Sharp knives: In the first Harper Review essay of the Winter 2025 issue, editor in chief Noah Glasgow provides a post-mortem of the 2024 presidential election. Faced with the inefficacy of the Biden presidency, the United States has swept Donald Trump back into office. Unhappy with their government, Americans “look at their ballots and think, ‘Well, I know the current guy is screwing me; I might as well give the other guy a chance.’” Glasgow cautions that this way of thinking represents a reemergence of Hobbesian diffidence—the idea that in the absence of authority, men “would simply go around seizing what things they needed or desired, leading them inevitably to a state of war—‘all against all.’” Lack of faith in fellow man (e.g., the government) leads citizens to “reach for the knife” (vote for the opposition party)—doing so again and again and thus hindering any chance at real governance.
Through an exploration of the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes and John Rawls, Glasgow argues that in 2028, Democrats have a chance to end the cycle. They can take advantage of the expanded executive powers certain after a Trump presidency to secure “a wildly new institutional structure” of government, showing the American people that “the principles of justice that they believe in [can] once again regulate public and political life.” In doing so, “the conditions of diffidence will fade and trust will return,” and Democrats will “prove that the nation of liberty is always an experiment.”
Through an exploration of the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes and John Rawls, Glasgow argues that in 2028, Democrats have a chance to end the cycle. They can take advantage of the expanded executive powers certain after a Trump presidency to secure “a wildly new institutional structure” of government, showing the American people that “the principles of justice that they believe in [can] once again regulate public and political life.” In doing so, “the conditions of diffidence will fade and trust will return,” and Democrats will “prove that the nation of liberty is always an experiment.”
Elizabeth Eck, senior editor
Strange litanies: Whenever I travel, I try to find a copy of Apartamento magazine. The eclectic Spanish magazine of “everyday life interiors” makes for perfect in-flight reading. The cover star of this winter’s issue is “Espace Aygo,” a rundown house-turned-studio for four artists-turned-roommates in Brussels. Florentine philosopher Emanuele Coccia’s deliciously overwritten profile of the artists and their shared space introduces us to a world where “everything… from the bathtub to the sinks, is made from reused materials,” where the lamps are made from wire and scrap wood and the chairs from metal pipes and old rolls of faux shearling. Even a “stack of unwashed dishes mirrors a sculpture out of Dalí’s mind.” “Everything,” Coccia stubbornly insists, “is beautiful, colorful, elegant; if the design starts from abandoned wood planks or pieces of re-welded metal, it is not for the sake of a renunciatory aesthetic, but rather to show that luxury—the real kind—is hidden in the material of abandoned objects.”
Coccia and I understand luxury differently. But on one count Coccia does manage to make sense of the aesthetic vision behind Espace Aygo. Other contemporary artists and designers have been “hypnotised by the strange litany of mending ecology”; they “have come to believe that the only possible solution is to restore transformed matter to its original form, to bring back to life what no longer exists.” Espace Aygo imagines something radically new, unlivable and bizarre as it might look. In it old objects become entirely new ones. Coccia writes: “to ask objects to constantly maintain their form is to take the future of the world hostage—to prevent it from changing, to impose on it a fidelity to a past that we claim is identical to eternity.” Espace Aygo makes no such demands.
Coccia and I understand luxury differently. But on one count Coccia does manage to make sense of the aesthetic vision behind Espace Aygo. Other contemporary artists and designers have been “hypnotised by the strange litany of mending ecology”; they “have come to believe that the only possible solution is to restore transformed matter to its original form, to bring back to life what no longer exists.” Espace Aygo imagines something radically new, unlivable and bizarre as it might look. In it old objects become entirely new ones. Coccia writes: “to ask objects to constantly maintain their form is to take the future of the world hostage—to prevent it from changing, to impose on it a fidelity to a past that we claim is identical to eternity.” Espace Aygo makes no such demands.
Noah Glasgow, editor in chief
In cold blood: F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922), with its brilliant use of shadow and chilling performances, occupies an unimpeachable spot in film history. However, to the modern viewer, its silent film antics risk absurdity. Consider the sequence in which the vampire arrives in Wisborg and carries his own coffin as he wanders the streets. With moments like this, it can be hard to buy into the surreal sense of dread that the film cultivates in its more iconic scenes.
I hoped that Robert Eggers would revive this sense of dread in his 2024 remake. And, for the first hour of the film, he does. Thomas Hutter’s (Nicholas Hoult) stay in a Transylvanian inn at the base of Castle Orlok provides a hypnotic introduction to medieval rituals that the local Romani use to resist vampiric influence. Hutter’s carriage ride to the castle features some of the most beautiful shots I have ever seen in a theater. When Hutter finally meets Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård), everything falls into place.
Unfortunately, once Orlok reaches Wisborg, the wheels fall off the whole affair. In this Nosferatu, Hutter’s wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) had unwittingly invited the vampire to take spiritual possession of her many years before. Though Ellen is attracted to Orlok, their initial encounter left her traumatized. Ellen now suffers mightily at the hands of the vampire, who frequently subjects her to sexual episodes of Exorcist-like possession that grow over the top as the narrative progresses. This movie wants to be about sex, but says nothing substantive about it. It’s as if Eggers flipped through an assortment of suitably Gothic themes and landed on the one—female sexual repression—that offers the most opportunities for mildly scandalous audiovisual symbolism. Still, for the visual spectacle, Nosferatu is more than worth the price of a ticket.
I hoped that Robert Eggers would revive this sense of dread in his 2024 remake. And, for the first hour of the film, he does. Thomas Hutter’s (Nicholas Hoult) stay in a Transylvanian inn at the base of Castle Orlok provides a hypnotic introduction to medieval rituals that the local Romani use to resist vampiric influence. Hutter’s carriage ride to the castle features some of the most beautiful shots I have ever seen in a theater. When Hutter finally meets Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård), everything falls into place.
Unfortunately, once Orlok reaches Wisborg, the wheels fall off the whole affair. In this Nosferatu, Hutter’s wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) had unwittingly invited the vampire to take spiritual possession of her many years before. Though Ellen is attracted to Orlok, their initial encounter left her traumatized. Ellen now suffers mightily at the hands of the vampire, who frequently subjects her to sexual episodes of Exorcist-like possession that grow over the top as the narrative progresses. This movie wants to be about sex, but says nothing substantive about it. It’s as if Eggers flipped through an assortment of suitably Gothic themes and landed on the one—female sexual repression—that offers the most opportunities for mildly scandalous audiovisual symbolism. Still, for the visual spectacle, Nosferatu is more than worth the price of a ticket.
William Moursund, contributing editor
Image: Luis Egidio Meléndez, Still Life with Breams, Oranges, Garlic, Condiments, and Kitchen Utensils, oil on canvas, 1772 (Museo del Prado, Madrid).