My 11-Year-Old Came Up With a Better Government – The New York Times

The Consti-Lucian can be changed only if every single one of the governments 15-member judiciary agrees. Upon reading this, I wondered: When was the last time that 15 judges agreed on anything? And that, of course, was the point. This code was meant to be etched in stone, which it literally was. In the center of the colony, Lucian created a public space where the Consti-Lucian is carved into a rock slab to insure everyones understanding of the laws.

His legal code is firm, but it is by no means draconian. For example, it specifically prohibits prisons. There is also an endowment for artists whose work will be displayed in the Garden of Hope. Lucian notes, We are requesting for artists to submit designs for sculptures that people can see and sometimes climb on and walk into.

Lucians legal code fascinated me for many reasons, but most of all because it seemed to be a direct reaction to the world around him. He is only 11, but I think he gets, on some fundamental level, that we are living in a moment when rules for Covid-19 testing, meat processing and police conduct are deeply dysfunctional. Lucians utopia is not so much Star Wars (i.e., a world of supercool, futuristic technology), but a fantasy of a world where government and laws function properly.

Everything is codified. He makes specific provisions on the number of doctors, E.M.T.s and virus control experts who must be on the government payroll. Even when I asked him to focus on other aspects of the planet like writing a diary from the point of view of an ordinary citizen he wrote about a fisherman who was unhappy with the way that property was being distributed.

Perhaps none of this should surprise me. Up until recently, my children grew up in a predictable world ruled by school bells, sports schedules, music lessons and a government that was (or at least seemed) fairly competent. Under those circumstances, it makes perfect sense that they would love dystopian narratives like The Maze Runner, where the world has gone to hell and all the old rules have been tossed out the window. But nowadays, we are essentially living in a dystopian narrative, and my kids are left to fantasize about a far more banal world, where the rules simply work.

Jake Halpern is the author of the forthcoming Welcome to the New World, based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning series in The Times.

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