The Three-Body Problem

I’ve not seen the show or read the sequels; I’ve read only the first book. It was originally serialized eighteen years ago, so not only am I not flying in with an urgent hot take, I assume this ground has been covered before. Nevertheless I wanted to share a few thoughts about Liu Cixin’s marvelous novel. (Spoilers galore, caveat lector.)

1. I was shocked by two things: first, how openly he writes about the madness and violence of the Cultural Revolution; and second, how spiritual the book is, from start to finish. I understand that Liu is an atheist, but it doesn’t show in the text; both the story and the way it’s told beg to be interpreted theologically.

2. A friend observed that the three-body problem itself—not least when it is pictured, as it is in the book, as three suns dancing around each other in an infinite, unpredictable, dangerous yet beautiful celestial choreography—is as obvious an image of the Trinity as you could imagine. Yet I’m not aware of ever having encountered it as an analogy or illustration before. Three-body perichoresis, anyone? Paging Saint Augustine.

3. I was worried, when Silent Spring appeared early, that the book would adopt an easy eco-radical, misanthropic posture. I was wrong. The narrative is bookended by the late appearance of another book, Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, and its explicit citation alerts the reader to one of the major themes of the book: the way that sincere and legitimate concern for anthropogenic harms or, more broadly, for the misadventures and evils of humanity—its deep-rooted inhumanity, toward itself and all else—can so easily bleed into hatred for humanity as such, a hatred that justifies far greater inhumane activities than the original offenses that first troubled the conscience. Philanthropy curdles into misanthropy and finally terminates in betrayal of all one ever loved or held dear.

4. This process, which Liu narrates with precision and compassion, is itself a mirror reflection of every totalitarianism, Marxism-Leninism above all. The book, in other words, and whatever Liu’s intentions, is a science-fiction allegory of Chinese communism. Ye Wenjie, the catalyst of every major event in the book, goes from witness and victim of the brutalities of the Cultural Revolution to exhausted, listless, post-ideological grudging participant in the regime’s scientific research, to a desperate woman willing to place her hopes in the potential of radical transformation from beyond the capacities of decadent and immoral human civilization, to true-believing Trisolarian ideologist, liar, and remorseless murderer. When she finally meets some of the women who, decades prior, participated in the crazed struggle session and fatal beating of her father, and their soulless eyes and defensive words reveal only pain, not apology, she is looking at her own reflection. The chapter’s title, “No One Repents,” is the perfect summation of where total revolution ends, having begun with wide-eyed good intentions but now drawn, inexorably, to hatred, deceit, madness, and murder—with no regrets.

5. The name Mike Evans gives to his invented ideology—or “maybe you can call it a faith”—is “Pan-Species Communism.” Bingo. It is “a natural continuation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” but in actuality (as he admits) of the French Revolution, which “we haven’t even take a step beyond.” The name of Evans’ ship is Judgment Day, and its single aim is “to invite Trisolarian civilization to reform human civilization, to curb human madness and evil, so that the Earth can once again become a harmonious, prosperous, sinless world.” The ETO’s goal, in short, is a return to Eden and a redemption from sin via otherworldly powers. Once their prayers are answered, they will usher humanity into a utopia, with help from a manufactured exogenous event (=alien invasion). As ever, the advent of utopia cannot come without secrecy, deception, and untold bloodshed. As ever, too, it is not the weak or the powerless who are the agents of utopia’s arrival: it is, as Liu insists over and over again, the elites of academia, technological industry, and the media. (“To betray the human race as a whole was unimaginable for [common people]. But intellectual elites were different: Most of them had already begun to consider issues from a perspective outside the human race. Human civilization had finally given birth to a strong force of alienation.”) These elites are the authors, the Red Vanguard, of a new and greater interstellar cultural revolution.

6. The vaguely named “Lord” heeded, obeyed, revered, and worshiped by members of the ETO is, it seems to me, a stand-in for Mao. An alien Mao, but Mao nonetheless—a conclusion supported by the late chapter offering a kind of window onto Trisolarian civilization and the role of the autocratic “princeps,” his consuls, their top-down control of the planet, and the immediate unsentimental “dehydration” and death penalty for anyone who makes even the smallest of mistakes.

7. Liu includes the following answer in response to an interrogator asking Ye Wenjie why she had such hope for the Trisolarians coming to earth: “If they can cross the distance between the stars to come to our world, their science must have developed to a very advanced stage. A society with such advanced science must also have more advanced moral standards.” To which the interrogator replies: “Do you think this conclusion you drew is scientific?” Ye: “…”

8. The single proton unfolded into three dimensions that swiftly reveals itself to be a kind of hyper-intelligent microcosmic civilization—a universal tao or logos embedded in all the logoi of creation, down to subatomic particles—that in turn seeks to destroy Trisolaris but is destroyed first … let’s just say I didn’t expect that scene, and I found it both frightening and sublime. Liu is a theologian, I’m telling you!

9. I’m well aware that Liu “believes in science” and that one reading of this book is that we ought to place our faith in scientific knowledge and development by using it, with true philanthropy, to benefit the whole human race (while remaining pessimistic and prepared for extraterrestrial visitors). This is not the only reading the book is patient of, though, and it’s not mine.

10. I’m eager to read the next two books. I’m also told that Ken Liu’s canonical books within the same world and story are worth reading. I hear that the Netflix adaptation is excellent, but a part of me wants to hold onto the text as text for a while before I allow Benioff and Weiss to replace my imagination with theirs. I’m particularly interested to learn why the Trisolarians don’t use the sophon to make all human beings simply go insane, as Wang Miao almost does within mere hours of seeing the countdown appear in his field of vision. Wouldn’t this remove the problem of human civilization and self-defense a full four centuries before the Trisolarians’ arrival? Just drive everyone mad, let them all die (like the “bugs” they are), then inherit the earth circa AD 2450? What am I missing?

To be clear, I’m sure it’s me. This is a brilliant novelist who deserves every benefit of the doubt. I can’t wait to keep reading.

A clarification on the NBA, China, and free speech

"Free speech" is a legal concept: whether the state in any way muzzles one's ability to speak or whether it responds punitively based on the content of one's speech.

Within civil society, an organization (for profit or not) is not a "player" in the realm of free speech. Organizations place all kinds of controls on one's speech within the workplace and, in certain respects, outside of it. These can be reasonable or unreasonable; they can fairly or unfairly applied. But they are run of the mill, and have no bearing on "free speech."

Whether or not Daryl Morey is disciplined or even fired by the NBA for his tweet in support of Hong Kong has nothing to do with free speech. This isn't a free-market point, along the lines of "the NBA is free to do whatever it likes; it's a business, and Morey is an employee." That's technically true, but not my point.

Let me put it this way. To respond to the crisis elicited by Morey's tweet with the claim either that the NBA is mitigating his free speech by apologizing to China or that the NBA would be suppressing his free speech if it disciplined or fired him is a non sequitur. The legal freedom of expression accorded to Morey as an American citizen is untouched by the NBA's response to him.

But more important, the NBA and the entire ecology of fans, writers, and commentary that surrounds it wants the NBA to retain the ability to discipline its employees for certain kinds of speech. Five years ago Adam Silver terminated Donald Sterling's ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers based on a recording of something he said privately to another person. What he said was in no way illegal. What it was, rather, was immoral. And the NBA ecosystem responded, rightly, by calling for his removal from the league. That was a good and necessary thing to do. But it, too, was not an infringement upon Sterling's freedom of speech, even as it was a direct disciplinary response to private speech, offered freely, subsequently made public.

If an owner or a player were to tweet or write or say aloud something similar to Sterling's racist comments, I have no doubt that (a) he would be disciplined and (b) the NBA "community" would applaud the disciplinary act. Which means not only that the NBA has this power and that this power bears no relationship to free speech. Above all, it means nobody wants the NBA to lack this power.

The issue in the Morey–China Kerfuffle, then, is a matter, not of free speech, but of ethics. It's a moral question. And the political is contained within the moral.

The moral question is whether it is right for the NBA to muzzle the public speech of one of its employees regarding an international situation wherein there is a clear morally correct position, when to affirm that position will entail loss of revenue for the league in the millions or billions of dollars.

The related political question is whether the NBA is being consistent—in moral terms, hypocritical—in encouraging its employees to engage in public speech regarding domestic issues that are highly controversial within the nation, when such speech is unlikely to cost the league any loss of revenue while also discouraging the aforementioned revenue-losing political speech.

The question beneath that last political question is an interesting one, and it's less related either to ethics or to capital. That question is: What is the range of acceptable political positions the NBA or any similar organization is willing to permit to be expressed publicly without disciplinary response? Accordingly, what are those concrete political positions the public expression of which would (rightly or wrongly) call forth censure, financial penalty, suspension, or termination?

I anticipate that the next battle along these lines will be closer to home, both literally and figuratively, manifesting just outside of the League's particular Overton Window; and that that battle, though it will involve less money, will be far more bitter than the present one.