“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, refuses to go away.”—Philip Dick
(Continuing the thread of the previous LOTRW post) Philip Dick deserves to be better known. He died too soon: in 1982, aged 53. Over three decades he published 45 novels and some 120 short stories. Again, these remain largely unfamiliar outside the sci-fi community but have enjoyed broader posthumous impact. His 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, formed the basis for the classic 1982 film Blade Runner. The 2002 film Minority Report was loosely based on his 1958 novel. The 1990 film Total Recall was based on one of his short stories, a 1966 piece entitled We Can Remember It for You Wholesale. His reality quote (above) first appeared in his 1978 essay, “How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later.”
Looking back, perhaps he’d be better known today had he given more thought to pithy titles.
The truth of Mr. Dick’s observation lies all around us. For example, the vernacular art world of his generation captured the same idea in the Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoons. These shorts were run in movie theaters as warm-ups to feature films. One meme:
Wile E. Coyote was obsessed with a vengeful desire to put an end to the Road Runner, but could never trap him. Frequently, fueled and focused by the adrenalin of a chase, Wile would pursue the Road Runner off a cliff’s edge.
He could suspend reality—but only for a moment. He’d take his eye off the bird and look down. His ensuing fall was inevitable and always ended badly.
The same holds for political realities. Some are special cases of reality more generally. That might include the maxim all politics is local. The spirit is captured by this quote from Pete Buttigieg, a former secretary of transportation and former mayor: “In local government, it’s very clear to your customers—your citizens—whether or not you’re delivering. Either that pothole gets filled in, or it doesn’t. The results are very much on display, and that creates a very healthy pressure to innovate.”
But some other “political realities” only masquerade as reality; the latter all ultimately lose their contest with the genuine article. Autocratic political leaders—dictators like Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, and others of that stripe—may temporarily capture and exercise power over a nation. They may briefly convince a billion people or tens of millions to follow their lead. To see resistance as futile. To tolerate poverty and oppression and even the loss of their children in unnecessary wars. Either sooner or later, such narratives those autocrats weave must give way to the one true reality in politics—governments derive their just powers and maintain their legitimacy only by the consent of the governed. (This is a natural law, and no respecter of this or that constitutional text.)
One telltale sign that a given “political reality” is actually something less? To speak the truth is relaxing; to perpetuate a lie becomes increasingly draining over time. Efforts needed to maintain the fiction rapidly grow more shrill, more elaborate and strenuous—eventually becoming unsustainable. Signs of something like that can be seen worldwide as we enter 2026. As hard-right parties in the EU and Great Britain approach the numbers required to gain political control, they discover they must moderate their most radical platforms. As communist Chinese leaders exhort families to have more children, the people are not buying. Putin is finding that Russia’s most talented and able are leaving the country; that internal power struggles are growing. Last year Syria’s al-Assad had to flee for his life.
This inexorable triumph of reality over political spin adds to the likelihood that 2026 will be a better year than 2025, even if off to a rocky, tumultuous start—and why 2027 might be better still.
In closing:
This is as good a time as any to say a bit about the word “Real” in the LOTRW’s title. Early in the 2000’s I heard Rush Holt Jr., a former congressman from New Jersey (and also a plasma physicist), speak at the rollout of a Committee on Economic Development report on STEM education. He argued that the late-1950’s U.S. policy response to Sputnik was flawed. He said it fostered and perpetuated an idea that while public education should help every child read and write, only a minority of young people needed any extensive foundation in science and mathematics. By 2010, when I started the blog, I had become convinced that the label “scientist,” which had been held in such high repute since Sputnik and the Cold War, was becoming a word that was dividing instead of uniting us.
Events have borne that out. But it seemed to me (still does) that everyone is realistic. No one is intentionally delusional. And realism is accessible to everyone. Hence the popularity of expressions such as:
Gravity: not just a good idea. It’s the law.
So that’s the background. In the next post: more on the LOTRW origin story.
