Tag: culture

The China Cultural Clash

I am not particularly excited to write this article. My instinct is towards free trade, my affinity for Asia generally and Greater China specifically, my welfare enhanced by staying off China’s radar. And yet, for all that the idea of being a global citizen is an alluring concept and largely my lived experience, I find in situations like this that I am undoubtedly a child of the West. I do believe in the individual, in free speech, and in democracy, no matter how poorly practiced in the United States or elsewhere. And, in situations like this weekend, when values meet money, I worry just how many companies are capable of choosing the former?

Against Against Billionaire Philanthropy

taking down lazy thinkpieces that are entirely about mood affiliation:

The Gates Foundation plausibly saved 10M lives. Moskovitz and Tuna saved a 100M animals from excruciatingly painful conditions. Norman Borlaug’s agricultural research (supported by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation) plausibly saved one billion people. These accomplishments – and other similar victories over famine, disease, and misery – are plausibly the best things that have happened in the past century. All the hot-button issues we usually care about pale before them. Think of how valuable 1 person’s life is – a friend, a family member, yourself – then try multiplying that by 10M or 1B or whatever, it doesn’t matter, our minds can’t represent those kinds of quantities anyway. Anything that makes these kinds of victories even a little less likely would be a disaster for human welfare. The main argument against against billionaire philanthropy is that the lives and welfare of millions of the neediest people matter more than whatever point you can make by risking them. Criticize the existence of billionaires in general, criticize billionaires’ spending on yachts or mansions. But if you only criticize billionaires when they’re trying to save lives, you risk collateral damage to everything we care about.

Peter Saville

last July, at Raf Simons’ Spring/Summer 2018 show in New York City. Deep in Chinatown, underneath the Manhattan Bridge, Simons showed a collection of expressionistically shredded menswear with a cyberpunk edge, and included was a series of garments bearing imagery Saville had created for Factory nearly 40 years prior. This was not the first time Simons has used those graphics. His Fall/Winter 2003 collection contained similar items, many of which are now among the most covetable in his catalogue—military parkas covered in patched and painted renderings of Saville’s imagery now routinely sell for 5 figures. Why, I wondered, is this world of images still so pervasive? I put the question to Simons himself, over email. He responded simply: “It is iconic and timeless.” Well—okay, yes. But what does “timeless” actually mean?

10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki

An exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at the genius of Japan’s foremost living film director, Hayao Miyazaki — creator of some of the world’s most iconic and enduring anime feature films. Miyazaki allowed a single documentary filmmaker to shadow him at work, as he dreamed up characters and plot lines for what would become his 2008 blockbuster, “Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.” Miyazaki explores the limits of his physical ability and imagination to conjure up memorable protagonists.