Quotation of the Day: #TheWire and Liberty’s Branding Problem

[EAST] Baltimore: Not What Defines a City

Here’s an astute critique from my friend and former colleague Bryan Pick:

Near the close of what was otherwise an enjoyable panel by a bunch of the cast and creators of The Wire, this was sad to hear from creator David Simon:

“I look at sort of the libertarian impulse that has become almost a subtext of our political structure of, y’know, ‘I’m not giving; I got mine, f**k you’… that’s become the culture of a fading society, of a second rate society. And I think ultimately, hard choices have to be made, and a hard definitive decision has to be made of, are we all in this together or are we not? And I think ‘The Wire’ was depicting a dystopia where we are not.”

When I watched the series, I could have sworn much of it was written by libertarians: not only had libertarians long taken the lead in pushing back against the drug war, but so many of the series’ tragedies—persistent failures of public institutions despite many good intentions—seem to be drawn right out of public choice theory, recognizing that the people running institutions (and the people they govern) are complicated and fallible humans with interests, not all-knowing angels facing mustache-twirling devils.

The fact that Simon thought he was rebuking libertarians was a failure on the part of libertarians to relate our brand of compassion, but it’s also heartening that people have unwittingly adopted many of our views on institutions and that it resulted in such great art.

He was responding on Facebook to a panel of actors from HBO’s The Wire and the show’s co-creator David Simon. You can watch a recording of the panel here.