghanistan or Iraq). Most chillingly, the White House set teams of lawyers to work elaborating a legal basis for the use of torture.

Basically all of this is still on the books. The Authorization to Use Military Force against al Qaeda and its allies is still the law of the land. Obama took advantage of Bush-era laws and norms to run a drone strike program that even claimed the right to execute American citizens without due process. Bush’s torture memos, even if never used by later administrations, were never tested in court, and certainly none of the architects of the torture regime were ever prosecuted. And the normalization of the Electoral College technicality gave us Trump in 2016 — and almost provided him with a perfectly legal means to seize a second term against the popular will in 2020.

Meanwhile, Republicans have been weaponizing laws and rules in many other ways. The anti-abortion movement has routinely passed state laws that were known to be unconstitutional, for the express purpose of giving them a route to the Supreme Court in the hopes of chipping away at and eventually overturning Roe v. Wade. In Congress, they have exploited every rule and loophole — from the abuse of the fillibuster to McConnell’s refusal to even consider Obama’s last Supreme Court nominee. Less discussed have been their efforts to ratchet the balance of power in the House permanently to the right. By means of the Hastert Rule (named after a convicted child molestor, by the way), which mandates that no legislation can come to the floor unless it has a support of the majority of Republicans, laws that would have enjoyed majority support have been obstructed even more efficiently than with the Senate fillibuster.

Meanwhile, professing the sanctity of laws and norms, Democrats refuse to change the rules to take away Republicans’ illegitimate advantage — because they have no conceptual basis for calling it illegitimate. The rules are the rules, and changing them would be cheating. That goes even for a stolen Supreme Court, whose Democratic members insist must be respected even as it undoes all their priorities with a gleeful disdain for precedent or even normal legal procedure — many of the biggest recent decisions should have been dismissed because the plaintiff lacked standing. But again, the rules are the rules, and all Democrats can do is grin and bear it.

We may be seeming to enter a new phase with the total brazen lawlessness of Trump 2.0. But I think it is, instead, the natural next step in the dialectic. Law shorn of legitimacy is already a kind of force, an inert brute fact — and so it should not surprise us that it eventually gives way to overt force. When law that has become nothing but a tissue of arbitrary technicalities, is it surprising that someone would eventually treat the concept of law itself as one huge annoying technicality? Meanwhile it is hard to imagine popular passions being inflamed by the call to vindicate the claims of Congress, which has systematically rendered itself incapable of passing routine legislation with majority support, or of the Courts, which have increasingly revealed themselves to be the servants of presidential power in any case. Nor is it any wonder that low-information normies approve of Trump’s actions, because the dysfunction of the system has created pent-up demand for someone to finally do something — without all the infighting and excuses.

The fact that what is being done is purely destructive, that we are losing things we may never get back, has not yet become clear. And when it does, we will need leaders who can speak to the level of justice and legitimacy rather than law and norm and procedure — leaders who can say, straightforwardly, that Trump shouldn’t do what he’s doing because it’s pointlessly cruel and that Trump doesn’t have a mandate to do what he’s doing because he’s a liar. When that moment comes, though, I fear that we will instead get the same mealy-mouthed losers who could do nothing but mumble about a “democracy” that means you can only vote for one party for the rest of your life and you should never actually expect to get anything out of it. We should want a return to law, a return to procedures and norms recognized by all political actors — but only on just and legitimate terms. Perhaps that can occur within the boundaries of the existing constitution, but a return to the status quo ante of 2024 is not and cannot be the answer. Until people of good will come to understand this, there will never be hope.

[spoilers ahead]

The protagonist of Kevin Smith’s Dogma, the last living descendant of Mary, mother of Jesus, is named Bethany. It’s standard practice in this kind of apocalyptic film for names to mean something, and Dogma seems in general to bear this out. Chris Rock’s character, the black thirteenth apostle, is called Rufus, after the biblical son of Simon the Cyrene, mentioned in Mark’s account of the crucifixion and by Paul in Romans 13. Alan Rickman plays the voice of God, Metatron, and takes his name from an angel who appears as a divine figure standing beside God in various apocryphal texts. So why is the last living descendant of God called Bethany?

The name Bethany comes from the biblical town of Bethany, where Lazarus lived with his sisters, Mary and Martha. Like Lazarus, Bethany dies and is resurrected by God – here Alanis Morissette rather than Jesus. I’d like to suggest that we can infer from this that Jay and Silent Bob occupy, in Smith’s film, the roles of Mary and Martha.

Like Mary and Martha with Lazarus Jay and Silent Bob have – despite their best efforts – a non-sexual relationship with Bethany. Like Mary, who washed Jesus’ feet in an erotic act of service and is traditionally associated with sex workers, Jay is constantly making sexual advances to the people around him. Like Mary, who angrily remonstrates with Jesus when Lazarus dies (‘Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”), Jay shouts at God who has appeared apparently too late to prevent catastrophe: “What the fuck is this shit?! Who the fuck are you lady?!” Like Martha, who approaches Jesus with faith (“But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask”) and opens up the tomb where Lazarus’ body has been laid to rest, it is Silent Bob who carries Bethany’s lifeless body to God to be raised. Like Martha, it is Silent Bob who quietly gets on with the necessary work, and Jay who insists on conversation.

Let us say then, with Jesus: “Jay has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from him.” Great is the mystery of Dogma. Blessed be the name of Alanis Morissette.

As I have been writing my posts on the relationship between Trump and neoliberalism, a feeling of futility has sometimes set in. Who cares about this abstract question amid all the wreckage he has already created? My first response to such a demand for practicality is to insist that it is always better to understand than not to understand. To the extent that my analysis is accurate, it’s important because it’s true. And that truth may lead to a strategic gain, insofar as viewing Trump as a big dumb continuation of neoliberalism might reduce the leftist temptation to think “maybe we can use this” or, worse, “maybe he has a point.”

On a personal level, though, part of the reason I am focusing on such large-scale questions is simply that I have done a poor job as a day-to-day commentator or prognosticator. I wrote shortly after the election that it seemed fanciful that Trump would attempt to cancel future elections. Now it turns out that his opening gambits were to attempt to invalidate the Fourteenth Amendment and the separation of powers, which makes extreme outcomes like that much more imaginable. At the same time, however, the Democratic refrain that democracy is in peril seems to remain unconvincing to the general population. Trump’s approval ratings are favorable, seemingly precisely because of the actions he is taking. He won the election, he seems to be taking bold action to fulfill his promises, and most people like it — where’s the threat to democracy?

The problem, as ever, is the lack of clarity about what democracy is and why it’s valuable. And part of the confusion comes from the tendency to conflate “democracy” with “the US Constitutional system,” which was avowedly set up in order to tame and even frustrate democratic ambitions to the extent possible. To the extent that Democrats are simply calling for a return to the conventional constitutional order, I would certainly prefer that to the current situation. But that order is sclerotic and unsustainable. Indeed, many of the kinds of actions that Trump is doing now are ones that I would have liked to see Obama or Biden do — strong-arming the Senate instead of deferring to their stupid anti-democratic customs, or simply ignoring things like the debt ceiling. I’m even on record as saying that Obama should have refused to acknowledge Trump’s Electoral College technicality and begun the transition with Hillary.

What’s frustrating about this situation is that this final presidential push was bound to happen. The current system does not fulfill popular demands, by design, and there’s no reason to expect a society to tolerate that indefinitely. And unfortunately, the presidency is the only institution other than Congress with anything like a democratic mandate, and it is definitely the only institution that can directly do stuff. The shame is that it didn’t happen under a president who wanted to do good, instead of a president who wants to do nothing but harm. And that stems in part from our old friend neoliberalism, whose “best practices” do not include bold state initiatives. But it also stems from the older generation of Democrats’ pathetic Boomer reverence for the Constitution that never evolved past childish Cold War truisms. And now that it’s tumbling down, we’re all being asked to hope that the system that frustrated popular demands for a generation and gave us Trump will somehow stop Trump.

There is nonetheless a deep irony here, because Trump’s rampage against the constitutional order is obviously undercutting the sources of presidential power and even of state legitimacy. One reason that the executive branch is able to do stuff is that it knows stuff — indeed, it provides the standard statistics that underwrite all other public and private economic activity and much else besides. By destroying that basic state capacity, Trump is destroying any reason for citizens to trust the government about anything, unless they happen to trust the current holder of the presidency. It becomes pretty difficult to run a society — even a paranoid police state determined to carry out the biggest forced population transfer in human history — without that baseline of trust. It also becomes pretty difficult to know whether you’ve succeeded in achieving your goals and to convince others that you have.

Low-information voters are still only seeing the broadest themes in Trump’s actions. He said he’d cut foreign aid, which most voters falsely believe to take up a huge portion of the budget, and he’s doing so. He said he’d appoint Musk to head up an effort to aggressively cut waste in the federal government, and he’s doing so. He said he’d use tariffs to strong-arm other countries, and he’s doing so. The self-undermining and nonsensical nature of many of those actions, much less their long-term consequences for the constitutional order, are seemingly not on people’s radar. But if he continues to “succeed,” many people will be rudely awakened to the fact that the government seemingly has no ability to benefit them in any way — and whether that realization hits while Trump is president or after he dies peacefully in his sleep surrounded by his friends and family, it will be a major, probably fatal blow to the legitimacy of the system.

It might even be the kind of things where particular states or regions start asking why the federal government even exists, and then the great “national divorce” so desired by conservatives might actually happen. And then we might all recall, too late, that “national divorce” is a euphemism for civil war — which, as everybody knows, is the very worst thing that can happen to a society. So now I’ve maxed out the negativity of my predictions about Trump and no longer have to worry about being made to look naive by the actual course of events.

In my last post, I awkwardly name-dropped a book to admit I hadn’t read it — namely Robert McDonald’s Works Like a Charm: Incentive Rhetoric and the Economization of Everyday Life, available wherever fine books are sold. Since then I have in fact read it and want to discuss some connections with my notion of a Trumpian “shove” as the successor to the neoliberal “nudge.” What follows is not a full account of the book — which, along with being a great critique of “nudge” rhetoric, also turns out to be an accessible primer on Lacan (with depressingly relevant examples) — but a sampling of some key concepts that I find especially applicable to Trump’s heretical neoliberalism.

McDonald’s Lacanian approach allows him to see some internal dynamics of the nudge that otherwise would not be as evident. (I will spare you the Lacan and give you the pay-off.) First, he notes that nudges never live up to their promise of seamless unconscious manipulation of behavior. Instead, they always announce themselves more or less clearly, spurring the subject to begin questioning what the nudger wants from them — and possibly rebelling against the intended outcome simply out of annoyance at the attempted manipulation. For this reason, nudges generally don’t work, and presumably the nudgers know they don’t work. Hence McDonald concludes that nudges are not actually directed at the ostensible nudgees, but are messages sent to some presumed third party. For example, the attempts to “incentivize” a return to work post-covid by removing unemployment benefits had not apparent impact on employment — but they were a powerful message that everyone should get back to work and no longer expect any mollycoddling (my term, not McDonald’s). Finally, the nudge paradigm as a whole sends a broader message of despair, signalling clearly that any deliberate collective project is impossible. This opens up a performative contradiction, because on the one hand, only the market can be trusted to deliver any social benefit, but on the other hand, the market is apparently not achieving that on its own and needs tinkering by expert state actors.

Applying these to Trump’s “shoves” — his attempts to use economic inducements to blackmail people into his desired behavior — I think we get further evidence that Trump is a heretical mutation of the neoliberal project. First of all, like a classic nudge, Trump’s “shoves” generate a lot of questions as to what he really wants, but in contrast to the neoliberal apparatchik, Trump’s desire is fundamentally unknowable — apparently even to himself. Hence investors and political commentators all assumed, up to the weekend before they were set to take effect, that Trump would call off his harsh tariffs against Canada and Mexico. And at the last minute he did, at least temporarily, after securing concessions that most observers agree were already happening (and, bizarrely, conceding to Claudia Sheinbaum’s demand that he take more action to stop the flow of guns into Mexico). Will he find another excuse to kick the can down the road in early March? Presumably, but who knows?

What is at stake here is more than simple incoherence or inconsistency — and we are certainly not dealing with some game of 11-dimensional chess where Trump is skillfully deploying Nixon’s “madman strategy.” Where the nudger ostensibly sought to influence the behavior of the nudgee for the sake of some particular end, Trump’s shoves seem to be nothing but the assertion of dominance and control for its own sake. And we can see that the same ambition was present in the original nudge paradigm, which promised a form of seamless social control without political conflict. Surely what made nudging so appealing to people like Barack Obama was not the series of piecemeal social gains they could deliver (increasing uptake of 401(k)’s by 6%!) but the very idea that “smart” policymakers could gently guide society from behind the scenes without indulging in anything so vulgar as political contestation.

In practice, many subjects were offended by the implied blackmail of the nudge — and in protest, they have helped to elect someone who took away the implication but kept the blackmail. But, importantly, they are no longer the people being nudged. Rather, the deep state wreckers and DEI elites and, above all, foreigners are finally getting a taste of their own medicine. This is why Trump and company have targetted arguably the most sympathetic and beneficial use of government money (USAID) for absolute elimination and why they began their tariff crusade by threatening to blow up relations with our closest neighbors — to send the message that they will be swayed by no moral claim, especially not a claim of loyalty. All that matters is the brute fact of economic competition, which Trump is attempting to rig so that America wins every time (instead of merely most of the time). Any other concern or priority is not merely a distraction from the important task of “winning” every economic statistic, but an active deception and a ploy.

And that brings us to the performative contradiction of Trump’s agenda. If the classic nudgers were testifying to the failure of the state to organize collective life, Trumpian shoves presuppose the failure of the economy itself — and on a global scale. In his very desperation to gain the approval embedded in the economic statistics he has chosen to target (coming out “ahead” in all trade balances), Trump implicitly invalidates all previous economic outcomes as illegitimate, tainted as they are by wokeness and meddling foreigners. And his attempt to assert American domination presupposes that America has been almost comically weak for basically the entire postwar era, allowing even Canadians to manipulate them into unfavorable trade deals.

This disconnection from reality is what makes Trump so scary, but it is also what makes him weak. Indeed, on his own terms, Trump cannot possibly succeed, because he has deprived himself of any standard of judgment other than his own irritable whim — which will never be satisfied and which, ironically, makes him extremely vulnerable to people who manipulate him by setting up incentives and fooling him into thinking their preferred outcome is his own choice.

estimated reading time: 6 min

Whipping siphons have revolutionized the art of foam-making, bringing efficiency and creativity to kitchens everywhere. But siphons are useful for making so much more than whipped cream. These tools allow chefs to transform fatty or starchy ingredients—even fluid gels—into delicate, stable foams with ease. We use ours all the time—for making fresh soda, greatly speeding up marinating, infusing fruit with a flavorful juice, or topping a dish with foam for flavor and textural contrast.

Whipping siphons require cartridges of gas to function. Nitrous oxide offers exceptional solubility in fats and oils without the risk of oxidation or bacterial growth. Each standard charger contains 8 g of this versatile gas, which dissolves into the liquid, pressurizing the siphon. When released, the mixture expands, creating the airy, smooth texture that defines culinary foams. Carbon dioxide is also another type of gas that can be used with a whipping siphon, but its high solubility and distinct fizzy taste often make it less ideal for creating creamy, stable foams. With nitrous oxide, however, chefs gain a reliable, flavor-neutral tool for culinary experimentation, whether crafting decadent dessert sauces or innovative savory toppings. This is why we often prefer using nitrous oxide; however, carbon dioxide is required if your goal is to carbonate rather than to foam.

The possibilities with a whipping siphon are virtually limitless, opening up a world of culinary creativity. Take, for instance, our Caramelized Carrot Pizza from Modernist Pizza (page 277), which features a coconut chutney foam. This foam—made with cilantro, mint, green chili pepper, coconut cream, and coconut milk—adds a vibrant, aromatic layer to the dish.

The siphon can also streamline the preparation of batters, like teff injera (Modernist Bread, Vol. 5:156) or tempura batter (Modernist Pizza, Vol. 3:281), creating light, consistent textures with ease.

Additionally, it’s a game changer for emulsion-based sauces, particularly during service. The siphon not only keeps sauces warm but also aerates them, creating volume and a lighter mouthfeel compared to dense, overly rich sauces. For example, we use it to prepare Sous Vide Hollandaise or sabayon sauce.

Whether you’re carbonating, infusing, or foaming, there are a few basics you should know. First off, the siphon requires cartridges of gas, also called chargers, to pressurize the chamber holding the liquid. Carbon dioxide is best used for carbonation only. We use nitrous oxide for foams, marinating, and infusing. A cartridge holds 8 g of gas, can be used only once, and costs about 50 cents. Two cartridges are typically sufficient to charge a 1 L siphon. Use about 2% gas, or 8 g of gas for every 400 g of liquid—more if the liquid is low in fat.

Listen to your siphon. If the seal on your whipping siphon is faulty, the gas will go in and right back out again. So listen closely as you charge it. You should hear gas filling the chamber—and then silence. Still hear hissing? Remnants of a previous foam might be causing a leak, or some part of the siphon could be damaged. Vent the siphon, remove the nozzle, unscrew the top, and take out the cartridge. Then clean these parts and the rubber gaskets thoroughly, and check to make sure that they are undamaged and in place.

The rubber gasket keeps the dissolved gas from escaping from the lid. Make sure it fits snugly along the top of the lid and is intact.

A disposable cartridge holds 8 g of nitrous oxide, the gas used to pressurize the siphon. The number of cartridges you need depends on the volume of the siphon, how full the siphon is, the fat content of the liquid to be whipped, and the temperature of that liquid. Generally, two cartridges are enough for a 1 L siphon.

Charging the siphon—inserting the gas cartridge so that it is pierced by the pin—increases the pressure inside it dramatically and forces the nitrous oxide to dissolve into the liquid. Shaking the container is crucial to ensure that the gas is evenly distributed.

Create a sparkling drink or give porous food a surprising fizz with your whipping siphon. We slice carbonated grapes over chilled oysters and pair rich pâtés with sweet, tart, fizzy raisins. You need three cartridges of carbon dioxide to get really good carbonation in a 1 L whipping siphon or soda siphon.

STEPS TO CARBONATING WITH A SIPHON

1. Chill both the liquid and the siphon. Carbon dioxide is most soluble in cold liquids.
2. Pour in a cold liquid or add a chilled fruit. Do not overfill. Tighten the lid.
3. Insert the first carbon dioxide cartridge while holding the siphon upright. Hold down the nozzle to blow out the gas. The venting step is important because it replaces the air sitting above the liquid with carbon dioxide.
4. Insert one or two more cartridges of carbon dioxide; do not dispense any of the gas. Shake the siphon vigorously for 5–10 seconds.
5. Refrigerate the siphon to allow the gas to fully dissolve into the liquid. Let liquids sit for 2–4 hours. Let fruit sit for at least 4 hours, but preferably for 8–10 hours. Don’t open the siphon until you serve the fruit.
6. Open the siphon by holding it upright, pressing a cloth against the nozzle to contain any liquid, and slowly releasing the gas. Then remove the siphon lid, and pour out the soda or fruit. Dispensing soda through the nozzle results in a tingly and foamy drink, not a fizzy one, because the gas exits the liquid too quickly.

If you are ready to experiment, give carbonated cranberries a try.

Whipping siphons were designed for aerating cream that is high in fat. (Nitrous oxide dissolves much better in fat than in water.) But you can foam any liquid thick enough to hold bubbles. Add starch, gelatin, eggs, or agar to thin liquids to give them enough body for foaming. A fine, creamy foam comforts and provides contrasting texture, like mashed potatoes, or whipped cream atop a dense dessert. Light, acidic, and airy foams can contribute an additional layer of flavor. The more air in the foam, the less concentrated its flavor, so use a very strong liquid when making a foam to serve as a garnish or sauce. A foam used to top some other flavorful food may not need to be as intense. It’s a matter of finding the right balance.

STEPS TO FOAMING WITH A SIPHON

1. Add the liquid to the siphon, and tighten the lid. Do not overfill it.
2. Charge the siphon with only one cartridge of nitrous oxide. Shake vigorously for 5–10 seconds. Resting is unnecessary; the gas dissolves quickly.
3. Turn the siphon upside down, and press the lever to dispense a bit of foam. Check the texture. One cartridge is usually sufficient for high-fat liquids. Add more cartridges to create progressively thicker foams. The foam will release any gas it can’t hold, so an extra charge won’t ruin it. Shake the siphon each time before you dispense the foam.

You can use the high gas pressure in a siphon to force liquid into a solid, thus speeding up the processes of infusing, brining, or marinating. Meat cut into cubes for kebabs, for example, takes 20 minutes to marinate instead of 1–12 hours. Infusing porous fruit with liquid is a fun twist—think strawberries and lemonade, apple slices bursting with apple juice, or watermelon with hints of green tea.

STEPS TO INFUSING AND MARINATING WITH A SIPHON

1. Add cubes of meat to the siphon, and cover them with marinade or brine. To infuse fruit with a liquid, add the fruit and enough liquid to cover it. Tighten the lid.
2. Charge the siphon with nitrous oxide. Use two cartridges in a 1 L siphon. Shake vigorously for 5–10 seconds.
3. Refrigerate the siphon for 20 minutes to let the flavors infuse.
4. Open the siphon by holding it upright, pressing a cloth against the nozzle to contain any liquid, and slowly releasing the gas. Then unscrew the siphon lid, and pour out the contents.

Further Reading

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Though I haven’t written much on neoliberalism lately, I still dip into the literature now and again. The next book in my queue, Robert McDonald’s Works Like a Charm: Incentive Rhetoric and the Economization of Everyday Life, has put me in mind of the classic neoliberal notion of the “nudge” and how it might help us think through the vexed question of Trump’s relation to neoliberalism. (This post does not directly reflect McDonald’s specific view, though, because I am not planning to start it until my train ride tomorrow — but in the true spirit of blogging, I decided to write at the moment I had the time, the idea, and the motivation rather than waiting.)

In the “Trump chapter” of Neoliberalism’s Demons, I claim that Trump is a heretical neoliberal in the proper theological sense — someone who radicalizes the premises of neoliberalism in order to purify it. Trump doubtless violates many specific neoliberal policy preferences (e.g., free trade, trust in abstract expertise and competence), but when it comes to what I identify as the moral core of neoliberalism, he is a true believer. He really sees the world as a field of zero-sum competitions whose results don’t just sort people into winners and losers, but do so in a way that reveals their true worthiness as people. His critique of actual-existing neoliberalism is that the “wrong” people and countries are winning.

Hence Trump concludes that the system must be rigged against the “right” people and countries and sets about righting that supposed wrong to make sure that the “right” people and countries start winning again. Obviously his framework for determining the “right” people and countries is deeply racist and xenophobic, but I think it’s important to highlight that he’s taking a specifically neoliberal approach to racism and xenophobia — the damage that the racial and foreign Others are doing is economic and calls for a shift in economic policy. The economy is still in principle the site for legitimation of individuals and groups, but in his view it hasn’t been allowed to operate properly. Once he “fixes” it, white people will once again be in charge of everything (instead of merely most things) and America will once again dominate the world (instead of being merely the unipolar hegemon).

Trump is pursuing this agenda even more radically in his second term. What’s striking to me, however, is how thoroughly neoliberal his tools are. So far, everything is structured as a big, dumb “nudge.” To start with the least heretical policy: he doesn’t like the trade balance with other countries, and so he threatens them economically with tariffs. Traditional neoliberals would prefer that tariffs be kept at a minimum, but there is room for protective or punitive tariffs if they aren’t following the rules of the free market, as Trump believes other countries are not. More radical, though, is his attempt to weaponize economic tools to achieve seemingly unrelated policy goals, like using tariffs in his negotiations with Colombia over deportations (apparently unsuccessfully, or at least not as successfully as Trump believes) or his threats to impose punitive tariffs on Denmark if they do not cede Greenland to him. And on the domestic side, he doesn’t like anything “woke” or DEI, so he tries to take away all their money — most dramatically through the attempted freeze on federal grants and loans, but also with the more routine threats to withold federal funding from sanctuary cities, school districts that acknowledge trans people exist, and other supposed malefactors.

In both cases, Trump also holds in reserve the punitive arm of the state — refusing to rule out a military conquest of Greenland (surely a mighty feat that will live on in song and legend) or the deployment of troops in his deportation scheme. That, too, broadly fits with the neoliberal paradigm, which tends to delegitimate any direct role for the state other than the police and military. But it is fascinating that these hamfisted economic “nudges” are what he reaches for first and most often. From the classic neoliberal perspective, the actions are much too “in your face” and forceful, rather than the seamless, almost unconscious manipulation that “nudges” were supposed to achieve. Hence we could call them “shoves” rather than “nudges.” But both are still economic in nature, and thus in continuity with a worldview in which economic incentives are the only legible motivations.

More than that, Trump conceives of the policy priorities that are not directly economic from a common sense perspective as profoundly economic. They are part of his agenda to “fix” the economic order so it starts delivering the “correct” results again. And once we see that, even some of his crazier policy preferences start to make a perverse kind of sense. The best example here is his fantasy that tariffs can somehow replace the income tax as the primary funding source for the federal government. This goal is for all intents and purposes impossible to achieve and the pursuit of it would cause untold suffering and disruption. But what makes him think it must be possible is that it is morally necessary — it would be a form of reparations from the whole world, for all the economic damage they have done to America with the many unfair deals they have imposed upon us. The same logic worked on a smaller scale with the fantasy that Mexico would pay for the wall. By supposedly “sending” so many immigrants to steal American jobs, Mexico had done profound economic harm to America, so it’s only fair that they should foot the bill for the solution.

Trump’s mutation of neoliberalism is of course delusional and simplistic — but it is, in its own way, deeply coherent. In fact, it is too coherent, which leaves it with no room to process the unexpected or even the unknown. The fact that all the people who actually know anything objectively true at all are in on the anti-American DEI conspiracy is obviously a huge weakness, and it leaves those of us on the outside of the Trump bubble with very little leverage to persuade them to change course. Yet I cannot help but notice that the reciprocal shove of everyone in the country simultaneously shouting at them that, no, they can’t arbitrarily shut down the entire federal government because some of duly legislated programs might be too “woke” did prove effective. We can also expect reality itself to shove them back if they really do attempt to replace the income tax with tariffs, because they will very quickly realize that they don’t have any money to pay all the guys with the guns.

This is obviously very far from the ideal of deliberative democracy, but it makes sense that a neoliberal heretic would not be invested in an ideal to which the orthodox believers gave half-hearted lip service at best.

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This year I had the unique opportunity to visit both Athens and Rome (on separate trips). I’ve therefore seen a ton of ruins. In most of my travels, I’ve found ruins and archaeology in general less interesting than well-preserved artworks in comfortable museums. This time it was more of a mixed bag — the Acropolis, for instance, was a little underwhelming, but it felt very meaningful to me to wander about in the Agora, imagining that this was the same ground Socrates trod.

My reaction to Roman ruins was more complex. Part of the reason that I had never visited Rome before, despite having ample opportunity, was that I have an antipathy to the Roman Empire, due to my intellectual formation in liberation-oriented theology circles. To me, they are history’s Bad Guys, and there is something pathological about the way they are fetishized again and again throughout Western history. What jumped out at me on this tour — especially in the day we spent at Pompeii, the preservation of which surely counts as one of the most horrifying yet amazing things ever to happen — was just how capable they were. The design of the city of Pompeii, for instance, seemed more functional and intelligent than that of 95% of US cities. (Here I count even the biggest cities — surely the Romans would have anticipated the problem of garbage piling up on the streets in New York City and designed the city with alleyways!) The fact that the routes of Roman roads are still travelled today, that aqueducts are still functional, that the international metropolis of Rome literally still uses the sewer dug by the Romans — it’s absolutely incredible.

One of My Esteemed Partner’s favorite sites was the Pantheon. On the ground level, it’s just a moderately cluttered and tacky church, but the ceiling is an unparalleled feat of engineering — a huge dome, with no internal infrastructure or supports. Contemporary investigators literally don’t know how they achieved it. And on this trip, a retrospectively obvious thing dawned on me: for most Western Europeans for a thousand years or more, that was how it was with essentially all Roman achievements.

Often modern people look down their nose at the so-called “dark ages” as an era when people were obsessed with the past, seemingly arbitrarily. But they were physically surrounded by infrastructure and buildings erected by the ancients that they couldn’t build if they wanted to. The engineering know-how, the access to resources, the sheer ability to organize and structure a labor process — it was all gone and there was seemingly no way to recapture it.

The situation reminded me of a common trope of contemporary dystopian sci-fi. In many of these stories, there is a kind of deposit of older technology that current-day people either rely on without fully understanding or else scavenge for parts — often with unanticipated consequences. The same thing happened with Roman technologies. The Colosseum, for instance, was obviously subject to wear and tear from the weather, as well as earthquakes, but a big part of why more and more sections of it kept collapsing was that people were simply pulling out the iron rods that held the columns together and using them for something else.

We could say the same for the intellectual achievements of the ancients. Medieval people didn’t rely on them simply because they were lazy or unimaginative. They lacked the intellectual infrastructure — not just the traditions of education, but often the physical documents themselves, which had to be copied afresh every generation or so. They assumed that Galen was smarter than any contemporary doctor not only because he was such a genius but because he was in a position to know much more than any current-day investigator. You can’t just rebuild that intellectual infrastructure through sheer force of will, certainly not as an individual. The most gifted person in medieval Europe simply could not get as far as a person in the Hellenistic era would have been able to get. Medieval Europeans thought the ancients were better because they were, and it took centuries for them to get to a place where they could seriously think of themselves as surpassing their achievements.

My big worry is that we are currently experiencing a process of decay that will leave future generations living among ruins. It might seem absurd in terms of contemporary ideology to say that we will soon be living off of older technologies, but even within a single lifetime we’ve collectively lost abilities — the ability to get to the moon safely, for instance — and there are still crucial systems that are running on “outdated” code (such as COBOL for bank mainframes, etc.). More prosaically, our roads, our other infrastructure, our housing stock are all cheaper and crappier than they were a generation ago. It is impossible to imagine contemporary buildings remaining functional a century from now, as so many institutional buildings from the turn of the 20th century are. In fact, many of them aren’t functional even when they’re built!

But my more urgent concern is the intellectual infrastructure. Academics of my generation look at people like Fredric Jameson and think of that kind of erudition as simply unachievable — much less earlier polymathic figures like Auerbach. I don’t think anyone the age of 50 would claim to know as much as Jameson did when he was 50. People just don’t do that anymore. And we are witnessing a further ratcheting down, at least in the US, as the humble art of reading an entire book is increasingly lost to the younger generation. Students are graduating from high school and college knowing less and less, and able to do less and less. What happens when they’re the ones teaching the younger generation?

This is not just “kids these days” scaremongering. It’s not about them as individuals, it’s about intellectual infrastructure. My strongest students now are every bit as smart and capable as my strongest students were when I first started teaching — in fact, I’d count some of the students I’ve taught in the last couple years as the finest I’ve ever encountered. But it’s much more binary, and more seriously, the students who lack those abilities and experiences most often don’t think of it as a problem. The students who can engage at a higher level appear to be anomalies, as though they are “born with it.” And if emulating their own stronger peers does not seem like a live possibility, what about emulating the professor, much less the people who are writing or editing or translating the books they’re reading?

Once in a discussion of Aristotle’s scientific writings, a student generously suggested that Aristotle did the best he could, because he couldn’t just look things up on Wikipedia like we can. I jumped in to say: Aristotle was Wikipedia to them! Just like you look it up on Wikipedia, they looked it up in Aristotle! My improvised retort was perhaps a little glib, but especially with the rise of generative AI, it does seem like we’re going to be in a situation where more and more people are going to be forced to rely on a deposit of knowledge from prior to 2019 — one that can be remixed and perhaps commented on, but not really expanded, because the skills and resources that it takes to expand it have somehow withered away.

Some have suggested that this shift is okay, because students are gaining other kinds of competencies we lack. To me, that seems like magical thinking — much like an ancient person assuming that if the Romans left, someone else would come along to build and maintain the roads. Things don’t happen simply because the space is left open for them. Maybe on the margins the new educational regime where text is radically decentered allows other competencies to grow more than they otherwise would, though some of the claimed competencies strike me as having dubious value (like posting TikTok videos). But there is no medium as information-dense or as able to capture complexity as text. People who cannot work with text simply cannot learn as much overall, and no amount of silver linings can undo the brute fact that less is less.

Mass literacy is a kind of infrastructure, and like all forms of infrastructure in our neoliberal and now potentially post-neoliberal world, it has been allowed to crumble. Without a rapid course correction that appears to be nowhere on the horizon, we are headed down a path where many future generations are going to be gleaning from our scraps, because they have been deprived of the resources and knowledge they need to match our achievements. Who knows how long people will look back on the golden age of the Twentieth Century like medieval Europeans looked back on Roman times? As history shows us, it can be a long time.

estimated reading time: 37 min

ForFor just about as long as there have been movies, food has played a meaningful role in film. This history dates all the way back to the silent era and films like Mr. Flip (1909), in which a fed-up waitress who’s being harassed shoves a pie into the face of her tormentor, or The Gold Rush (1925), in which silent film icon Charlie Chaplin makes a soup of his own shoe, ladling the “broth” over the boiled boot before eating it with a knife and fork for Thanksgiving dinner. And whether it’s as a vehicle for Chaplin’s absurdist physical comedy, or it’s offering romantic depictions of Italian cuisine in Goodfellas and Big Night, or it’s the way the The Menu uses visceral horror and biting satire to critique the extravagance of luxury dining culture, food plays a crucial role in making the movies we love feel real.

But what exactly constitutes a great food movie? Well, that really depends. Some, like Ratatouille and Chef, are obvious picks — they are largely set in restaurants or kitchens, there are chefs involved, etc. Other films employ food in more subtle ways, to further the narrative or help us connect with a character. To celebrate the enduring connection between food and film, we spent the last several months thinking about the most essential food movies, eventually settling on 38 classics, cult favorites, and all the categories in between. The one thing that all of these films have in common is that they depict food, dining, cooking, or eating in relatable, often visceral ways.

To assemble this list, we gathered Eater’s highly opinionated brain trust of writers, editors, and movie lovers to passionately make their case for each and every film worth including. After much heated debate, here, in chronological order, our list of the 38 finest food movies. — Amy McCarthy, reporter

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Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

If you’d never seen Willy Wonka, you might not think its premise — a monopolistic recluse in a purple suit terrorizes a bunch of kids, their parents, and grandpa Joe while leading a corporate plant tour and singing about chocolate — sounded very much like a children’s movie. This is because Willy Wonka isn’t really a kids movie (though it is a family movie). For the first 45 minutes, the film indulges in a good amount of social commentary about class and consumerism aimed at adults, just like the Roald Dahl book on which it’s based (though it thankfully avoids Dahl’s blatant racism). We don’t even enter the titular chocolate factory until near the halfway point. Once we do, the children may be unknowingly competing for the title of CEO, but they’re just acting out basic parables; it’s their guardians that are the real target audience, the ones who need to be educated in the morals of pure, youthful fantasy. The film’s great feat isn’t squashing adult themes into a kids movie, the way animators coyly slide adult jokes into Saturday morning cartoons. The focus from the start is getting adult viewers to embrace the transformative powers of fantastical sweets, which can act as balms for the tedious, quotidian ills of grown-up society, if you can set aside your disbelief. — Nicholas Mancall-Bitel, senior editor

La Grande Bouffe (1973)

If you haven’t seen La Grande Bouffe, I urge you not to take this as a recommendation. The film is grotesque, and if I’m being ungenerous, I’d go as far as to say it serves no purpose beyond provoking disgust in its audience. But on a list of movies about eating it would feel wrong not to include Marco Ferreri’s 1973 satire in which four friends gather at a crumbling mansion and gorge themselves to death. Along the way they rope in some women (three hired, one a local school teacher) to further indulge in carnal pleasures (it’s rated NC-17). Although critics are divided, the more generous read is that it’s a comment on the decadence of the bourgeoisie. And as the four men, all stars of French and Italian cinema at the time, feast and, eventually, painfully consume mountains of pasta, over-the-top smorgastarta, and so much meat, their appreciation for fine cuisine is clear, even if the motivations for absolutely anything else happening on screen are not. — Monica Burton, deputy editor

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

There’s a scene near the end of Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, in which Dielman spends three minutes in silence, alone in her kitchen making meatloaf. The camera remains fixed in place as Dielman folds the ground meat over on itself again, and again, and again, pausing briefly to sprinkle breadcrumbs on top before recommencing the folding. This moment is just one in a series of mundane tasks, many of which take place in the kitchen, that the late director Chantal Akerman highlights in extraordinary — and some might say painfully realistic — detail over the course of the film’s nearly three-and-a-half hour runtime. But while watching a woman skin potatoes, or prepare veal, or struggle — again alone, in silence — to make a cup of coffee for over eight straight minutes might not be entertaining in the traditional sense, Jeanne Dielman offers something more for those willing to sit through it.

The film follows Dielman over the course of three days, and as the minutes and hours tick by, a strange thing happens. Sitting in the audience, your mind begins to stray from what’s happening on screen, much as it might if you were washing dishes or cooking dinner in your own home. Time begins to take on a funny, confusing quality, and you start to think in a new way about the cost of labor, specifically the amount of time and effort that goes into preparing a meal. Cooking a healthy, satisfying dinner is a herculean undertaking, but the prep work is often forgotten once a steaming plate is set in front of you. Jeanne Dielman hits its audience over the head with a true representation of kitchen labor, and instills in viewers a newfound appreciation for anyone who has ever served them a meal, even if Dielman’s own bland boiled potatoes leave something to be desired. — Jonathan Smith, interim senior editor

Eating Raoul (1982)

Swingers, culinary aspiration, cannibalism, and death by frying pan: These are the primary ingredients of director Paul Bartel’s 1982 cult classic about Paul and Mary, a married couple who turn to murder in order to fund their dream restaurant. Paul (Bartel himself) is a wine snob who sleeps on a pillow shaped like a Beaujolais bottle, Mary (Warhol star Mary Woronov) is a nurse, and together they live unhappily in an apartment building that hosts frequent swinger parties. When one of the swingers assaults Mary, the pair kills him with the aforementioned frying pan and empties his wallet — and quickly discovers that killing “rich perverts” is a lucrative endeavor. Enter Raoul (Robert Beltran), a double-crossing locksmith who sells the bodies to a dog food factory, and you get a film whose dark satire lives somewhere between Sweeney Todd and Sideways. — Rebecca Flint Marx, home editor

Tampopo (1985)

In 1985, Japanese director Juzo Itami released what is arguably the most iconic film ever made about noodles: Tampopo. The film follows Gun (Ken Watanabe) and Gorō (Tsutomu Yamazaki), a duo of gruff truck drivers, as they embark on a quest to teach flailing ramen shop owner Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto) the real art of this beloved Japanese dish via a series of schemes and bumbling espionage attempts. Both a heartfelt, occasionally slapstick comedy and a scathing satire of American Westerns, Tampopo is the rare film that isn’t afraid to get a little weird in its pursuit of ramen perfection. (Just wait for the film’s notorious sex scene, in which an egg features heavily.) — AM

Babette’s Feast (1987)

Based on a 1958 short story by Isak Dinesen, Babette’s Feast is the archetypal tale of cooking-as-art. The titular Babette flees violence in France to work for two pious sisters in 19th-century Denmark, whose bland diet of bread soup keeps them just sustained enough, but never tipping into gluttony. That is, until Babette insists on cooking a “real French dinner” of dishes like turtle soup, quail with foie gras and truffles, and rum sponge cake. In silence (so as to avoid praising what is surely a sensual sin), the town eats, and comes to understand the godly power of pleasure that food can provide. — Jaya Saxena, correspondent

Crossing Delancey (1988)

Director Joan Micklin Silver’s wry romantic comedy is the story of Isabelle “Izzy” Grossman (Amy Irving), an independent New York woman who yearns for an urbane, literary life worlds (or at least blocks) removed that of her Lower East Side bubbe (Reizl Bozyk). But Crossing Delancey is also a story about pickles, as personified by Sam (Peter Riegert), the pickle seller whom Izzy reluctantly meets through the local Jewish matchmaker. Pickles represent everything Izzy is trying to get away from: the old world, the old traditions, the old, Yiddish-inflected storefronts of the Lower East Side. Pickles aren’t sexy — although, as Izzy gradually realizes, the pickle man sure is. Filmed on location, Crossing Delancey is as much a portrait of a disappearing culture as it is of a modern woman negotiating romance, family, and the push and pull of her own expectations. — RFM

Cocktail (1988)

Okay, okay. Cocktail — in which Tom Cruise’s Brian Flanagan falls into the wild world of flair bartending — isn’t a good movie. Studio rewrites, intended to make the story more palatable by Hollywood standards, yielded a convoluted plot, flimsy character motivations, and bonkers tone shifts. It won a Razzie. It’s arguable whether it’s even a good food movie, both in that it totally misrepresents the world of bartending (even flair bartending) and can’t seem to keep its eye on the (high)ball. Yet, despite all its problems, it remains the definitive representation of cocktail mixing in popular culture (which may have more to do with popular understanding of cocktail bars than the movie’s actual staying power). Cocktail has had real-world impacts in ways few movies do: According to Punch, the Alabama Slammer wouldn’t have its widespread name recognition if it weren’t for that Cocktail, and you can still find neon signs reading “Cocktails & Dreams” at bars all over the country. For better or worse (definitely worse), it’s an unshakable part of American drinking culture and history, necessary context to understand the craft cocktail renaissance of the 2000s and everything that came after. — NMB

Mystic Pizza (1988)

Although it’s widely remembered as the movie that helped launch Julia Roberts’s career, Mystic Pizza is a lot more than that: a charming, tonally perfect portrait of three young waitresses at a small-town pizzeria the summer after high school. Roberts stars as the headstrong Daisy, Annabeth Gish as her bookish sister, Kat, and Lili Taylor as their best friend, Jojo, ambivalently engaged to be married. The pizzeria functions as both a source of income and a center of gravity for the three, who hover on the cusp of adulthood with dreams of what they want their futures to be. The movie never condescends to its working-class characters, or to the local pride that excellent pizza can provoke: When a snotty restaurant critic visits the pizzeria, you hope for a good review every bit as much as you hope for Daisy, Kat, and Jojo to get what they want in life. — RFM

When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Probably the greatest friends-to-lovers rom-com to ever rom-com, written by Nora Ephron and starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, When Harry Met Sally follows the friendships and relationships of its two protagonists over the course of 12 years in New York City. As is true for so many New Yorkers, much of Harry and Sally’s life together happens at restaurants. It’s at restaurants that they learn who the other is at their core and then become real friends. Sally is whip-smart and unapologetically herself: Consider her fake orgasm while eating pastrami at Katz’s just to prove a point (“I’ll have what she’s having”) or even the way she delivers a monologue of requests every time she orders. (“Not only does she always pick the best thing on the menu, but she orders it in a way even the chef didn’t know how good it could be,” as Harry puts it.) Harry is funny and secretly warm, at his best when he’s in dialogue with Sally. Here, restaurants are the ultimate life backdrop, or, as Sally’s friend Marie (Carrie Fisher) quotes from New York magazine to Harry’s friend Jess (Bruno Kirby): “Restaurants are to people in the ’80’s what theaters were to people in the ’60’s.” — Hillary Dixler Canavan, restaurant editor

Goodfellas (1990)

Anyone who’s watched Goodfellas has permanently altered the way they approach garlic. But outside of the iconic scene of Paulie Cicero slicing cloves with a razor blade in prison, director Martin Scorsese shows how food and Italian American mob life are intertwined. This thing of theirs is nothing without wooing dates with prime tables at elite supper clubs, laying low at mom’s house while eating her pasta, and making a Sunday gravy in between drug runs. — JS

Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)

Some may say that 1991’s Fried Green Tomatoes, starring Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy, isn’t a food movie. But this film, based on Fannie Flagg’s classic, similarly titled Southern novel, uses food to explore some of its biggest themes — love, revenge, and reclaiming one’s power. Bates stars as Evelyn Couch, a put-upon housewife who’s steeped in diet culture and stuck with an ungrateful husband until she meets Ninny Threadgoode (Tandy) while visiting a relative in the nursing home. The two strike up a friendship, and Ninny shares with Evelyn a colorful array of stories from her life in early 20th-century Whistle Stop, Alabama.

Ninny’s stories largely center the relationship between her older sister Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson) and her best friend Ruth (Mary-Louise Parker), who eventually fall in love after they deal with Ruth’s abusive husband in a decidedly dark (and smoky) way. The two run the town’s Whistle Stop Cafe, serving their fried green tomatoes and other Southern comfort staples as they confront terminal cancer, family chaos, and queer love in the 1920s American South. — AM

Like Water for Chocolate (1992)

Based on Laura Esquivel’s 1989 novel of the same name, Like Water for Chocolate is the film that has arguably done more than any other to equate food with the expression of emotion. Its story, directed for the screen by Alfonso Arau, follows Tita (Lumi Cavazos), a young woman living in early 1900s Mexico. Tita is deeply in love with Pedro (Marco Leonardi), but forbidden to marry him due to a family tradition. Instead, Pedro marries one of Tita’s sisters, while Tita, forced by said tradition to take care of her mother, channels her feelings into the food she cooks. This is a film in which tears baked into a wedding cake cause the guests to cry and vomit, and a quail dish made with petals from an illicit bouquet provokes overwhelming horniness in all who consume it. It’s little surprise Like Water for Chocolate inspired similar films (hello, Simply Irresistible and Woman on Top) and that, decades later, its passion still burns. — RFM

Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)

This early Ang Lee comedy-drama is one of those films that it’s impossible to watch without working up an appetite. Chu is a banquet chef with three adult daughters. On Sundays, he gives his talents over to preparing elaborate family meals, and Sunday after Sunday, we watch their lives take dramatic turns, as the dinner table becomes the setting for the seemingly sudden announcements of pregnancies, marriages, and other major life decisions. The importance of food to these characters’ lives is right there in the title — “eat” comes first, after all — but it’s underscored in perhaps the most devastating of the dramatic twists when Chu loses his sense of taste, forcing him to leave his job in shame. The loss is a metaphor — it comes as the chef feels increasingly unmoored by his life outside of the kitchen — but it also makes clear that in the world of the film, life has little enjoyment without the presence of good food and the ability to appreciate it. — MB

Big Night (1996)

More than any other movie on this list, Big Night captures the agony and the ecstasy of restaurant life. The highs are profound — eldest brother, Primo (Tony Shalhoub), is a culinary genius, his talent as a chef is at the heart of the restaurant he runs with his younger brother, Secondo (Stanley Tucci), in New Jersey, the two having emigrated from Italy. The business, however, is in shambles. Primo’s artistry and vision makes him resistant to meeting the demands of his customer base who, in 1950’s fashion, make requests of him like adding a side of spaghetti to their risotto. While their restaurant struggles, the restaurant across the street, Pasquale’s, is thriving under the leadership of owner Pascal (Ian Holm) who happily panders to his guests and hopes to bring Primo onto his staff. In a last-ditch effort to save the restaurant, the brothers heed advice from Pascal and prepare a blowout meal sure to entice celebrity singer Louis Prima to attend, thus earning the restaurant the buzz it needs to survive.

The dinner sequence that follows is part Waiting for Godot, part Italian food fantasia, an amazing demonstration of just how good the restaurant could be at its very best. Bottles of wine litter the table, and few food moments on film hold as much drama as the cooking, and later, unveiling and feasting, of Primo’s timpano, a dome of pasta filled with yet more pasta, sauce, eggs, sausage, and other goodies. The evening is full of ecstasy, but the realities are agony. And it’s that last note that bleeds into the famous final sequence of the movie, a silent choreography of two brothers and a cook in their restaurant kitchen, preparing an omelet that will hopefully heal the wounds delivered the night before. — HDC

Good Burger (1997)

Yes, Good Burger is a goofy kids movie about two dudes who work in a vaguely sketchy burger joint, but this Nickelodeon classic is so much more than that. Dexter Reed (Kenan Thompson) is a delinquent teen who needs a job to make cash after he wrecked his mom’s car, and finally lands at Good Burger, working alongside Ed (Kel Mitchell), a well-meaning, if occasionally clueless, burger-flipper. Amid Dex and Ed’s self-created chaos that frequently involves showers of pink milkshake flying everywhere, a new chain called Mondo Burger threatens Good Burger’s existence, which means that Ed and Dex have to figure out a way to save it.

All the way back in 1997, Good Burger was warning us about the impending problems with chainifcation, the proliferation of chemicals in the American food chain, and labor exploitation in the food industry, all of which we’re still seeing right now. Impossibly prescient for a kids movie, Good Burger also somehow manages to hold up comedically. — AM

Soul Food (1997)

It’s nearly impossible to consume food media that doesn’t extoll the healing powers of home-cooked meals lovingly shared with family in a manner befitting a Hallmark card. In many Black American families, this is embodied by weekly Sunday night dinners, cookouts, or potlucks, typically organized by an auntie or grandmother. But what happens when the primary cook and driver of the tradition falls into a coma? Such is the premise of Soul Food, the star-studded 1997 film following the Joseph family’s struggles to heal past wounds and new betrayals, preserve 40-year-old traditions, and find some way to move forward together.

Told from the perspective of 11-year-old Ahmad Simmons, the movie boasts no shortage of gut-busting punch lines or juicy, gripping drama (cough, cough, a certain affair), but the film’s greatest strength lies in its clear-eyed depictions of meals shared around common tables as both unifying and dividing forces. It’s here that the Joseph family’s loving veneer shatters — and eventually, is reforged. — Jesse Sparks, senior editor

Chocolat (2000)

Chocolat is the kind of film you want to live in. Like please, let me be the seductive, slightly magical Vianne (Juliette Binoche) blowing into the most romantic town in the south of France like Mary Poppins, setting up a picturesque chocolaterie that becomes a home for the wayward and needy, and taking on the Catholic Church’s prudish ideas. It’ll almost have you believe chocolate can change minds, erase prejudice, and reunite families. But mostly, it is the textbook example of how a good food movie should make you salivate. The endless shots of chocolate being stirred, drizzled, unwrapped, and sucked off fingers are made of pure sensuality. — Jaya Saxena

Spirited Away (2001)

It’s not a secret that Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli works magic with food scenes. There’s Ponyo, with its love of all things ham; Kiki’s Delivery Service’s carby bakery wonderland; and The Boy and the Heron’s appreciation of butter and strawberry jam toast. But Spirited Away is the studio’s best tribute to food.

Spirited Away is not an obvious food movie, it’s about a girl, Chihiro, who is thrown into a fantastical, unfamiliar spirit world that she must navigate to save herself and her family. But it’s also about the transformative and grounding power of food, in both a negative and positive sense: Chihiro’s parents turn into literal pigs after eating all the dim sum at an unmanned food stall, but eating onigiri anchors and strengthens Chihiro so she can embark on her quest. Importantly, Spirited Away also includes one of the world’s most iconic food scenes. When the lonely No-Face spirit demands all the food in a glorious display of indulgence, staffers eagerly bring him every edible thing because they want his tips of gold. We witness him gorging from an undulating buffet of hand-drawn foods — including roast pigs, bao, sushi, and all the rice — and can almost taste and smell the savory aromas.

Director Hayao Miyazaki is a mastermind, and he knows that food is an essential part of the worlds — both real and imagined — that we live in. — Nadia Chaudhury, Eater Austin editor

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)

There is no truer modern odyssey than a munchies-fueled quest for fast food. Like the deepest emotional journeys, it is singular in focus, total in its commitment, and absurd in its details. Harold & Kumar, an instant classic when it premiered in 2004, expresses this perfectly (it also made me, at 12 years old, laugh so hard I shot Coca-Cola out of my nose). The movie is exactly as funny and stupid as it needs to be to follow in the footsteps of Cheech, Chong, and other stoner comedy virtuosos of the silver screen. But it also captures an ascendant moment in the cult of fast food, which would later develop into widespread internet fandoms for brands like Chick-fil-A and Jollibee. Sure, the Big Mac already held a place of cultural prominence; H&K premiered the same year as Morgan Spurlock’s fast food documentary Super Size Me (box office rank: 149). But Harold & Kumar gave us a preview of how a slider can become an icon of fascination among fans, inflating in our minds entirely beyond any actual gastronomical experience. Rewatching it nearly 20 years later, the bodily humor is still gross, the CGI cheetah is terrible, but the obsession with White Castle is so familiar, and not just because it seamlessly recalls the mythological odyssey. — NMB

Sideways (2004)

Remembered as the film that put pinot noir on the map (and wiped Merlot from it), Sideways is ultimately a film about coping mechanisms. As Jack Cole (Thomas Haden Church) seeks sex to quell his insecurities on his bachelor weekend, Miles Raymond (Paul Giamatti) uses his knowledge and appreciation of fine wine to avoid dealing with heartbreak and anxiety over his unpublished novel.

Amid golden shots of California vineyards, the two must face what the hell is wrong with them, and wine becomes a beautiful metaphor for care, attention, and not letting things go to waste. — Jaya Saxena

Man Push Cart (2005)

Sometimes food isn’t something that sparks passion or nostalgia or reminds you of the beauty of human creation. Sometimes it’s what gets you through the day, especially for the people selling it. This neorealist film, set in post-9/11 New York, follows Pakistani immigrant Ahmad as he drags his coffee and doughnut cart to his corner to dish out quick breakfasts to office workers. He longs to be with his son, to make enough money for an apartment, to maybe even find love again or restart the music career he had in Pakistan. But the only constant is the cart, the day-in-day-out pattern of coffee and tea and bagels, sold to people he’ll never connect with. Yes, it’s bleak, but it’s also deeply human. And a reminder of the lives that exist behind morning coffee. — Jaya Saxena

Last Holiday (2006)

Everyone loves an underdog. Last Holiday introduces us to one of the most endearing: Georgia Byrd (Queen Latifah), a shy department store worker who leads culinary demonstrations by day and cooks along to Food Network shows by night — only to give her food away as she resigns herself to frozen Lean Cuisine meals and counting Weight Watchers points. That is until an MRI shows she has a life-threatening brain tumor.

With weeks to live, Byrd changes her tune. She quits her job, abandons her beige-cardigan-coded lifestyle, and blows her life’s savings on an eye-popping trip to a Swiss ski chalet, which just so happens to be staffed by the Emeril Lagasse-esque celebrity chef she adores. Heartwarming hilarity ensues as Byrd sheds her self-doubt, speaks her mind, and truly savors all of the rich, luxurious foods she’d once given up. Naturally, her newfound demeanor rubs off on the guests and hotel staff around her.

Tropey at times — excusable, given that this is a 2006 movie featuring LL Cool J — Last Holiday is a delightful detour from the gravitas often attributed to food films. Instead, it’s an ode to the many food lovers often left outside of the camera’s gaze and a charming reminder that life is meant to be enjoyed, full-fat butter liberally applied, and kitchens gleefully shared. — Jesse Sparks

Waitress (2007)

As Jenna, the heroine of director Adrienne Shelly’s quirky comedy about an unhappily married, unhappily pregnant diner waitress somewhere in the American South, Keri Russell spends a lot of time making pie. Pie is her calling card — she is described as a “pie genius” — as well as a way to channel her feelings, as pies with names like “I Hate My Husband Pie” and “Pregnant, Miserable, Self-Pitying Loser Pie” attest. Waitress belongs to a subgenre of movies that center diners and their employees, but few have used food as such an explicit means of self-expression, and, ultimately, self-actualization. And while the movie has numerous charms, including an off-kilter sense of humor and a supporting cast that includes Cheryl Hines and Shelly herself as Jenna’s fellow waitresses, what lingers is its sweetly stubborn insistence that while pie can’t solve all the world’s problems, it can certainly offer an opportunity for personal salvation. — RFM

Ratatouille (2007)

There is something utterly beautiful about unlikely scenarios, like putting pickles on pizza, dipping fries in milkshakes, or even a rat cooking high-end French cuisine. The latter is the absurd premise of Ratatouille, the touching animated film about a little rat, Remy, who is a fantastic cook. I could go on about the cultural impact of the film — and, in fact, we have — but what Ratatouille does so well is visually and sonically depict the beauty of food. The way Remy experiences food and particularly food combinations is stunning. For example, the moment he takes bites of cheese and strawberries together is an explosion of abstract shapes and squiggles, soundtracked by an orchestral burst.

Of course, it’s the broader message that solidifies Ratatouille as a quintessential food movie, namely that cooking is open to everybody, no matter who you are. Remy learns to reconcile his multiple selves: the one who wants to cook, the one who wants to be a friend to Linguini, and the one who is a rat brother and son. As ghost Gusteau tells Remy, “Food always comes to those who love to cook,” and while Remy initially disagrees, he eventually proves himself wrong. Anyone can cook as long as they have real passion, even tiny chef rats. —NC

Julie & Julia (2009)

Directed by Nora Ephron and starring the dream team of Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, and Stanley Tucci, Julie & Julia was always destined to be a comfort movie for the ages. What makes it so charming upon each rewatch is the way its characters find pleasure in food: Child’s excitement as she tries cassoulet and sole meunière in France, and Powell’s relatable sense of accomplishment as she learns from Child’s recipes how to poach eggs and boil lobsters. By connecting Powell’s and Child’s lives, Julie & Julia is an encouraging and heartwarming — if not entirely realistic — story of two women who were, as Adams says in character, “saved by food.” It also commemorates a major inflection point in modern food culture: when blogging became a serious, viable pursuit, paving the way for today’s creator economy. — Bettina Makalintal, senior reporter

It’s Complicated (2009)

Nancy Meyers is well known for meticulously crafting worlds in which privileged characters play out dramas with comfortingly low stakes. The most delicious of these is showcased in It’s Complicated. Jane Adler (Meryl Streep) finds herself in an affair with her ex-husband (Alec Baldwin), who left her for a much younger woman years earlier. Jane, reeling from her new status as the other woman, is thrown for even more of a loop when her kind architect, played by Steve Martin, shows romantic interest. However, those plot points aren’t nearly as important as the beautiful Santa Barbara, California, setting and the food scenes it gives way to. Jane is a notably good cook, with a predictably enviable kitchen and access to the finest Californian ingredients. She also owns a bakery and in an iconic two-minute sequence, she and the architect visit the shop after hours and whip up some chocolate croissants. It’s Jane at her most joyful, as she and the architect toss around the dough, turning it into beards and the triangles of a bikini top (they’re also high). In a film full of aspirational moments, this is the scene we would most like to recreate. — MB

The Trip (2010)

A food film for anyone who loves to plan their travel around eating, The Trip follows comedian Steve Coogan on a newspaper assignment to review some of northern England’s best restaurants. For the trip (get the name) he brings along fellow comedian Rob Brydon, and off they drive to feast at restaurants like L’Enclume, Holbeck Ghyll, and the Inn at Whitewell. Coogan and Brydon play versions of themselves; their wives and girlfriends are actresses, their circumstances — and the Observer article — are fictional, too, but the dynamic the two cultivate meal after meal is real. Their sprawling conversations as they drive through gorgeous scenery and dine in some of the most acclaimed restaurants in England are less My Dinner with Andre and more unending comedy routine, with the duo’s dialogue and numerous impressions totally improvised. And while it’s clear that while they’re not food experts (Coogan at one point describes a tomato soup as tasting like tomatoes), they do hit on some of the highs and lows of haute cuisine — the scourge of sauce dots, the sometimes silly naming conventions of the dishes (scallops, Brydon muses, can’t be “rested” since they’re dead), but also how damn good fine food and wine can be. And underneath the laugh-out-loud performances lies a moving portrait of middle-aged life, love, and friendship. And so much food. — HDC

Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011)

With artsy close-ups of ingredients being prepped and plated, set to soaring orchestral music, almost every food documentary now owes some of its aesthetic sensibilities to Jiro Dreams of Sushi. In a novel approach for the time, Jiro took a Planet Earth-inspired eye to shots of hands slicing fish and forming sushi. With it, director David Gelb changed not only how we watch food in the United States, but also how we eat. The award-winning Jiro turned its namesake Jiro Ono into a global phenomenon, making reservations at Sukiyabashi Jiro a hot commodity. In doing so, it also popularized the concept of omakase and spurred a high-end sushi boom in the United States. Of course, Jiro then paved the way for Gelb to make the influential Chef’s Table. — BM

The Lunchbox (2013)

What’s more romantic than a crossed-wires connection a la You’ve Got Mail, especially one in which two people fall in love through the making of and eating of food? This is the core of The Lunchbox. In the international production directed by Ritesh Batra, housewife Ila Singh lovingly cooks lunch tiffins for her husband to be delivered by way of Mumbai’s intricate and lengthy dabbawala system. But it turns out the operation isn’t perfect and her meals end up with a different person in a different office, Saajan Fernandes (played by the late great Irrfan Khan).

Aside from the meet-cute, will-they-won’t-they plotline, The Lunchbox is about food’s particular ability to bring people together. Saajan and Ila develop their friendship as she prepares him dishes she knows he’ll enjoy, like the aubergine stir-fry. Meanwhile, Saajan begrudgingly shares these meals with his new trainee Sheikh, who then becomes a familial figure in his life. The film also beautifully showcases the ways cooking can be a craft, especially in South Asian cultures. I recognize the way Ila taste-tests by dabbing bits on her palm — much like my mom does — and the way her upstairs neighbor could smell that certain spices were missing from a dish. It’s clear the making and enjoying of food is one of those less obvious love languages that director Batra just gets. —NC

Chef (2014)

In the film that Jon Favreau directed, wrote, and stars in, Carl Casper is an acclaimed chef, stuck creating generic crowd-pleasing menus at a fancy-pants Los Angeles restaurant. As he becomes increasingly bored by the whole shtick, he realizes that he wants and needs to cook without any restraints. He gets his wish after he’s fired for blowing up at a food critic over a bad review, and not knowing what else to do, he opens a food truck, El Jefe, focused on Cuban sandwiches. He then takes the truck on a cross-country road trip that serves the dual purpose of allowing Carl to reconnect with his son and find a way back to cooking.

Favreau loves food. Each dish prep scene is shot with care, whether it’s Carl slicing vegetables at the restaurant, pressing a grilled cheese in his home kitchen, or fashioning an assembly line of sandwiches in a tiny food truck space. The same goes for every bite taken on screen, including beignets in New Orleans and brisket straight from the smoker in Austin (hi, Aaron Franklin). But ultimately, Chef is about who we cook for and why, and posits that being a great chef comes from making delicious food for yourself and loved ones. —NC

Phantom Thread (2017)

Sometimes, you need to lightly poison your lover to make them act right. Or at least that’s the message at the heart of Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 epic. Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Reynolds, an intense, obsessive, and sometimes paranoid dressmaker with a voracious appetite. He meets Alma (Vicky Krieps) when she’s waitressing at a restaurant and the two quickly become enmeshed, with Alma moving in with Reynolds to serve as his creative muse. While those who have only seen the trailer might not immediately clock it as a food film, the drama and resolution in Phantom Thread always hinge on a meal. There’s the restaurant where Alma and Reynolds meet, the ill-fated dinner she prepares for him in a display of her devotion, and a pivotal, poisoned mushroom tea, which Alma gives to Reynolds so that she can be the one to nurse him back to health. Finally, the film culminates in a mushroom omelet, lovingly prepared by Alma, that reveals the depth of this complicated couple’s connection. — AM

Bao (2018)

Domee Shi’s Pixar short Bao acted as the intro to Incredibles 2, but I’d argue that it stole the show. In just under eight minutes, Bao told the story of a mother whose baozi becomes sentient. After her coddled dumpling baby grows into an independent adult, the mother impulsively eats him. We realize then that it was a dream, representing the mother’s fear of growing distant from her real, non-dumpling son. Though the twist horrified some viewers, it resonated deeply with others, especially within the Asian American community, for its depiction of overprotective parents and complicated familial love. Every ingredient and the entire dumpling-making process is rendered in beautiful, drool-worthy detail, informed by tutorials from Shi’s mother; Shi’s animated food only improved in her 2022 feature-length debut, Turning Red. — BM

First Cow (2019)

All of the characters in Kelly Reichardt’s masterpiece First Cow know that pastries are out of place in the unforgiving frontier of the 19th-century Oregon Territory. The oily cakes and clafoutis that Cookie (John Magaro) makes are too sweet for a world made savage by greedy, violent interlopers. The titular cow, who lost her bull and calf on the journey to the frontier, is also out of place. When Cookie and King-Lu (Orion Lee) take to secretly milking the cow for a fledgling bakery pop-up, essentially stealing from the local governor who owns the animal, they risk their physical safety, but they also provide purpose where before there was meaningless solitude. Cookie’s pastries not only make use of the cow’s milk, which will never go to her lost calf; they also bring immense joy to local customers otherwise consumed with individual material gain. The protagonists also find a shared purpose in their scheme, as well as comfort, support, and a kind of love in the domestic sphere they carve out of the cold forest, a liminal place that exists outside the rules of polite society and the annals of progress (as King-Lu puts it, “History hasn’t gotten here yet”). In this world, baking becomes a subtle act of rebellion by offering cohesion to disparate elements and motivation to lost people. That’s still true everywhere history has arrived. — NMB

Minari (2020)

Minari follows a Korean immigrant family as they try to build a life in rural Arkansas in the 1980s, drawing partially on the experiences of director Lee Isaac Chung. Jacob (Steven Yeun) and his wife Monica (Han Ye-ri) work as chicken sexers for the poultry industry in order to support their two young children, though Jacob would rather make a living growing Korean vegetables. Arriving from Korea to assist the family, Monica’s mom Soon-ja (Youn Yuh-jung) slowly builds a relationship with her grandchildren, while Jacob’s pursuit of his farm creates other tensions. Tender and moving, Minari — which gets its name from the Korean word for water celery — frames food as a symbol of hope and of sacrifice in pursuit of the “American dream.” — BM

Pig (2021)

Pig was the movie of the summer back in 2021 (or at the very least, my movie of the summer, a substantial portion of which I spent blogging about it). It stars Nicolas Cage as retired chef Robin Feld, who has been living off the grid in the Oregon woods, supporting himself by foraging truffles with his titular truffle pig. When his pig is stolen, Rob must return to the grisly underworld of Portland’s dining scene to get her back, forcing him to confront the life he left behind in the process. It might sound like John Wick, but the mood in Pig is far, well, moodier, exploring themes like loss, grief, artistry, genius, and finding one’s purpose. The film is at turns intimate (Rob connects with a young kid in the backyard of the home he used to live in) and imaginative (an underground restaurant worker fight club lit by chandeliers). And there’s plenty of food, as a movie about a chef should have: There’s the high-end restaurant Eurydice, a send-up of pretentious cheffery — and by contrast there’s the scene where we finally see Rob cook, a beautifully rustic pigeon with chanterelles designed for the movie by Portland’s own Gabe Rucker. A must-see for fans of Cage, mushrooms, and/or tear-jerkers, Pig is unexpected and compelling, a uniquely introspective food film. — HDC

The Menu (2022)

What would you pay for the most exclusive dining experience in the world? That’s the question at the heart of The Menu, director Mark Mylod’s 2002 dark comedy-horror film. Ralph Fiennes terrifies as the tyrannical chef Julian, a man with a lust for revenge on those who have misunderstood or undervalued his culinary genius. His victims are a dining room full of elites, played by a stellar ensemble cast that includes John Leguizamo, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Nicholas Hoult. They’re the kind of people who have earned enough money and power in uniquely unscrupulous ways to fritter away $1,200 per person for dinner — except for Margot (Taylor-Joy), a sharp-witted sex worker who’s determined to make it out alive. The film unfolds much like a tasting menu, and each course more terrifying than the next. That terror culminates in one hell of a dessert, er, ending — one that’s all but assured to have you laughing out loud. — AM

The Taste of Things (2024)

Set in France in the 19th century, The Taste of Things is the love story of a cook named Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) and her gastronome employer Dodin (Benoît Magimel). It’s a film that understands the deep romance in cooking for, and with, another person. Accordingly, the story is told through food, which director Trần Anh Hùng presents in indulgent, drawn-out, and atmospheric detail; the film begins with an ensemble cooking sequence that’s 40 minutes long in the most generous estimations.

Trần excels at displaying cooking sensually. He lets the camera linger on the steam that billows from a pot of stock, for example, and then holds it there as Dodin drips that stock onto the taut skin of a chicken, the kitchen aglow in golden-hour light. These lush visuals are enhanced by the crisp sounds of cooking, with no soundtrack for distraction. It’s a film that makes you yearn not only for the food, but also for the lifestyle — of spending your days cooking in a sun-drenched chateau kitchen, because you love the act of doing it, and then sharing that food with someone you love. — BM

Marylu E. Herrera (she/her) is a Chicago-based Chicana collage, print media, craft, and fiber artist. Her collage work has been featured in the Cut, the Los Angeles Times, Bitch Media, Eater, and Punch.

• Milestone

In this release, the coding focus has been on moving to PHP 8.1+ and refactoring the integration of the SimplePie library (which was long due). At the same time, plenty of new features have been added. Enjoy! 🎄

Breaking changes 💥:

• Require PHP 8.1+ (and improved support of PHP 8.4+)
• Require PostgreSQL 10+ or MariaDB 10.0.5+ or MySQL 8+

A few highlights ✨:

• Add support for regex search (regular expressions)
  • ⚠️ Advanced regex syntax for searches depends on the database used (SQLite, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MySQL),
    but FreshRSS filter actions such as auto-mark-as-read and auto-favourite always use PHP PCRE2 syntax.
• Allow dynamic search operator in user queries, like search:UserQueryA date:P1d
• New feed mode HTML+XPath+JSON dot notation (JSON in HTML)
• Better HTTP compliance with support for HTTP response headers Cache-Control: max-age and Expires
• New unicity policies and heuristic for feeds with bad article IDs (reduce the problem of duplicated articles)
• New option to automatically mark new articles as read if an identical title already exists in the same category
• Add ability to remove content from articles with CSS selectors, also when not using full content
• New condition option to selectively retrieve full content of articles
• New UI feature to download a user’ SQLite database or a database SQLite export (to be produced by CLI)
• Supported by Capy Reader (Android, open source)
• Many bug fixes, UI improvements, and a lot more

This release has been made by @aledeg, @Alkarex, @Art4, @ColonelMoutarde, @Frenzie, @math-GH, @ramazansancar
and newcomers @DevGrohl, @UserRoot-Luca, @aarnej, @andrey-utkin, @bhj, @christophehenry, @davralin, @drego85, @ev-gor, @killerog, @kwarraich, @minna-xD, @mtalexan, @oshaposhnyk, @patHyatt

Full changelog:

• Features
  • Add support for regex search (regular expressions) #6706, #6926
    • ⚠️ Advanced regex syntax for searches depends on the database used (SQLite, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MySQL),
      but FreshRSS filter actions such as auto-mark-as-read and auto-favourite always use PHP PCRE2 syntax.
  • Allow dynamic search operator in user queries, like search:UserQueryA date:P1d #6851
  • New feed mode HTML+XPath+JSON dot notation (JSON in HTML) #6888
  • Better HTTP compliance with support for HTTP response headers Cache-Control: max-age and Expires #6812, FreshRSS/simplepie#26
  • Support custom HTTP request headers per feed (e.g. for Authorization) #6820
  • New unicity policies and heuristic for feeds with bad article IDs #4487, #6900
  • Fallback to GUID if article link is empty #7051
  • New option to automatically mark new articles as read if an identical title already exists in the same category #6922
  • New reading view option to display unread articles + favourites #7088
    • And corresponding new filter state &state=96 (no UI button yet)
  • Add ability to remove content from articles with CSS selectors, also when not using full content #6786, #6807
  • Update phpgt/cssxpath library with improved CSS selectors #6618
    • Support for :last-child, :first-of-type, :last-of-type, ^=, |=
  • New condition option to selectively retrieve full content of articles
    #33fd07f6f26310d4806077cc87bcdf9b8b940e35, #7082
  • Allow parentheses in quoted search #7055
  • New UI feature to download a user’ SQLite database or a database SQLite export (to be produced by CLI) #6931
  • New button to delete errored feeds from a category #7030
  • Better import of Inoreader user labels #6791
  • Rebuild feed favicon on cache clear #6961
  • New sharing with Bluesky #7116
  • New sharing with Telegram #6838
• Bug fixing
  • Fix searches with a parenthesis before an operator like ("a b") or (!c) #6818
  • Fix auto-read tags #6790
  • Fix CSS selector for removing elements #7037, #7073,
    #7081, #7091, #7083
  • Fix redirection error after creating a new user #6995
  • Fix favicon error in case of wrong URL #6899
  • Use cURL to fetch extensions list (allows e.g. IPv6) #6767
  • Fix XML encoding in cURL options #6821
  • Fix initial UI scroll for some browsers #7059
  • Fix menu for article tags in some cases #6990
  • Fix share menu shortcut #6825
  • Fix HTML regex pattern during install for compatibility with v mode #7009
  • More robust creation of user data folder #7000
• API
  • Fix API for categories and labels containing a + #7033
    • Compatibility with FocusReader
  • Supported by Capy Reader (Android, open source) capyreader#492
  • Improved UI for API #7048
  • Allow adding multiple feeds to a category via API #7017
  • API support edit multiple tags #7060
  • API return all categories also those without any feed #7020
• Compatibility
  • Require PHP 8.1+ (drop PHP 7.4) #6711
  • Improved support of PHP 8.4+ #6618, PhpGt/CssXPath#227,
    #6781, #4374
  • Require PostgreSQL 10+ (drop PostgreSQL 9.5) #6705
  • Require MariaDB 10.0.5+ (drop MariaDB 5.5) #6706
  • Requiring MySQL 8+ (drop MySQL 5.5.3) #6706
• Deployment
  • Docker: dev image freshrss/freshrss:oldest updated to Alpine 3.16 with PHP 8.1.22 and Apache 2.4.59 #6711
  • Docker alternative image updated to Alpine 3.21 with PHP 8.3.14 and Apache 2.4.62 #5383
  • Update Dockerfiles to newer key-value format #6819
  • Docker minor improvement of entrypoint #6827
• SimplePie
  • Refactor our embedding of SimplePie #4374
    • Our fork is maintained in its own repository.
  • Remove HTTP Referer #6822, FreshRSS/simplepie#27
    • If some sites require it, add Referer: https://example.net/ to the custom HTTP headers of the feed #6820
  • Upstream fixes simplepie#878, simplepie#883
  • Sync upstream #6840, #7067
• Security
  • Apache protect more non-public folders and files #6881, #6893, #7008
  • Add privacy settings on extension list retrieval #4603, #7132
  • Fix login in unsafe mode when using a password with special XML characters #6797
  • Fix login in e.g. Brave browser by avoiding synchronous XHR #7023
  • Fix invalid login message #7066
  • Modernise windows.open noopener (to avoid flash of white page in dark mode) #7077, #7089
• UI
  • Searchable My Labels field #6753
  • Add subscription management button to reading view #6946
  • New option for showing label menu in article row #6984
  • Move to next unread label on mark as read #6886
  • Improved article footer for small / mobile screens #7031
  • Improve Web accessibility: fix aria-hidden bug, and use HTML5 hidden #6910
  • Default styles for <pre> and <code> #6770
  • Refactor the sharing menu to use a <template> instead of duplicated HTML code #6751, #7113
  • Refactor the label menu to use a <template> #6864
  • Rework UI for authors #7054
    • Avoid Unicode escape of authors in HTML UI #7056
  • Improved subscription management page #6816
  • Improve user query management page #7062
  • Restore JavaScript form validation compatibility with Web browsers using older engines (SeaMonkey) #6777
  • Reorganise some options #6920
  • New shortcut ? to show shortcut page and help #6981
  • Use of consistent colours in statistics #7090
  • Various UI and style improvements #6959
• Extensions
  • New extension hook simplepie_after_init #7007
• I18n
  • Add Finnish #6954
  • Improve English #7049, #7053
  • Improve German #6847, #7068, #7128
  • Improve Italian #6872, #7069, #7086
  • Improve Spanish #6894, #6908
  • Improve Turkish #6960
• Misc.
  • Better cache name for JSON feeds #6768
  • Fix inversed encoding logic in Minz_Request::paramArray() #6800
  • Pass PHPStan booleansInConditions #6793
  • Rename PHPStan configuration file to phpstan.dist.neon to allow custom configuration in phpstan.neon #6892
  • Code improvements #6800, #6809, #6983
  • Makefile improvements #6913
  • Fix PHPCS ControlSignature #6896
  • Update PHPMailer #6968, #7046
  • Code updates to PHP 8.1 syntax #6748
  • Update dev dependencies #6780, #6964, , #6965,
    #6966, #6967, #6970,
    #7042, #7043, #7044,
    #7045, #7047, #7052

estimated reading time: 19 min

If you want to support knife steel research, come join us at Patreon.com/KnifeSteelNerds. You get articles and videos before everyone else!

If you’re looking for Knife Steel Nerds Christmas gifts, some good choices are the book Knife Engineering, the book The Story of Knife Steel, and the Buck knife model 501 “The Larrin.”

Video

There is a video version of the following information:

Why Analyze AI Capabilities?

I’ve had multiple people over the past couple years send me steel compositions that ChatGPT came up with. People want to know what I think, and if AI is going to be taking over everything now, including the design of new steels. I took a few of the steel compositions people sent me so I can analyze them to see if they would work. Can ChatGPT come up with new and fresh ideas to revolutionize knife steel? Let’s look at them and see:

Infinisteel

ChatGPT has some grandiose claims for this first steel:

Introducing the revolutionary super steel, InfiniSteel! This cutting-edge material boasts unparalleled toughness, edge retention, and corrosion resistance, surpassing any other steel on the market. By exploiting a unique interplay between various alloying elements, InfiniSteel exhibits remarkable properties that set it apart from conventional steel grades.

The InfiniSteel composition consists of:

Iron (Fe): 75%
Carbon (C): 1.2%
Chromium (Cr): 20%
Vanadium (V): 2.5%
Molybdenum (Mo): 0.8%
Tungsten (W): 0.5%

The biggest issue with this steel is that it won’t harden. When heat treating knife steel the main step is “austenitizing,” the high temperature step before the steel is quenched (rapidly cooled). You can read more about austenitizing in this article. It is called the austenitizing temperature because the steel transforms from the low temperature ferrite phase to the high temperature austenite phase. Ferrite is the normal “phase” of iron at room temperature which has a certain set of properties, such as being magnetic and soft. When you heat up iron to high temperature the atoms rearrange themselves into a different structure called austenite, which has different properties, one of them being that it is not magnetic. When you quench austenite it transforms to the hard steel phase martensite. If you don’t transform to austenite at your heat treatment temperature you will still have soft ferrite after heat treating and thus it will not make a good knife edge.

Some elements are “ferrite stabilizers” and some are “austenite stabilizers.” This steel has a relatively high content of ferrite stabilizers including 20% Cr, 2.5% V, 0.8% Mo, and 0.5% W. This would be ok if there were enough austenite stabilizers, but the only austenite stabilizer in the steel is carbon, and 1.2% is not enough for all of those ferrite stabilizers. ChatGPT is just adding elements in because when it reads random articles online that say that each element does some beneficial thing. It doesn’t know anything about balancing different elements together and it has no idea that it needs to have enough carbon or other austenite stabilizers to go with all of those ferrite stabilizers.

Here’s a detailed explanation of the role each component plays in the alloy and how they contribute to the exceptional performance of InfiniSteel:

Iron (Fe): As the primary element in steel, iron provides the backbone of the material’s structure. It imparts strength and toughness to the alloy, ensuring InfiniSteel can withstand substantial loads and resist deformation under various conditions.

Carbon (C): The addition of 1.2% carbon significantly improves the strength and hardness of the alloy. This results in superior edge retention, allowing InfiniSteel to maintain a sharp edge even after extensive use. Additionally, the high carbon content enables the formation of carbides, which further enhance wear resistance.

Chromium (Cr): Chromium contributes to InfiniSteel’s exceptional corrosion resistance. At 20%, it forms a stable, adherent, and self-healing passive film on the steel’s surface, effectively protecting it from oxidizing agents. This film also enhances the steel’s resistance to various corrosive environments, such as those with high humidity or in contact with aggressive chemicals.

Vanadium (V): Vanadium’s primary function is to refine the steel’s grain structure, leading to enhanced toughness and resistance to impact. At 2.5%, it forms hard vanadium carbides that strengthen the material and improve its edge retention properties. Additionally, vanadium aids in stabilizing the passive film, further enhancing the steel’s corrosion resistance.

Molybdenum (Mo): Molybdenum strengthens the steel matrix and improves its resistance to high-temperature creep and stress rupture. At 0.8%, it also contributes to the formation of a more stable passive film, increasing the corrosion resistance of InfiniSteel.

Tungsten (W): The addition of 0.5% tungsten enhances the high-temperature performance and hardness of InfiniSteel. It forms carbides that provide excellent wear resistance, contributing to the alloy’s outstanding edge retention properties.

Through this unique interplay of alloying elements, InfiniSteel achieves an unprecedented level of performance in terms of toughness, edge retention, and corrosion resistance. The combination of carefully selected constituents enables the alloy to outshine any other steel on the market, making it the ideal choice for a wide range of demanding applications, such as aerospace, automotive, marine, and cutting tools industries.

The explanations of what the different elements are doing are also very dumb and obviously based on random articles from non-experts online. For example, under iron it says that the iron “imparts strength and toughness to the alloy.” This is a very odd thing to say about the steel since steel is made up of iron. Iron is pretty soft before we add other elements to it, especially carbon. So why would you describe iron as imparting “strength”? Sounds like something a dumb AI would write.

It also says that “Vanadium’s primary function is to refine the steel’s grain structure, leading to enhanced toughness and resistance to impact.” Small amounts of vanadium, like 0.1-0.2%, are added to prevent grain growth. In knife steels when you have 0.3% or more added, that is for wear resistance. In that case it is adding wear resistance and reducing toughness. So the claim by the AI that the vanadium is added for enhanced toughness is nonsense.

The AI also says that molybdenum was added for “its resistance to high-temperature creep and stress rupture.” High temperature creep is when a material is held under stress at relatively high temperature for long periods of time. The material slowly deforms, which is called creep. Resisting creep is totally unnecessary in a knife, and the AI is just pulling things from various places to support its choices in a seemingly random way.

No manganese or silicon was added to the steel. These are not always shown on datasheets but are present in all tool steels that I am aware of. I would say it just didn’t mention them, but it also gave the percentage of iron (75%) which leaves no more room for Mn and Si.

User
Please provide a detailed analysis of Infinisteel vs Magnacut?

ChatGPT
InfiniSteel and MagnaCut are both high-performance steels designed for demanding applications. Here’s a detailed analysis comparing their properties and performance:

Composition:

MagnaCut:
Carbon (C): 1.15%
Chromium (Cr): 17.0%
Manganese (Mn): 0.6%
Nickel (Ni): 0.3%
Nitrogen (N): 0.18%
Vanadium (V): 4.0%
Molybdenum (Mo): 2.0%

Comparison:

Toughness: Both InfiniSteel and MagnaCut boast high levels of toughness due to their vanadium content, which refines the grain structure of the steel. InfiniSteel contains 2.5% vanadium, while MagnaCut has a higher vanadium content at 4.0%. The higher vanadium content in MagnaCut might result in slightly better toughness compared to InfiniSteel.

Corrosion resistance: InfiniSteel has a higher chromium content (20%) than MagnaCut (17%). This results in better passive film formation and, consequently, superior corrosion resistance. Additionally, MagnaCut’s nitrogen content (0.18%) further enhances its corrosion resistance. However, InfiniSteel is likely to have the edge in this category due to its higher chromium content.

…

The person who sent me this also asked ChatGPT how the steel would compare to MagnaCut. Somehow ChatGPT managed to get the composition of MagnaCut wrong. MagnaCut has 10.7% chromium but ChatGPT says it has 17%. It also has 0.2% nitrogen as a target, so the 0.18% nitrogen that ChatGPT reports could technically be a nitrogen content that would be seen in an individual bar of steel, but that is not the target composition. And it also reports that MagnaCut has 0.3% nickel, even though nickel is not added to the steel and is not reported in the datasheet.

ChatGPT also repeats its mistake from earlier, saying that vanadium in higher amounts leads to more toughness. So it says that MagnaCut would have higher toughness because it has 4% vanadium instead of the 2.5% in “Infinisteel.” That is not how it works.

My Grade: D-

It is difficult to give the steel high marks when you can’t harden it.

Ultravium Steel

— create a unique composition of elements for a great blade steel that does not exist yet…
ChatGPT:
Creating a unique composition for a great blade steel requires a deep understanding of metallurgy and the desired properties in the resulting steel. While this composition doesn’t exist yet, we can propose an innovative blend of elements to produce an exceptional blade steel:

Name: Ultravium Steel

Composition:

Carbon (C): 2.5%
A higher carbon content contributes to increased hardness, making the blade exceptionally sharp and able to hold an edge for extended periods.
Vanadium (V): 7%
Vanadium adds wear resistance, enhancing the blade’s durability and edge retention. It also aids in fine-grain structure formation, crucial for sharpness.
Molybdenum (Mo): 3%
Molybdenum boosts the steel’s strength, toughness, and resistance to corrosion. It also helps maintain blade sharpness under high-stress conditions.
Tungsten (W): 5%
Tungsten further improves hardness, wear resistance, and overall blade performance. It enhances the steel’s ability to withstand extreme temperatures.
Niobium (Nb): 1.5%
Niobium promotes grain refinement, which contributes to sharpness and overall blade strength. It also adds stability to the steel’s microstructure.
Cobalt (Co): 2%
Cobalt increases the steel’s strength and high-temperature performance, making it ideal for blades subjected to extreme conditions.
Copper (Cu): 0.5%
Copper adds a touch of corrosion resistance to the steel while maintaining its strength and hardness.
Silicon (Si): 1%
Silicon enhances the steel’s toughness and resistance to wear, improving its overall durability.

ChatGPT starts out by saying that a unique composition for knife steel “requires a deep understanding of metallurgy,” which I agree with. However, this composition shows that ChatGPT also does not have this required deep understanding. The approach appears to have been adding large amounts of most of the major elements. This steel is a good example of how ChatGPT “reads” things online that say all the positive things that different elements do. When a layman reads about different elements this is also typically what they see. It says what an element does to improve properties but it doesn’t usually explain the tradeoffs or how elements are balanced or how they work together. It says that molybdenum “helps maintain blade sharpness under high-stress conditions.” I don’t know what that means or how molybdenum is helping. Is a “high stress” condition one where an individual is under attack? Or is “high stress” referring to “engineering stress” where a load is being applied to a knife? It says that tungsten is added “to withstand extreme temperatures.” What kind of temperatures? Is this a knife for use in volcanoes? It says that niobium is for grain refinement, but 1.5% is way more than necessary for grain refinement. That amount is for wear resistance and ChatGPT didn’t even mention wear resistance. Cobalt was added again for “high-temperature performance,” “for blades subjected to extreme conditions.” And again I say that if the temperature is too high for the knife it is way, way too hot for humans. Copper is added for “a touch of corrosion resistance” for some reason.

There is a big omission with this steel, however, which is chromium. ChatGPT didn’t add any of it. This means the steel does not have any corrosion resistance to speak of (that 0.5% copper isn’t doing much). But chromium is also added to steels for other reasons. It is present in nearly all high alloy tool steels, in part so that it has high “hardenability” so that it can be quenched more slowly and still fully harden. Not adding it is very strange for this steel.

Heat Treatment:

Ultravium Steel would undergo a precise heat treatment process, including quenching and tempering, to maximize its hardness, toughness, and fine-grain structure. The ideal hardness level would be around HRC 65-66.
Properties:

Ultravium Steel would be renowned for its exceptional hardness, wear resistance, and edge retention. It would maintain sharpness even under heavy use and extreme conditions.
The steel’s fine-grain structure would contribute to its ability to take and hold a razor-sharp edge.
Superior strength and toughness would make it suitable for a wide range of cutting applications, from fine slicing to heavy-duty chopping.
Ultravium Steel would exhibit excellent corrosion resistance, reducing the need for extensive maintenance and ensuring longevity.
It would be an ideal choice for high-performance knives, cutting tools, and blades used in demanding environments.
Applications:

Chef’s knives: Ultravium Steel would excel in the kitchen, making it a favorite among professional chefs and culinary enthusiasts.
Survival and outdoor knives: Blades made from this steel would prove highly reliable in rugged outdoor conditions.
Industrial cutting tools: Ultravium Steel would be sought after for its ability to withstand heavy use in manufacturing and construction.
Military and tactical knives: Its strength and durability would make it suitable for combat and tactical applications.
Artistic blades: Bladesmiths and artisans would appreciate its ability to hold intricate patterns and designs in damascus or layered steel.
While this hypothetical Ultravium Steel may not exist yet, advancements in metallurgy continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible. Such an innovative blend of elements could revolutionize the world of blade steel, offering exceptional performance and versatility to knife makers and users alike.

ChatGPT then claims that Ultravium would have “excellent corrosion resistance” which it certainly would not have without any chromium. It also says that bladesmiths would like it for “its ability to hold intricate patterns and designed in damascus or layered steel.” I don’t know what it means to “hold” an intricate pattern. But bladesmiths would likely not prefer this steel for Damascus because the high alloy content would make it more difficult to forge weld.

My Grade: C-

Since this steel hardens I will give it a C-. Can’t give higher than that since it skipped chromium while claiming the steel would have high corrosion resistance.

MagnaCut+

— ChatGPT
Hypothetical Composition for “MagnaCut Plus”
• • •
Element Proposed Content

Carbon (C) 1.05%
Chromium (Cr) 11.5%
Vanadium (V) 3.0%
Molybdenum (Mo) 2.0%
Tungsten (W) 0.5%
Nitrogen (N) 0.3%
Niobium (Nb) 0.5%
Cobalt (Co) 1.5%

Expected Improvements
• Wear Resistance: The increase in vanadium and tungsten would lead to harder vanadium and tungsten carbides, resulting in better edge retention.
• Toughness: The slight decrease in carbon and the introduction of cobalt would help maintain or even improve toughness.
• Corrosion Resistance: The increase in chromium and nitrogen should enhance resistance to rust and corrosion.
• Grain Refinement: More niobium would aid in creating a finer grain structure, resulting in better overall balance.
Potential Drawbacks
• Higher Cost: Adding tungsten and cobalt increases the cost of production.
• More Challenging Heat Treatment: The changes may require more precise heat treatment to unlock the full potential of the alloy.
• Diminished Ease of Sharpening: Higher vanadium content can make sharpening slightly more difficult.
This proposed “MagnaCut Plus” would aim to push the limits of what MagnaCut offers without compromising the balanced properties that make it so desirable. It would likely excel in applications requiring even greater edge retention and toughness, such as high-performance cutting tools and hard-use knives.

This steel was requested by the user to be an improvement on MagnaCut. However, ChatGPT offers from very strange reasoning:

“The increase in vanadium and tungsten would lead to harder vanadium and tungsten carbides, resulting in better edge retention.”

The vanadium content was reduced from MagnaCut, down to 3% from 4%. So I don’t know why ChatGPT thinks it has increased vanadium. It also claims that it added tungsten to form “tungsten carbides.” In these types of high alloy steels, adding a tiny amount of tungsten does not lead to the formation of any carbides that are tungsten-rich. The tungsten incorporates into other carbide types such as vanadium-rich or chromium-rich carbides. And those carbides would not be any harder. A small addition of tungsten seems to be a theme for ChatGPT and I don’t really see the point. To be fair, there are several stainless steels from Takefu where they added small amounts of tungsten and claimed similar reasoning. But I have also been on record saying I think that the tungsten is unnecessary in these steels.

“More niobium would aid in creating a finer grain structure.” The niobium content is less than MagnaCut, 0.5% vs 2%. so it does not have “more niobium.”

“The changes may require more precise heat treatment to unlock the full potential of the alloy.” Why? Based on what?

Other criticisms of the design require more in-depth analysis with a thermodynamics software that predicts carbide types and alloy in solution. ChatGPT claims an improvement in corrosion resistance because of the higher chromium, but in fact the chromium in solution is reduced in the “MagnaCut+” alloy because of the other elements. There is also  3-5% chromium carbide in the heat treated structure which reduces corrosion resistance. The improvement in corrosion resistance with MagnaCut came from reducing chromium carbide content to near-zero and this steel dropped that innovation for no reason because ChatGPT doesn’t know what it is doing.

The carbide content of MagnaCut+ and MagnaCut would be similar but MagnaCut+ would have half of its carbide be the larger chromium-rich type, reducing toughness. It also claims that cobalt improves toughness, which it doesn’t.

My Grade: C

The steel can be hardened and would be nearly stainless. But calling it MagnaCut+ while reducing corrosion resistance, wear resistance, and toughness from MagnaCut is bad so it gets a C.

Some General Thoughts

In none of the proposals that ChatGPT gave did it ever say that it would make these steels by powder metallurgy. The very high alloy content of these steels means they would not be very good if made with conventional steelmaking. Or at the very least these would not be an improvement on existing steels if they were not made with powder metallurgy. So to not state explicitly that the steel should be made with powder metallurgy is a big omission.

ChatGPT provided no heat treating information. In one case ChatGPT claimed its new alloy would require “more precise heat treatment” but it did not provide any information on temperature ranges the steel might heat treat from. I very much doubt it could give accurate ranges even if asked. Of course in the one case the steel wouldn’t be able to be hardened at all so it wouldn’t be able to give a temperature that would work.

As I have stated several times, the approach ChatGPT takes is to add a lot of every element. It seems to think that elements only improve steel, so add some of all of them and you have a new super steel. It has no real concept of balancing different elements together or what the drawbacks are for adding different elements. It is basically what happens when “internet experts” try to design their own steel. So maybe this is a win for AI because it is now as smart as “internet experts”?

Could a Different AI Design Knife Steel?

ChatGPT is a “large language model,” meaning it was trained on huge amounts of written text from humans. It uses the statistical information about how humans put words together to generate coherent text. However, the model is not good at collecting data about different things, analyzing and comparing that data to find unique insights and solutions, and then to turn that into information. The other problem is that information about how to design tool steels is not really available on the internet, especially not in a form that ChatGPT could use. To really develop a good model we would need a database of information specific to knife steel design. So not a “general AI” but a “narrow AI” for our specific task. This would still be challenging, because the exact data we want does not really exist. The more data we can feed into an AI model the better the results can be. This is the classic example of “garbage in, garbage out.” A lot of information on tool steels and stainless steels are locked within specific steel companies, or even inside the heads of different metallurgists. The scientific literature, including publicly available journal articles and reported experiments, are not usually in a format that would easily be usable in a large database for an AI. Each study is done with different conditions: they hot rolled the steel with a different amount of reduction, they tested different sized coupons, they reported microstructure values but not mechanical properties, they tested Izod toughness instead of charpy toughness, etc.

For my own development of steel I use several different things, including:

1. Journal articles and books which collect different studies to find trends with different variables. Changes to composition, heat treatment, etc.
2. My own data which I have collected the last several years on Knife Steel Nerds – toughness, corrosion resistance, hardness, edge retention, etc.
3. Thermodynamics software – this software does not use machine learning or AI but uses databases to come up with expected microstructure at different temperatures. When it works perfectly you can know what carbides you have and which elements are “in solution” and how much.
4. Simple models for different properties – I have created simple equations which predict properties and there are some that are reported in journal articles and books. Some that I have created have been reported on this website such as this study on corrosion resistance or this study on edge wear.

With those pieces of information I can come up with approximate property targets and balance elements together. A similar process could be used for a “narrow AI.” Existing thermodynamics software could also be plugged into this AI, which is already happening. I think to do much better than humans would likely require a bigger database of experimental data than we currently have. For example, small tweaks could be made to existing steels such as the content of Mo, Si, Mn, N, etc. Currently, without experimentation by making these variations, we don’t know which changes could potentially lead to improvements. If our database was big enough, perhaps an AI could make predictions about which changes to try and thus reduce the number of experiments. But we are not there yet.

At the AAR this past weekend, Beatrice Marovich hosted a discussion about the decline of theology. Eventually, this evolved into a discussion of the decline of theology blogging, which was where many of us had cut our teeth intellectually — and, of course, where many of us met in the first place. I have been processing this conversation over the past few days and wanted to write down some thoughts for posterity, as someone who was (if I may boast of such an august position) pretty central to the enterprise of theology blogging at its height.

The first question to ask is why theology blogging took off in the mid to late 2000s. I believe that part of the reason is simply that theology as a field has many intrinsic properties that dispose it to a relatively open-ended, undisciplined discussion like the blogosphere. Above all, theology is inherently interdisciplinary, combining conceptual analysis, literary interpretation, historical and political reflection, cultural criticism — basically everything that any humanities discipline does is done in theology. People in theology were therefore ready to be part of the widest possible range of conversations in the humanities blogosphere, and people in my immediate intellectual circle were in fact closely engaged with bloggers in literary studies, philosophy, political theory, and many other fields.

There are other factors more particular to that historical moment. To put it bluntly, it was the Bush years. This meant that religion was an unavoidable topic. That was the heyday of political theology (in the “real,” Schmittian sense, not the broader sense of “politically engaged theology”) and of the Paul and philosophy trend — meaning that other intellectuals were ready to take theologians seriously as interlocutors in a way they might not have been in the 90s. By the same token, the fact that the evangelicals seemed to be so clearly in the ascendant in the 2000s produced many opportunities for alienation and disillusionment among intellectually curious and passionate young adults, in a way that would have been less potent when evangelicals could present themselves as a threatened subculture in the 90s.

From both directions, then, it was a perfect storm. And for a few years, things were very intellectually intense and exciting. But the vibe started to shift already as I was finishing up grad school. Part of it was a degree of attrition — people got jobs and got busy, or didn’t get jobs and dropped out. The impact of the Financial Crisis was especially damaging in the latter respect, and in cutting off the pipeline of younger participants. And of course there was social media, which cannibalized the entire internet. A big part of blogging culture were the comment threads, which fell virtually silent as people decided they preferred to comment on social media rather than on the post itself. For a time, I would exhort such people to comment on the blog if they wanted to join the conversation, and they inevitably dismissed the idea — or (since they tended to be left-leaning social media users) claimed that I was somehow violating the principles of social justice by suggesting that someone should comment in a space where they felt potentially “unsafe.” My reaction to such remarks, then and now, was: “Bullshit.” And in retrospect we can see how damaging it has been to shift all public discourse onto algorithmically-driven, profit-seeking platforms — which now even actively discourage the use of links that would take one outside the corporately-curated experience.

There were also factors specific to academic and particularly theology blogging. I am thinking here of the tendency toward institutionalization. Specialist journals, centers, and even departments started putting up blogs, which competed for everyone’s free writing time even as they squelched the free-wheeling fun of the blogosphere. Even among bloggers themselves, there were attempts to create quasi-institutions in the form of group blogs (like Long Sunday or The Valve in circles adjacent to me). Obviously this is somewhat hypocritical of me to criticize, since The Weblog and An und für sich were always group blogs. But they were also very clearly my personal blog, not an impersonal institution. Since I knew that few had the same writing stamina, my strategy was to provide the audience for whenever a friend or intellectual comrade wanted to put something out there. (In retrospect, I worry that my dominance might have dissuaded some potential contributors, but that’s a different problem than impersonal institutionality.)

In the theology blogging space, there were two attempted institutionalizations that I believe were particularly damaging. The first was Syndicate Theology, which stole the idea of doing book events on major new publications in theology (a stock in trade of The Weblog and An und für sich at their height) and sucked the life out of it by overproducing them. I know that saying “stole” may come across as loaded language, but I heard reliable reports that the creators of Syndicate had our practice specifically in mind when they developed the site. They did not consult with me in any way, nor did they solicit me to participate or offer to do an event on any of my books — all of which points to a guilty conscience in my opinion. I’m happy to burn that bridge publicly now, because of course virtually no one reads the site. Just like Borders, they put their independent competitors out of business before overextending themselves.

The other problematic institutionalization was the blog attached to the journal Political Theology. Reportedly they were forced to do the blog by the corporate owner of the journal, but even within that context they proceeded in an unethical way. In the early stages, they repeatedly attempted to “poach” writers from my blog — though, again, never me. Later on, they started apparently publishing anything anyone sent them, leading to some pretty embarrassing posts. Ultimately they put out something so egregious — accusing leftists of supporting jihad — that some friends and I, concerned with how the low quality of the blog and the offensiveness of that post might reflect on the field, requested that it be taken down. The editors were so stubbornly defensive that we were forced to publish an open letter on the issue. Along the way, they had offered that we could write a rebuttal piece for the blog or even take over some of the editorial duties — both insulting offers in context. I joked at the time that I would take over as their blog editor only if I would be allowed to shut it down altogether.

Obviously I still have some bitterness on the last two points, but as I said, this was a huge part of my life — and honestly, a lot of the institutionalization attempts seemed to involve stealing my ideas or poaching young academics I had supported, while cutting me out personally. Whatever may be the case with my own personal grudges, though, what is certain is that the atmosphere became much more cynical and careerist, which again militated against the fun, free-wheeling atmosphere of blogging. Blog posts became a chore, a CV line, a way of doing a favor that one might be able to cash in later — not a forum for community-building or intellectual exploration. If Twitter and Facebook were what killed off the blogosphere, maybe what made people less resistant to the change was that blogging had already become too much like LinkedIn.

In the best spirit of the classical age of blogging, I have been open and vulnerable to you, probably to an inappropriate and self-undermining degree. Please reciprocate in the same spirit by submitting any comments, questions, reminiscences, apologies, points of rebuttal, or cease-and-desist letters in the comment form below rather than grousing on social media about it.

Techcrunch, the famous tech blog, wrote an article about wallabag.

The wallabag team was pleasantly surprised to find their project highlighted in a recent TechCrunch article. Recognized as a privacy-friendly alternative to Pocket, wallabag was praised for its self-hosting capabilities and commitment to user autonomy—values at the heart of the project since its inception.

For a small, community-driven team, being featured alongside giants like Signal and Nextcloud is both unexpected and deeply motivating. Seeing our work mentioned on such a renowned platform is incredible. It’s proof that independent, ethical alternatives can stand out.

This recognition not only validates wallabag’s mission but also encourages the team to keep improving the app. We hope this spotlight will inspire more users and contributors to join our journey towards empowering individuals to take control of their data.

The future looks bright for wallabag, proving that even small projects can make a big impact in the tech world.

[The following is a conference presentation delivered at the American Academy of Religion’s annual conference in San Diego, under the auspices of the Political Theology programming unit.]

The topic of this presentation began as a joke—an exceptionally niche joke, but a joke nonetheless. For many election cycles now, I have been declaring my intention to vote for the katechōn rather than the man of lawlessness. The reference, which I hope is clear to most attendees at a political theology session, is to the New Testament book of 2 Thessalonians. There, Paul—or, more likely, a later pseudonymous author trying to tone down or “correct” Paul’s apocalyptic teaching in 1 Thessalonians—writes that, contrary to the views that some people attribute to him, the apocalypse is not near at hand but has been indefinitely delayed. The passage reads as follows:

Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day [of Judgment] will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction. He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. Do you not remember that I told you these things when I was still with you? And you know what is now restraining him, so that he may be revealed when his time comes. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but only until the one who now restrains it is removed. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming. (2 Thessalonians 2:3-8)

In contrast to 1 Thessalonians, which encouraged Paul’s readers to look forward to the apocalyptic fulfillment of the resurrection of the dead, the pseudonymous author focuses almost exclusively on the destruction that will be wrought by the “man of lawlessness” once the force or individual restraining him—namely, the katechōn—is removed. God is still going to win out in the end, but perhaps the restrainer is a better bet for the time being.

The figure of the restrainer has been the object of considerable reflection in the field of political theology. In Nomos of the Earth, Carl Schmitt argued that the katechōn was the central concept of Christian politics, allowing it to bracket its apocalyptic expectations and get to work creating political institutions in this present world, and many—including me, in The Prince of This World—have argued that the concept of the modern state is a secularized version of this figure who restrains the forces of apocalyptic destruction. Those forces of destruction are normally envisioned as coming from outside the institutional order, whether in the form of foreign enemies or domestic insurrectionaries. My joke about voting for the katechōn, presumably as a form of negative polarization against the man of lawlessness, expressed the sense that contemporary political rhetoric tends to figure the danger as coming from inside the house—that is to say, one of the two traditional parties of government is claimed to represent a mortal threat to the institutional order as such.

And now, of course, the joke is on me, because I have foolishly agreed to write a conference presentation analyzing what turned out to be a devastating election result. I do not intend to use this as a forum for punditry or prediction, genres that most of us have presumably consumed in excess in the last few weeks. Instead, I intend to carry out a political theological investigation of the apocalyptic rhetoric that has marked American political discourse in recent decades—and, it should be noted, almost equally on both sides. Just as Kamala Harris presented Donald Trump as a mortal danger to the American republic, so too did he paint her potential victory as the death of the nation. By pointing this out, I don’t mean to claim that both sides are equally justified in their use of this rhetoric, nor to discount the profound fears that Trump’s return to power have aroused—fears that I very much share. Even if this election turns out to be the time the rhetoric comes true, however, it is still worth reflecting on what it means that a nation split almost perfectly 50-50 between two institutional parties that are both more than 150 years old has developed such an apocalyptic political culture.

I will carry out my analysis in two steps. First, after briefly laying out what I understand to be the task of political theology, I will try to gain some critical distance from our desperate political situation by drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s reading of 2 Thessalonians in his short book The Mystery of Evil, where he claims that the passage is not an apocalyptic vision but instead reveals the deep structure of Western political institutions. With these concepts on the table, I will then plunge back into our domestic political hellscape, using the American situation to show the limits of Agamben’s reading of 2 Thessalonians.

I.

I should begin my analysis proper by clarifying what I mean by political theology. I do not use the term to designate a politically-engaged normative theology—for instance, one that would provide us with values and hopes that would help us to cope with our present political situation. Such work is necessary for faith communities, but I am not a member of any faith community and don’t presume to dictate their political action to them. Instead, I am a critic and scholar, and I view the task of political theology as that of exposing the theological roots of political concepts. As I define it in Neoliberalism’s Demons, “Political theology is a holistic, genealogical inquiry into the structures and sources of legitimacy in a particular historical moment. Political theology in this sense is political because it investigates institutions and practices of governance (whether they are defined as state-based or economic, public or private), and it is theological because it deals with questions of meaning and value (regardless of the form the answers take)” (128). Hence I believe that political theology is especially well suited to analyze the apocalyptic turn in American political rhetoric not solely or even primarily because that rhetoric is drawing on religious patterns of thought, but because it points toward a profound crisis of legitimacy. By the same token, Agamben’s Mystery of Evil is an especially fruitful point of reference for this analysis not only because it discusses 2 Thessalonians, but because it is fundamentally a book about crises of legitimacy—which Agamben believes to afflict all Western institutions.

The text itself consists of two short essays that heavily overlap. The first is a reflection on Benedict XVI’s abdication from the papal throne due to old age, which strikes me as uncannily timely given that the defining moment of this election cycle was Biden’s withdrawal from the race for the same stated reason. Agamben views Benedict’s decision as exemplary because it “forcefully calls attention to the distinction between two essential principles of our ethico-political tradition, of which our societies seem to have lost all awareness: legitimacy and legality” (2). By admitting that he was unable to carry out the duties of his office any longer and stepping aside in favor of a more vigorous leader, Benedict was, in Agamben’s reading, asserting the purely spiritual power of his office rather than asserting his legal prerogative to hold the position until death. More than restoring the legitimacy of the church in the public eye, however, for Agamben Benedict’s resignation serves to expose how much the church has given up all claim of legitimacy by descending into the machinations of money and politics.

To that extent, then, Benedict’s gesture was a messianic one in Agamben’s terms. This is one of the slipperiest concepts in his arsenal, not least because it seems to evoke hopes of political revolution or apocalyptic fulfillment. For Agamben, though, the messianic is ultimately a philosophical category rather than a political or theological one. The messianic is not concerned with any particular historical revelation and especially not with any arbitrary sequence of future events that is supposed to lead to the end of history. Instead, the messianic exposes the dynamics of history by providing a point of view from which the operation of the “political machine” that structures our lives is suspended so that we can actually understand it—and perhaps thereby transform it. Agamben’s reading of theological texts, especially the texts of Paul, is therefore a kind of secularization of their insights. In The Time That Remains, for instance, Agamben claims that the famous “already/not-yet” dynamic of messianic expectation is not tied to the postponed arrival of a particular messianic figure known as Jesus of Nazareth, but instead provides us tools to understand the experience of time through language. Hence it turns out that there is something fundamentally messianic about rhyming in poetry, for instance.

Agamben clears the space for this kind of reading by asserting—idiosyncratically and, in my view, falsely—that Paul is emphatically not an apocalyptic thinker and that apparently apocalyptic passages should instead be read “messianically.” In the case of 2 Thessalonians, such an assertion is especially counterintuitive, since the passage has almost universally been regarded as an apocalyptic narrative in which the katechōn is taken to represent a concrete historical individual or institution—most often the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, Agamben finds a productive minority tradition in the fourth century theologian Tyconius, who is often classified as a Donatist heretic but who had a decisive influence on Augustine (and the young Joseph Ratzinger). For Tyconius, the katechōn is not an external agency like the Roman Empire, but the Church itself, insofar as it is still mired in sin. Whereas the conventional reading positions the katechōn as good, or at least as a necessary evil, Tyconius opens up the space to see this restraining power as a negative thing—and, in one of Agamben’s characteristic interpretive tours de force, to understand what pseudo-Paul calls the anomos in a more positive valence, not as a wicked individual or force, but as something that is “outside the law” in the same sense that Paul can describe the messiah and his followers as being “outside the law.”

Translating his extrapolation from Tyconius into more political terms, Agamben claims that “the katechōn is the power—the Empire, but also the Church, like every juridically constituted authority—that opposes and conceals the lawlessness that defines messianic time and in this way slows the revelation of the ‘mystery of lawlessness.’ The unveiling of this mystery coincides with the manifestation fo the inoperativity of the law and with it the essential illegitimacy of every power in messianic time” (33-34). Agamben applies this analysis directly to our present, “when the powers of state act openly as outside the law,” so that “the anomos does not represent anything but the unveiling of the lawlessness that today defines every constituted power, within which State and terrorism form a single system” (34).

Surely this last bit is evocative of all kinds of examples in all our minds, from police violence up to the president-elect’s solicitation of stochastic terrorism. Equally evocative is Agamben’s assertion that we cannot simply rely on the workings of the law to fix this problem of pervasive illegality. Here we might think of the attempt to solve police violence through improved training and procedures or the long-cherished (and now-thwarted) hope that the law will somehow save us from Trump. From Agamben’s perspective, however, we can see that this strategy was doomed to fail, because “the hypertrophy of law, which presumes to legislate over everything, on the contrary betrays, through an excess of formal legality, the loss of all substantial legitimacy” (3). Elsewhere he associates this excess of legality with “the paradigm of the self-regulating market [that] has taken the place of that of justice and [that] pretends to be able to govern an ever more ungovernable society according to exclusively technical criteria” (17). In either case, we are dealing with a legal or regulatory system that has dispensed with the need to establish its own legitimacy and has indeed attempted to collapse legitimacy into legality without remainder—in other words, to effect a final victory of the katechōn over the man of lawlessness.

The real solution, Agamben claims, is to find a way to hold in productive tension “the two coordinated but radically heterogeneous principles—legitimacy and legality, spiritual power and temporal power, auctoritas and potestas, justice and law—that constitute the most precious patrimony of European culture” (18). Rather than hoping for some ultimate end of history to arrive, we need to participate actively in the dynamic of history, recognizing that no constituted order can escape contestation over its legitimacy and that the attempt to shut down that contestation through purely legal means leads only to the worst forms of illegality and violence.

II.

Returning to the American political scene, we can see that both parties are engaging in their own form of apocalyptic speculation, in Agamben’s derogatory sense. Both are claiming, again and again, that they represent the katechōn over against the forces of lawlessness on the other side. Obviously the rhetoric is more plausible on the Democratic side, given Trump’s straightforward criminality and obvious ignorance of and contempt for the American constitutional system. But on the Republican side, Trump is taken to represent the avatar of a kind of natural order that is menaced by the Democrats’ supposed “woke” agenda. Both equally seem to imagine a final elimination of the lawless element. Democrats hope to defeat Trump once and for all, allowing a “strong Repulican Party” to rise from the ashes and begin the hard work of bipartisan dealmaking, while Trump supporters have more lurid fantasies of purging “woke” advocates from all positions of power and authority. Perhaps less obviously, I would also say that both sides share a kind of fetishization of the law. This is again clearest on the Democratic side, as they keep hoping that laws and norms will do their political work for them. But Republicans, too, seem to indulge in a kind of magical thinking where simply passing a law, or seizing a veto point, or locking in a permanent majority through gerrymandering, will simply be the end of the matter. That’s what I choose to hear in Trump’s declaration that his supporters will never need to vote again—not that he will somehow become dictator for life (or not only that), but that he will fix the system so completely and permanently that no one will ever be able to infect it with “wokeness” ever again.

If we return to the question of why the US should have such an apocalyptic political culture, Agamben’s analysis suggests that the reason is that American institutions are fundamentally illegitimate—hence menaced by the anomos. Neither side can fully admit that the anomos is coming from inside the house, however, so they project the lawless element onto their opponents, whom they then cast as foreign bodies to the republic that can and must be eliminated. And they have been in such a frustrating stalemate for so long because what they propose to do is impossible. The katechōn cannot finally win. Legality cannot finally swallow legitimacy whole. The attempt to make that happen is at best futile, as when Democrats allow their brief opportunities to govern to be fed through the woodchipper out of respect for “norms,” and at worst horrifically destructive, as with our worst fears about what Trump may actually be able to achieve this time around.

But what of Agamben’s prescription? What would it even look like to restore awareness of legitimacy as a principle heterogeneous to law? To me, the first step would be to break the taboo against even discussing major overhaul or even replacement of our absolutely abominable Constitution—but it’s difficult for me to imagine an actual overhaul or replacement happening without an intermediate stage marked by the old ultraviolence. And on a more conceptual level, I worry that Agamben is repeating, to a second degree, the same gesture he rightly critiques among the powers and principalities of our age. That is to say, I wonder if he is setting up the dynamic between legitimacy and legality, between the anomos and the katechōn, as a kind of meta-katechōn that staves off the decadence and violence that follows from the collapse of the tension between them. In other words, I wonder if he is offering us anything more than the naïve hope that we could make our existing order work if everyone would just act more in good faith, following the spirit of the law rather than weaponizing its letter. It is a telling sign of our predicament that such a seemingly obvious and even boring outcome seems roughly as likely as the coming of the messianic age.

Welcome to the weekly guide on where to drink in Paris! Every Wednesday, I spotlight three bars including an old favorite worth revisiting, something new (bars, menus, etc.) and something […]

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Kamala Harris’s closing pitch to the American people was to highlight the threat to democracy represented by Donald Trump. I share that sense of threat — lying about a stolen election and fomenting an insurrection to disrupt its certification are certainly not the marks of someone with a deep and abiding respect for democratic norms. And yet I also understand why that pitch has fallen flat, even among people who acknowledge the 2020 election result and disapprove of the January 6 attacks. After explaining why I find the mainstream liberal rhetoric on this position so unconvincing, I will discuss the more profound sense in which Trump and his movement represent a threat to the possibility of a more meaningful democratic culture emerging in the US, then conclude with some practical tips you can try at home.

1. A Critique of the “Threat to Democracy” Rhetoric

On the one hand, America has always had a tenuous grasp on democratic norms. Disputes over voting procedure and eligibility have always been part of the normal range of political contestation; gerrymandering has been “a thing” since the founding of the Republic; state and local elections are routinely scheduled strategically to decrease turnout and thus accountability; money plays such a huge role in election races that people seem to regard donation as almost more important than voting itself; the Senate is insanely malapportioned and has adopted even more anti-democratic rules on top of that; the two-party system artificially narrows the range of political options in a self-reinforcing way; the separate election of two houses of Congress and the Presidency all but guarantees divided government and thus gridlock most of the time, preventing the implementation of any coherent political program; and of course the Electoral College has allowed the loser to win twice in our young century, to the point where the popular vote has basically disappeared from public discourse. There simply is not a robust culture of democracy in the US. No rational American adult expects their vote to lead directly to any specified outcome. We vote mainly to try to prevent the worst, but there is no sense in which the people at large have a hand in setting the political agenda.

Within that context, the Democrats have done virtually nothing to create the conditions for more authentic democracy. No voting rights legislation was passed or even seriously taken up under Biden — in part because Senate Democrats can’t (or simply don’t want to) discipline their own party even on the purely procedural question of the fillibuster rule. Al Gore conceded to his virtually unprecedented 2000 Electoral College upset almost immediately and Democrats since have done nothing to call into question the institution that has effectively stolen two elections from them, both with disastrous consequences. Indeed, they seem to be “leaning in,” running narrowly focused campaigns on swing states while making no effort in Republican-leaning states. Nor was there any attempt to counteract the extremely unpopular Dobbs decision — in part because they concede in advance that the Supreme Court would simply strike it down again.

And simply at the level of rhetoric, it cannot be the case that the only way to defend authentic democracy is to vote for one and only one party forever and ever amen. It cannot be the case that voters are not allowed to register their dissatisfaction with the omnishambles of the Biden administration because the only other option the system allows is illegitimate and unacceptable — a claim that the Democrats don’t seem to even believe themselves, since Kamala Harris called to “congratulate” Trump on his victory, just as Obama cheerfully agreed to meet with him before handing over the keys and Hillary attended his inauguration.

Certainly Trump is going to be more supportive of restricting voting rights than the typical Republican, and he is going to empower and embolden others on the state level to take more repressive actions. Republicans will likely further lock down their veto points and exploit all avaliable leverage to thwart the popular will — above all on the question of abortion. He may even concoct a rationale to run for a third term and find his hand-picked Supreme Court willing to legitimize it. But the notion that he is somehow going to abolish elections or appoint himself dictator for life strains credulity. And again, if Democrats really believe that, then they should be willing to take much more radical action to prevent him from taking power than re-running Hillary’s campaign with a slightly more charismatic and likeable candidate. Either the Democrats don’t really believe Trump is a burgeoning dictator or they are cowards and fools of almost unimaginable dimensions. (Or both!)

2. A Broader Concept of Democracy Than “People Periodically Vote”

There is more to democracy than just voting. First, the people who propose to rule themselves must have some sense of shared identity, embodied in shared practices and institutions. Second, the community must be able to hold itself and its representatives accountable with reference to some kind of reality principle — some shared empirical basis for judging the success or failure of policies and projects. In the narrow sense of “people voting,” Tuesday’s absolutely disastrous and devastating election result was undeniably democratic. Yet the other two conditions are obviously lacking.

In terms of the first condition, Trump and the Republicans have set themselves up as the sole arbiters of who really “counts” as American, and they have inculcated an attitude of paranoia and distrust in their supporters through false accusations of voter fraud. More broadly, they clearly have no investment in American political institutions except insofar as they can be weaponized to give them more power, nor do they value public goods such as public schools, public libraries, public health regulations, etc., etc. And this connects up with the second condition. For example, the result of the 2020 presidential election is an undeniable, brute empirical fact — yet a strong pluarlity of our fellow citizens believe the obviously self-serving lies of a life-long scam artist over the unanimous testimony of election officials and judges from all 50 states and both parties. And that is only the most extreme instance of an attitude that rejects factual claims from experts precisely because they are made by experts.

What unites both of these two anti-democratic tendencies is their rejection of the public in favor of the private. And to that extent, Trumpian populism is a radicalization of the neoliberal ethos. In the classical era of neoliberalism, from roughly 1991 to 2016, the general consensus was that the purpose of public institutions was to set the rules of the game of market competition and to provide a range of public goods — such as basic research, official statistics, and the conditions for turning young human beings into productive human capital — that market actors had no incentive to reliably provide. Already, the value of public goods and public knowledge was implicitly called into question. They were not ends in themselves, but means to economic growth. Indeed, they were often even viewed as necessary evils, and as many such public duties were entrusted to private profit-seeking entities as possible.

In our new populist moment, by contrast, even this notion of the public as the necessary handmaiden of private accumulation has been delegitimized. Public schools don’t exist to induct students into a shared secular democratic culture, for instance, but are treated as hired hands to provide parents with babysitting services and to inculcate only those values the parents favor. Public libraries are not treated as repositories of certified knowledge, but as reflections of whatever arbitrary values or beliefs the surrounding community happens to have. And public office is increasingly treated as a private possession — above all by Trump, who jokes that he should get a “do-over” because he faced too much opposition and scrutiny to fully enjoy his first term and who muses that perhaps he should not have agreed to leave office in January 2021 after all.

This preference for private power over against public goods goes hand-in-hand with the racism, sexism, xenophobia, and other oppressive views characteristic of the radical right. The unfettered exercise of private power will inevitably mean the reassertion of traditional forms of dominance in private life — the superiority of the man over his wife, the ownership of children by their parents, the various hierarchies of race, etc., etc. In reality, the neoliberal order was fully compatible with such hierarchies, which festered and worsened even as exceptional individuals from disadvantaged groups enjoyed spectacular success. But even that token representation was experienced as a humiliation by many of our fellow citizens — above all Trump himself, who first stormed onto the political scene to spread lies meant to delegitimize our first Black president and who arguably chose to run for president specifically because Obama mocked him in his remarks at the Presidential Correspondents’ Dinner.

Reaganite deregulation was ostensibly meant to unleash wealth creation. Trumpian deconstruction of the administrative state is meant to make sure that there’s no one who can tell the boss what to do — no one to give workers or customers or anyone else any leverage against the hierarchy of private domination. Something similar is going on with the destruction of any public consensus on a shared reality through algorithmic manipulation. Where before one might decry wasting money on “useless knowledge,” now the goal is to make sure no genuine learning or understanding occurs at all — by feeding everyone a customized stream of bullshit that targets their own personal weaknesses and insecurities, a tendency that LLM-generated text and images will surely only amplify.

On both these points, the Democrats are again poor messengers, because they don’t genuinely believe in public goods or the disinterested pursuit of knowledge. They remain neoliberal through and through, meaning that they can’t get past arguing that quality public schools actually help economic growth or that we need to learn stuff because it’s a knowledge economy — or whatever the fashionable corporate bullshit happens to be today. “Greening the economy will create jobs and help us compete against China!” Seriously: shut the fuck up.

3. It’s the Capitalism, Stupid!

We can fight these tendencies and create more livable conditions. People have done so in the past, to varying degrees of success. But all of these tendencies are intrinsic to capitalism. We may well be entering a new phase that will make us nostalgic for neoliberalism — a phase centered more on establishing economic autarky and zero-sum competitions between nations — but it’s still going to be capitalism, which means that it’s still going to be exploitative, racist, endlessly hungry from free reproductive labor, etc., etc. We can’t solve those problems in the long run with solutions that are fundamentally parasitical on capitalist production, such as the welfare state or universal basic income, even if they are financed through the vulgar online MMT magical thinking of “helicopter money.”

We need to figure out ways of organizing our communities and our values and our livelihoods in non-capitalist ways. That has been more or less off the table for a generation, in large part because the biggest large-scale experiment with doing that spectacularly collapsed and everyone decided that the system jerry-rigged between two world wars in a peasant society was the only possible way you could do anything other than capitalism. We need to stop letting our rejection of a society that is dead and gone (and that ever fewer people still alive even directly experienced) limit our imagination.

And we need to get the fuck off of social media as soon as possible. I know I am late to this game, having held out at Twitter way too long and then tried to make Bluesky work. The beginning of the end for me was a huge blow-up around a Financial Times column that averred that Bluesky was a liberal bubble, prompting much indignation. After I gave up actively contributing, I have occasionally taken a peek in there and — good grief, it is absolutely absurd. It’s like the liberal version of when we used to make fun of Fox News for suddenly lurching to Hillary Clinton’s ancient scandals while Trump’s trials were going on. The immense levels of cope, verging on the conspiratorial (one pollster in Iowa has figured out it’s going to be a Harris landslide), made me feel like I was on another planet.

We all need to read more — really read. We can’t keep getting our news in two-sentence bursts or trying to have serious discussions with decontextualized fragments. We need to keep some kind of intellectual culture alive, because public schools are dying and universities no longer care about such matters. We need to keep ahold of reality. Like Matthew Ellis — whose excellent post today I have had in the back of my mind as I wrote this — I would encourage you to read the financial press. I subscribe to the Financial Times currently, and find it refreshingly factual (complete with non-tendentious headlines, for my Bluesky bros!). I’ve subscribed to Bloomsburg Businessweek in the past and found it excellent. You would be unimaginably better informed if you just read one of those regularly and subscribed to the New Left Review than you will ever be from scrolling on social media.

We are in a really bad situation. I don’t know how to make it better, but I do know we need to stop making ourselves actively stupider.

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