America Punk

America is a great country. 

On all the metrics we’ve got, it’s the best country that has ever existed. America is good for the people who live in America. But it is also really good for people who live outside America. We created liberal democracy, constitutional government, separation of powers. We’ve kept the world free. We invented everyone’s new drugs. We invent everyone’s technology. Europe may be regulating AI, but we are the only country that is actually building AI.

But if  good things are good, then the sentiment “good things are good” has a problem. It’s boring. Like, really boring. It’s a tautology. It’s what your dad believes. And once you admit that “good things are good,” then you have to spend your time making and defending good things, which is hard, because good things are often hard to do.

You know what is a really interesting sentiment, and which also gets you off the hook for doing anything ever again? “Good things are bad.” Capitalism, which lifted 2 billion people out of subsistence poverty and is the greatest engine for human flourishing since we captured fire, is very bad. Wealth is corrupting. Western medicine is racist. The idea of learning is also racist. Going to space will be very, very expensive. 

Or, even better, “Bad things are good.” Communism, which killed more people than any idea or movement in the history of humanity, is particularly good. Equality above all else. Living forever would be terrible. Poverty is very noble, or something. 

At Arena, we understand that young people want to be cool. And the absolute worst way to be cool is to be boring. Defending good things is often the most boring intellectual position in the world to take. You don’t get to feel special, or interesting, or subversive by defending good things. 

But even if defending good things isn’t very interesting, it’s still really important. And so, good things need to be made cool again. America needs to be made punk. America needs America Punk.

As one of the world’s best things, America has a problem. It is currently very boring to defend America. As of now, “supporting America” means your dad waving a flag on the fourth of July. It’s your mom scolding you to “be more grateful” at dinner. Defending America means  a solemn, forced “Flag Day” singing in elementary school. 

If you wanted to defend America in a cool way, how would you go about doing it? Our answer: you’d celebrate the rebelliousness, the spirit that made this country. There’s nothing cooler than a rebellion, and that’s America Punk.

In Issue 002: America Punk, we have articles that we hope will make you excited about good things. We’ve thought long and hard about how to give the good things the aesthetic treatment they deserve: the kind of thought and care that usually only goes into defending bad things. 

In this issue, we are celebrating the people who do hard things just to do them, the people who “think different,” and the people who stand in front of the status quo and say “stop.” We’re celebrating the people who make America… punk!

“America Punk” is a vision of the future. But unlike “steampunk” or “cyberpunk” or “atompunk” it isn’t just about the technology. It’s the spirit and the people, too.

So grab a flag, and a magazine. Tell your friends to join the party. Because if good things are good, then defending good things is better together. Thanks to our contributors and sponsors for making this even cooler. If you’d like to be a contributor or sponsor for a future issue, you know where to find us.

Issue 002 will ship in the first week of November. If you haven’t done so, you can subscribe here.

– The Editors

Maxwell & Ginevra