We read (parts of) Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) in April and early May 2025. It is one of the founding texts of modern political philosophy, and reading it is about as enjoyable as drinking five cement milkshakes in a row.

Hobbes's arguments have all the subtlety of a boiling pot of water thrown in your face. And they're written in 17th-century English prose that seems to simultaneously look down its nose at you, treats you like you have the intelligence of a toddler, and is trapped in an age when people were much more close-minded and ignorant. The organization is …