Bangladesh, Feb. 20 -- We live in an age that prides itself on vigilance. We are told—often correctly—that history never ends, that reaction never sleeps, that injustice returns in new guises the moment we look away. The lesson appears sober, even responsible: there will always be another battle. And so we prepare ourselves for endurance rather than transformation. Paul Thomas Andersons One Battle After Another (2025) stages this lesson with admirable seriousness. It offers no triumphalism, no illusion of final victory. Fascism, authoritarianism, reaction—call it what you will—returns again and again. The struggle is permanent.

But permanence is not neutrality. To insist that struggle never ends is already to take...