Astral Codex Ten

Klein

5 min read

Klein

Article

Klein is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between February 09, 2021 and April 01, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as ""Klein argues that although polarization has affected both sides…""; “this isn’t how Klein thinks about any this”; “Klein calls this ‘the Democratic party more successfully resisting polarization’“. It most often appears alongside America, California, Ezra Klein.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 3
  • Issue count: 3
  • First seen: February 09, 2021
  • Last seen: April 01, 2025

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: Why We're Polarized
February 09, 2021 · Original source
Ezra Klein is great. I know a lot of people throw shade on him for founding Vox. But as Van Gogh said about God creating the world, "We must not hold it against Him; only a master could make such a mistake". Ezra is a master and I was happy to be able to read his Why We're Polarized.
Inline links: Why We're Polarized
(Amazon recommended it to me as "Why We're Polarized By Ezra Klein", which I would also have been happy to read.)
Klein ends by saying he cannot be entirely against polarization. But his arguments are unconvincing. I much prefer the Ezra Klein who writes things like Why We Can't Build: America's Inability To Act Is Killing People.
Inline links: Why We Can't Build: America's Inability To Act Is Killing People
Ezra Klein On Vetocracy
February 20, 2021 · Original source
In my review last week of Ezra Klein's Why We're Polarized, I linked to a related Vox article on vetocracy:
Inline links: Why We're Polarized, Vox article on vetocracy
Klein argues that the US government can no longer do anything, especially not things that look like building, or inventing, or infrastructure, or making good plans, or solving problems. He attributes this to a bias towards inaction, implemented in the form of multiple veto points at which various interested actors can stop or delay things. Recently he followed it up with an editorial in the New York Times arguing that California, for all its supposed liberalism, was structurally conservative - it's good at cosmetic nods to progressive aesthetics, but incapable of progress toward real progressive goals. Its vetocracy is too entrenched to let anyone change anything.
Inline links: he followed it up
First, is vetocracy the same as polarization? Klein sometimes treats the two concepts interchangeably; for example, he says he's written a book about "how the US government has becoming a dysfunctional vetocracy" (presumably Why We're Polarized). But elsewhere he doesn't treat them interchangably; for example, he talks about some kinds of shareholder activism in corporations as examples of vetocracy. But these don't seem linked to partisan politics. And a lot NIMBYism is unrelated to the Democrat/Republican divide.
The Colors Of Her Coat
April 01, 2025 · Original source
In the 19th century, a German man named Christian Gmelin discovered the process of producing synthetic ultramarine. And in the 1960s, French artist Yves Klein came up with a new synthetic ultramarine that he thought was even bluer. This being the 1960s, Klein leveraged his invention into a bunch of entirely blue paintings - literally, he just painted an entire canvas blue and hung it in a gallery - which caused various scandals and counterscandals and discourse.
Klein was a provocateur, and I’m no art historian, so don’t let me tell you what he actually meant by his all-blue paintings. But one thing he could have meant was a callback to all the medieval merchants and monks and miners; everyone who died to get a few drops of ultramarine back to Europe so the Virgin’s robes could be perfectly celestially blue. “Look!” say Klein’s paintings. “Now we’re so rich, so blessed, that I can paint an entire canvas with the perfect blue of the heavens. I can use more blue than the total yearly output of medieval Europe, just so a couple of passers-by can frown and secretly wish that paintings still looked like stuff.”
This painting tears me apart. I - confession - am the type of person who, after hearing the story of Afghanistan and Sar-i-Sang and medieval European art economics - would be tempted to buy lapis lazuli and stare at it longingly, trying to recapture the awe that Joe Peasant must have felt staring at the Virgin’s coat. But I’m also the type of person who, if I ran across Klein in a gallery, would frown and secretly wish that paintings still looked like stuff. Should I feel bad about this?