Freedom of Thought 2322

• Author: Lucas Swaine
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00905917221128900
• Published date: 01 February 2023
• Date: 01 February 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917221128900

Political Theory

2023, Vol. 51(1) 234 –236

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00905917221128900

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Article

Freedom of

Thought 2322

Lucas Swaine1

Abstract

This essay is part of a special issue celebrating 50 years of Political Theory. The

ambition of the editors was to mark this half century not with a retrospective

but with a confabulation of futures. Contributors were asked: What will

political theory look and sound like in the next century and beyond? What

claims might political theorists or their descendants be making in ten, twenty-

five, fifty, a hundred years’ time? How might they vindicate those claims in

their future contexts? How will the consistent concerns of political theorists

evolve into the questions critical for people decades or centuries from

now? What new problems will engage the political theorists (or their rough

equivalents) of the future? What forms might those take? What follows is

one of the many confabulations published in response to these queries.

*Transmitted by fast-burst signal and interstellar radio call . . . headed by

Arecibo symbols and coded in every known language . . . includes pictographic

versions of hostile architecture and dangerous emanations . . . enciphered

nanoscopically in informational DNA at its source . . . specifies its astronomical

coordinates . . . transmission time-stamped [Gregorian calendar 5/5/2322]*

This is a message for those who can read it intelligently.

The circumstances of this moment on planet Earth are complicated and

they are alarming. They must be communicated for the sake of our civiliza-

tion and as a caution to others.

1Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

Corresponding Author:

Lucas Swaine, Dartmouth College, Silsby Hall, Hanover, NH 03755, USA.

Email: lucas.swaine@dartmouth.edu

1128900PTXXXX10.1177/00905917221128900Political TheorySwaine

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