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Month: November 2025

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Is Civility Overrated?

Marjorie Taylor Greene, once one of the most ardent Trump supporters in Congress, announced her resignation after breaking with the president over his perceived interference with the Epstein files and abandonment of an America first agenda. However, her resignation reflected not merely their political disagreement, but the intense animosity sent her way by Trump, such as branding her a traitor. (Critics were quick to point to Greene’s own participation in divisive political rhetoric.) Famously vituperative, many see Trump’s embrace of vulgarity as part of his initial appeal, which contrasted refreshingly with the cloying civility and polish of an elitist establishment politics. But perhaps civility is worth defending.

An initial challenge is pinning down exactly what is meant by “civility.” In common parlance, civility is entangled with notions of manners, politeness, and etiquette. Philosophers generally want a little more. For example, as discussed by Laura Siscoe in the Prindle Post, the political theorist John Rawl’s duty of civility consists of appealing to shared reasons and presenting arguments and evidence to make the case for one’s political claims. His is not the only account, but it represents a common strand in what philosophers generally want civility to do, namely, facilitate governance. All societies need solutions to the reality of political disagreement. Voting is part of that solution, but civility can be another. For many political theorists, in an ideal political situation, political decision-making would be based on evidence, reasoning, and a shared understanding of where people are coming from, even if they disagree. People present their case and the basis for it, other people respectfully listen, and then votes decide what happens next. Ideally, adopting certain norms and practices of civility can help to ensure that a range of voices are heard, and that decisions are made on sensible bases.

Ideally.

In practice, norms of civility are not usually set by political philosophers, but by established powers in a society. Civility can then become a set of rules for a game played primarily by the powerful. Political activity that does not conform to established standards of civility can be dismissed, not because of its substantial content, but because of form. For example, early advocates for women’s suffrage in the US were often dismissed as mannish, uppity, or lacking decorum. Even with modern protests, debate often centers on whether the protest was done correctly, as opposed to the political issue the protestors themselves care about.

This is not to dispute that political activism and protest can never be done unethically. Political violence especially requires careful justification, as both Richard Gibson and Aaron Schulz have discussed here in the Post. But norms of civility can absolutely be weaponized to quash political action, especially by smaller, poorer, or otherwise less advantaged political communities.

Civility as a norm can also paper over atrocities or the appropriate emotional response to certain activities. Civility welcomes someone into a shared space of reasons and decorum. But is that always appropriate? Could someone’s actions, whether personal or political, merit exclusion from such a shared space, and could failing to treat them with appropriate derision signal that their actions are in fact okay? For example, in 2022 some criticized Joe Biden’s casual friendliness with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman amid human rights concerns. In short, civility can whitewash crimes and atrocities.

The polished surface of political civility, with its status quo bias, can also hide serious ongoing harms. At its worst, it becomes more problematic whether an action breaks decorum, than whether there is a meaningful ethical concern. We fret about the civility of name-calling and trollish tweets, but rarely about the civility of drone strikes and private prisons. As in the case of violent abolitionists in the 1800s, many people took for granted the familiar violence of slavery, and stood aghast at the resistance of victims.

These concerns are not without counterargument. It might be alleged that the above concerns are about weaponization or abuse of norms of civility, as opposed to civility as such. Or that they really relate to etiquette. Nonetheless, they still represent a practical concern. At a minimum, worthwhile civility requires work, and not just the work of being civil, but ensuring the implementation of civility is actually politically healthy.

Of particular irony is that in these problem cases, civility emerges as potentially harmful to the very democratic values that motivated valuing civility in the first place. It can be captured by the powerful. It prioritizes form over evidence and reason, It often privileges the status quo. It prevents certain voices from impacting the political process. Or at least, these are risks.

Civility also has its limits. For example, if a group has been locked out of politics by the constraints of decorum (or force), then uncivil action of some kind may be justifiable. Just what is justified depends on the exact circumstances, including the degree of current harms, the approaches that have already been tried, and the specific proposed “uncivil” actions. Is it name-calling, property damage, or murder?

What about the particular case of Trump and Greene? Given that Trump is sitting president, it’s challenging to argue that Trump is being excluded from the political process by civility. Nor does he appear to be calling out a specific unacknowledged atrocity. Finally, the effect seems to partly be that she is resigning, and thus removing herself from the political process — an anti-democratic impact. None of this speaks to incivility being of much value in this instance.

It might be objected that on the scale of uncivil action, a few mean truth social posts are hardly worth mentioning. But it gets complicated with public figures with large numbers of followers or supporters. Stochastic terrorism refers to a statistically increased risk of violence when hostile political rhetoric is blended with mass communication. The chance of any given person doing something violent based on an inflammatory tweet is low, but when someone has millions and millions of supporters, it adds up quickly. For such high-profile individuals, incivility is far more directly connected with violence and threats of violence. Consequently, it may be reasonable to expect them to act in a way that minimizes the harm of their rhetoric, to ensure that reason rather than fear of violence pulls the strings of government.

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Playing Games with Climate Change

Reminders of the worsening climate crisis are constant. At the time of writing, snow is falling outside my window as the Northeast US finds itself in the grips of a wintry blast. At the same time, the South Central US is forecast to see a weather shift that will increase the risk of wildfires. Simultaneously, parts of Southern California are being evacuated in anticipation of flash flooding and mudslides. All of this is to be followed by a week in which much of the US will experience temperatures 10-25°F warmer than historical averages.

It’s enough to make you want to stay home, get cozy, and immerse yourself in a virtual world. That is, until you find out that this might be part of the problem. A new study has produced some startling figures regarding the environmental effects of gaming. Chief among these is the high carbon cost of producing the physical video games themselves – with the manufacture of every million games leading to the production of around 312 tons of CO2 equivalent.

Does this mean we’re under a moral obligation to stop gaming?

Such a claim rests on the idea that it’s wrong to contribute to a state of affairs that’s causing harm to others. If a town was struggling with the pollution of its sole source of drinking water, it would be wrong of me to contribute by dumping more effluent into that waterway. It’s this kind of intuition that underpins the notion of a “carbon footprint” – a conceptual tool used to aid individuals in quantifying how much (or how little) they’re contributing to the climate crisis. It’s an admittedly controversial tool, having its roots in attempts by the oil industry to shunt responsibility from corporations on to individuals. But I’ve argued previously that corporate and individual responsibility aren’t mutually exclusive. That is, there can simultaneously be a moral obligation on corporations to make systemic change, while there is also an obligation on us as individuals to minimize our harmful behavior.

But what might this obligation look like? Must we reduce all of our carbon emissions? Surely not. Almost all of our activities come at a carbon cost, and a number of those are necessary for survival – from feeding ourselves, to warming our homes. This is where Henry Shue’s utilization of subsistence and luxury emissions can be helpful. On Shue’s approach, “subsistence” emissions are those that are essential for the fulfillment of vital needs. “Luxury” emissions, on the other hand, are not. Shue argues that “it is not equitable to ask some people to surrender necessities so that other people can retain luxuries.” In practice, then, any moral obligation to minimize our carbon footprint only applies to luxury – not subsistence – emissions.

Into which of these two categories might gaming fall? It may seem like the obvious answer is “luxury.” But this might be too quick. It’s important that “vital needs” be understood widely. Clearly, it includes things like food and warmth – but arguably it covers more than merely what’s necessary for survival. Education, for example, is a good candidate for a vital need. And, if so, then emissions associated with this activity (the carbon cost of getting to school, keeping the classroom lights on, and using a laptop to complete an essay) might count as subsistence. Other parts of our social lives – visiting with friends, or engaging in meaningful hobbies and pursuits – might count too.

What, then, of gaming? As of now, the benefits of this particular hobby are understudied – but the existing data looks promising. A study out of Japan, for example, showed gaming led to broad improvements in mental wellbeing, including reducing psychological distress and improving life satisfaction. And if that’s the case, then gaming might – at least for some – be on the way to qualifying  as a vital need.

But here’s the thing: even if something is a vital need, we’re still under a moral obligation to fulfill that need in the least carbon costly way possible. Any carbon expenditure beyond what’s necessary will once again count as a luxury emission. According to the study cited earlier, producing one million digital game downloads would cost a mere three tons of CO2 equivalent – less than 1/100th of the carbon cost of producing those games as physical copies. What this means, then, is that while gaming might be a vital need – and its associated emissions therefore subsistence – the additional emissions associated with purchasing a physical copy of a game are instead luxury. What we have, then, is a moral obligation to opt for digital gaming.

Arguably, this mirrors the approach we should take in many other areas of our life. Suppose that transportation to school and work is a vital need. As such, the minimal emissions required to fulfill that need are subsistence emissions – emissions that we are under no moral obligation to reduce. Any emissions beyond that, however, are luxury – and will be subject to an obligation to reduce. What does that mean in practice? Namely, that we shouldn’t drive a giant SUV when a smaller vehicle would suffice, or that we shouldn’t drive at all when public transport is available. Something similar is true of nutrition. While we need to eat to survive, we are – according to the subsistence versus luxury distinction – under a moral obligation to satisfy this need in the least carbon costly way possible (say, by opting for plant-based options over meat).

In this way, the luxury/subsistence distinction allows us to make carbon-conscious choices without sacrifice what’s important – like a cozy night of gaming in the midst of a blizzard.

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Fighting Fire with Water

Last month, I wrote a piece on the difficulty of separating violence and political ideology. To briefly recap: what makes this separation so difficult is the nature of the state. States are historically and conceptually tied to the sanctioned use of violence to enforce laws, so it is ultimately difficult to separate the two regardless of your political views.

However, there have also been significant advocates for non-violence in the political sphere. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi both advocated for non-violent civil disobedience. Simone Weil urged us to strive toward being a society capable of non-violence. And, of course, many non-violent political movements throughout history have fought for justice and peace.

In this article, I want to explore what a non-violent political ideology might look like in theory and in practice. To do this, let us turn to the wisdom of the Buddha.

Nestled within the Majjhima Nikaya is a sutta that illustrates the core of non-violent ideology titled The Simile of the Saw. The most relevant portion goes like this:

Monks, even if bandits were to carve you up savagely, limb by limb, with a two-handled saw, he among you who let his heart get angered even at that would not be doing my bidding. Even then you should train yourselves: ‘Our minds will be unaffected and we will say no evil words. We will remain sympathetic, with a mind of good will, and with no inner hate. We will keep pervading these people with an awareness imbued with good will and, beginning with them, we will keep pervading the all-encompassing world with an awareness imbued with good will — abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will.’ That’s how you should train yourselves.

Here, the Buddha is teaching his followers just how deep a commitment to non-violence goes. There are a few crucial points to note to help us understand what is going on.

It is notable that the Buddha focuses on the attitude the victim must take toward the wrongdoer. He tells his followers not to get angry and to continue feeling goodwill toward their aggressor. But this is deeply counterintuitive. If anger is not justified toward people sawing you up, when could it possibly be justified? What could make this make sense?

First, the Buddha is trying to teach his followers how to alleviate their own suffering. One key insight early Buddhist thinkers had about human psychology is that suffering is ultimately a frame of mind, a way of experiencing the world. Consider the novice runner and the experienced marathoner. To a novice, running feels painful and maybe even synonymous with suffering. But to the expert, the pain of running ceases to be a problem; for some, it may even become part of the joy of running. Whether running causes suffering depends on your state of mind.

Buddhists have long understood that some human ailments are unavoidable. Old age, sickness, and death come for us all, and there is little we can do about our bodies failing us. The Buddha frequently talked about the pain that accompanies getting the things we want and then losing them or the pain that comes with failing to get what we want in the first place.

However, we do seem to have some modicum of control over our minds. So, the Buddha promises a path of freedom from suffering, and this path requires us to practice seeing the world in a new way. The troubles we face become problems only if we let them bother us.

Of course, this is easier said than done, which is why Buddhist practice contains a large tool kit of meditation practices designed to help one overcome the suffering that accompanies human life.

Second, The Simile of the Saw makes more sense when we think carefully about anger and wrongdoing. Whether we realize it or not, when we become angry we hold certain assumptions about reality. Initially, we might think that these bandits sawing us limb from limb really ought not be doing that, and that because they are doing it, they deserve to suffer.

But the Buddhist view asks us to reconsider these assumptions. Why do people act wrongly in the first place? Why are these bandits sawing me limb from limb? The answer matters. If I learn, for instance, that the bandits are acting under extreme mind control, then my anger is misplaced. If the cause of their wrongdoing can be traced to someone else, then my anger should be directed towards them instead.

The underlying assumption here is that anger only makes sense when the subject of our anger has reasonable control over their actions. And here the Buddhist worldview steps in to correct our understanding of wrongdoing. According to Buddhist thinkers, wrong action is not free action. We act wrongly because of reactive attitudes that unfold according to the karmic laws of nature. It is worth noting that the word karma is etymologically linked to the word action, so the laws of karma are really the laws of action. Effectively, there are laws of action, behavior, and emotion that are simply not up to us.

If this is true, if wrong action is unfree action, the message of The Simile of the Saw is suddenly sensible. If bandits are sawing you limb from limb and wrong action is unfree, then getting angry at them is like getting angry at fire for burning. Anger fails to appreciate the way the world actually is. And if we pair this with the primary goal of Buddhism – ending suffering – then getting angry only increases your own suffering. If you want to end suffering, don’t get angry. If you want to respond to the world as it actually is, don’t get angry.

Of course, accepting this lesson depends on accepting quite a lot from the Buddhist worldview. There is not much room for robust free will, for example, a view many of us desperately cling to. It is also important to recognize that there are better and worse ways at processing anger. The Buddha does not advocate for the harmful repression of negative affective states and I do not mean to suggest as much here.

However, if you are on board with this point of view (or just want to see where this goes), what can the Buddhist picture of the world tell us about what a non-violent political ideology looks like? Consider legal punishment. Punishment is one place where the violence of the state is especially hard to ignore. What does a non-violent ideology rooted in Buddhist thought tell us to do with these bandits?

First, the bandits do not deserve to be harmed. Since most forms of punishment require harming the wrongdoer, they also do not deserve punishment. Conversely, they deserve help. From a Buddhist perspective, they deserve compassion and sympathy. What they really need is help transforming themselves into beings who neither suffer nor cause others to suffer.

Second, the bandits do not deserve to be locked in prison indefinitely. Throughout Buddhist philosophy, there are several instances where prominent monks give advice to rulers and kings. In Nāgārjuna’s Precious Garland (which you can read for free here), he explains how to deal with criminals. His advice is consistent with The Simile of the Saw. For minor crimes, do not imprison people for long, just a few days at most. Make sure that the prisoners are fed, clothed, and washed. For the most violent wrongdoers, do not even bother with imprisonment, simply banish them. Send them away from others so they cannot harm anyone. Nāgārjuna is careful to specify that the banishment should occur without killing or tormenting the wrongdoers.

A true, deep commitment to non-violence can be difficult to process given the history from which most modern societies emerge. In the United States, where the prison population is one of the largest in the world at nearly 2 million people, the idea that long-term sentencing should be abandoned seems like fantasy. But if one is committed to non-violence, then surely it makes sense to disband violent political institutions like the prison.

While there are provisions for imprisonment within Buddhist ideology, it is unlikely that the Buddha would find much merit in the modern prison industrial complex we have today. It is plausible that the most fitting advice we could draw from a non-violent political ideology rooted in Buddhist ethics would be to advocate for the abolition of prisons.

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When Your Vote Counts: Electoral Nihilism

Tuesday, November 4th, was an election day in the United States. Nevertheless, if you are eligible to vote in the U.S., you likely did not do so. Perhaps you did! Voter turnout was higher than usual. Further, there may be a significant selection effect among this audience such that you, someone interested in reading public philosophy, is more likely to be electorally engaged.

But statistically speaking, a majority of those who are eligible to vote in the U.S. don’t participate in each election, at least in recent decades. In presidential elections since 2004 between 50 and 66% of eligible voters cast a ballot, meaning that between one third and one half do not. Midterm elections typically see between 40% and 50% turnout during even-numbered years, with some years dipping into the 30’s – so most potential voters sit these out.

But turnout for local elections, especially those which occur in odd numbered “off-years,” is the most troublingly low. Data are hard to gather, given that these elections are (usually) not for federal offices and thus take place at the town, county, or state level. Regardless, the available data suggest that turnout for most local elections ranges from low to shockingly low; mayoral elections usually see about 20% turnout even in major cities, while other offices such as school board, town supervisors, or city council members may see turnout drop into single digits.

There are several reasons we might be troubled by this. I want to articulate at least three philosophical reasons for concern. First, there are epistemic issues. Going back to (at least) Aristotle, theorists have argued that what makes democracies special is that, by having many participate in the political process, we can access knowledge that may be inaccessible if only a minority participate. The idea here is that, through accessing the aggregate of everyone’s views, we are more likely to come upon the right view.

Exceptionally low turnout elections run counter to this proposed advantage of democracy. Instead, they appear to more closely resemble an aristocracy, rule by a small number of elites – only a select few participate in determining the outcome of these elections. Thus, if democracy is in part justified by its unique advantage in reaching the right answers, then we have reason to doubt the merits of elections where only a small minority participate as their verdicts are not a collective aggregate.

Second, one might worry about the legitimacy of any institutions whose officers are determined by only a small number of voters. Many contend that governments are only morally justified via the consent of the governed. It is this idea that gives democratic institutions their legitimacy; voting is the procedure by which we indicate our preferences and express consent for the outcome that emerges. However, when very few participate in the elections, we have serious reason to doubt the moral legitimacy of those selected. Only a small minority express a preference for them and thus the rest are giving, at best, tacit consent to grant power to those officials.

However, I think that closer examination of this issue – the role of elections in shaping governmental legitimacy – will reveal a larger issue to which low turnout elections give rise. It seems to me that low voter turnout will help to enable electoral nihilism. By this I mean the view that there is no good reason to participate in elections. The fewer people that participate in elections, the more likely it is that potential voters will become electorally nihilistic.

This may seem counter intuitive. I am claiming that not participating in elections, particularly local elections, may lead someone to believe that engaging in the electoral process is pointless. One would think that the order of operations would go in reverse – the view that it is pointless comes first, which then deflates the desire to participate.

But think carefully about the elections in which most voters do not participate, local elections. These are the elections which a) will have the most immediate, direct effect on their lives and b) are those where their vote will have the most power.

Suppose, for instance, that my town has a referendum on funding a new park. The referendum passing could produce a material change in my life and do so relatively quickly – the park would provide new opportunities for recreation, a new venue for events, etc. If I voted in favor of the referendum and it passed, I may see the results of my action and its impact on my life in short order.

Compare this to political action at the federal level. Former President Barack Obama, before leaving office, compared federal policy to steering a very large ship; it takes a long time to turn the boat in a new direction, and slight, even imperceptible, changes at one moment can result in arriving at a very different destination given enough time.  Few of us feel the effects of federal level elections soon after they occur. Of course, there will be exceptions – candidates may campaign on, and follow through with, policies that involve aggressively targeting specific groups, threaten to upend the economic or social order, and lead to war. But our vote at the federal level generally takes more time to trickle down to our individual lives.

Additionally, just mathematically speaking, our vote at the local level carries more weight. Given that there are fewer voters in a local election, each single vote matters much more. There is a real sense in which votes for federal offices do not matter. In the 2024 elections, out of 468 elections for seats in the House and Senate, only 43 had a margin of victory under 5%. However, the closest race in the Senate was won by 15,000 votes, while the most competitive House race had a margin of 187 votes. For presidential elections, the only voters who appear to shape the outcome of the elections are tens of thousands of voters across the battleground states. There is a real sense in which one simply casts their ballot into the ether in these elections. One can hardly be blamed for thinking that there is no point in participating in these circumstances.

Local elections, however, are quite different. The 2025 mayoral election for Johnson City, New York, a town where I lived during graduate school, was apparently decided by just 9 votes. No single person’s vote changed the outcome of this election, but one person’s actions may have or could have changed the outcome – one day of canvassing, one night of phone banking, one trip to take voters in need of a ride to the polls, or a few conversations with friends, could have added or flipped enough votes to change the victor. One’s personal vote, and their election related actions, are much more impactful on the local level. Thus, when one is regularly participating in local elections, it is far more difficult to collapse into electoral nihilism. The results of one’s efforts are readily apparent.

Of course, there are significant challenges to participating in local elections. As our sources of news have become more nationalized, 40% of local newspapers have gone out of business, resulting in 50 million Americans living in “news deserts” where there is extremely limited (or no) news coverage of local events and, by extension, elections. This is especially troubling given that the power to vote comes with responsibilities, specifically the responsibility to be informed. Voters may need to do significant personal research to find out who and what precisely is on their ballot, then dedicate efforts towards gathering information about the specific platforms for each candidate.

So why put in this effort to avoid electoral nihilism? At least initially, I think there are two primary reasons. First, Americans’ confidence in their democracy is at an all-time low. Of course, addressing this will require systemic reforms. But ensuring that one feels that voting matters seems to be a necessary first step to any changes. Second, reducing electoral nihilism may lead to more responsible voter behavior. When one feels that one’s vote is meaningless, it becomes easier to vote for fictional characters, or to treat your vote as a joke – when nothing matters, then anything is permitted. In a democratic society, we ought to be prepared to, even if only hypothetically, provide a good justification for how we fill out our ballot. It seems that a necessary first step along the way to developing this justification, is to think that one is doing something that matters with one’s vote. Being an engaged, informed and responsible voter is hard work, and hard work may not be worth doing if one feels that it does not matter.

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Bodies Out of Time: Rethinking Age in the Alien Universe

Warning: This article contains spoilers for several entries in the Alien franchise.

Recently, I’ve been trying to catch up on all the shows sitting on my ever-growing to-watch list. One that I was especially excited about was Alien: Earth, the latest installment in the Alien franchise, which began way back in 1979 with Ridley Scott’s science-fiction horror masterpiece, simply titled Alien. And, as it happens, it’s Halloween while I’m writing this, so it feels fitting to reflect on one of the many philosophical questions the new series raises: age.

The passage of time — and its effects on our bodies, minds, and relationships — is hardly a new theme in science fiction. In 1986’s Aliens, yet another masterpiece, Ellen Ripley, having survived the events of the first film, awakens after spending fifty-seven years in stasis aboard an escape pod. She soon learns that her daughter has grown up, lived an entire life, and died during Ripley’s suspended sleep (though expanded materials elaborate on her daughter’s adventures). A similar leap occurs in Alien: Resurrection, set more than two centuries after the original. In each case, this temporal dislocation isolates Ripley from any semblance of home or continuity.

This unmooring from time and place also runs through Alien: Earth, emerging in two key forms.

The first, and one consistent with the series’ legacy, is cryonics. Space is vast, and travel across it takes time. To traverse the immense distances between systems, the crew of the lone spaceship seen in Alien: Earth, the Maginot, much like Ripley before them, enters suspended animation. By “freezing” themselves, they avoid the ravages of age and survive journeys that would otherwise outlast a human lifespan. It’s worth noting that both NASA and ESA (the European Space Agency) have explored similar ideas — hibernation, torpor, and metabolic suspension — as potential tools for long-duration spaceflight.

However, while the ethics of cryonics and its implications for our understanding of age are intriguing, they are not the focus here. Instead, Alien: Earth complicates our everyday sense of time’s passing in a second, more existential way: it unsettles our notions of what it means to grow older and to live a whole life.

The series invites us to question what it means to age through its portrayal of the artificial lifeforms that populate its world. Androids are, of course, a familiar presence in the Alien universe. They have appeared in every film, sometimes as antagonists, sometimes as uneasy allies. The relationship between creators and their creations has been a central concern in the prequel films — Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, and Alien: Romulus. Yet while those stories focus on the nature of life itself and the moral bonds between makers and made, one question has remained largely unexplored: what does it mean for an artificial being to grow, to mature, to age? Alien: Earth addresses this question through its introduction of hybrids — synthetic bodies into which human consciousness has been uploaded.

At first glance, this might not seem problematic. If someone transfers their mind into a synthetic body identical to their original one, we would likely still regard them as the same age. A twenty-year-old who moves into an artificial body resembling their twenty-year-old self would, intuitively, remain twenty. Yet Alien: Earth upends this expectation. In the series, consciousness transfer is still experimental, and only a handful of test subjects, known as the “lost boys,” have undergone the procedure. Each of the five children, terminally ill in their biological forms, has had their consciousness transferred into a cutting-edge synthetic body. But these new bodies are not like-for-like replacements: they resemble those of adults in their late twenties. The result is five individuals who possess the physical form of adults but the minds and behaviors of children. These bodies themselves have only existed for a certain number of years. So, the synthetic bodies resemble adults, the minds of children inhabit them, but they have only been around for a short time.

What Alien: Earth reveals is how fragile our notion of age really is. We like to imagine age as a simple measure counted in years, written in the wear and tear on the body, reflected in our behavior. But when these elements drift apart, as they do for the lost boys, our categories of child and adult blur. The series forces us to ask what it truly means to grow up when body, mind, and time no longer move in step.

For much of Western thought, age and development have been bound together. In Book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle posits that every living thing has a natural trajectory, a movement from potential to fulfillment. A child is an unfinished being, one whose form is still unfolding toward its purpose. The hybrids in Alien: Earth violate this order. Their bodies appear to have reached completion, but their minds remain suspended in childhood. Indeed, it is made clear in the first episode that the development, even the very functioning, of their minds may be different because those minds now inhabit bodies devoid of hormones and other biological substances that motivate and shape cognitive functioning. The lost boys embody an unnatural disjunction between form and essence, adulthood without maturity, completion without growth. In Aristotle’s terms, they have been forced into their ends before their time.

On the other end of the spectrum sits John Locke, who offers an alternative take. For Locke, as argued in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, what makes someone the same person through time is not the body at all but the continuity of consciousness and memory. It is the awareness of oneself as the same thinking thing that secures identity. Judged by this standard, the lost boys remain children, no matter how adult their bodies appear. Their minds carry the same memories, emotions, and perspectives they held before their transfer. Their new bodies may be stronger, faster, and ageless, but the selves within them are still those of children.

Between Aristotle and Locke, the hybrids occupy an unsettling middle ground. They are caught between two incompatible notions of growth. Aristotle would see them as beings who have skipped the natural stages of life; Locke would see them as persons whose identity is unchanged despite physical transformation. Alien: Earth leaves us in this tension. It refuses to tell us whether maturity resides in the body’s development or in the mind’s continuity, and this uncertainty makes the lost boys so haunting. Indeed, the group itself reflects on this difficulty and eventually reaches no clear answer.

By imagining beings who age in one sense but not another, the series asks us to reconsider how much of our humanity depends on time itself. If growth can be engineered, if bodies can leap ahead of the selves that inhabit them, then age ceases to be a simple measure of experience. Alien: Earth reminds us that aging is not only about the number of years we live, but also about how our bodies and minds keep pace — or fail to.