The Best of May
Youth moment, resistance, globalization, and museum storage
This month, I have spent a good amount of time talking to some of you about what The Adret could evolve into. Presumably, it will not grow legs and emerge from the ocean anytime soon, but I have begun to consider what the offering to the (admittedly small) subscriber base should be beyond “The Best of…”
Much of that effort will continue to be focused on discussions and ideas from readers. It would be ironic to rant for a few months about the need for curation over saturation only to turn this into an outlet for spare, semi-unedited thought. As we often repeated at Peace Corps, the best forms of collaboration come from “appreciative inquiry”:
It is based on the belief that human systems are best made and imagined by those who live and work within them. When applied, appreciative inquiry is the cooperative search for the best in people, their organizations, and the world around them. Appreciative inquiry involves the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to heighten positive potential.
While a Substack is about as far as possible from Peace Corps’ PACA (defined in a decades-old, iterative tome), I do want to embrace its spirit of listening, abandoning a pretense of control, and getting out of the way. Of course, so much inquiry will always run into the problem of spending more time figuring out what to do than doing it, much like building a train line.
All to say: no news, yet.
For now, keep reading and sharing The Adret and the stories featured each month.
Without further ado…
“We can’t give in to cowardice masquerading as savvy.” New York Magazine (5 mins.)
Thinking and rethinking a China strategy. Foreign Affairs (22 mins.)
Devour the museum’s innards. The Architect’s Newspaper (5 mins.)
Remember last month’s post-neoliberalism essay? This is a counterpoint. Drezner’s World on Substack (10 mins.)
And another. Noahpinion on Substack (8 mins.)
One more. Foreign Affairs (8 mins.)
Dolly and Carl. The New Yorker (9 mins.)
Soup-hating, world explaining, Argentinian Calvin and Hobbes. The Dial (11 mins.)
A conflict ends and the hard work of building a future begins. The Atlantic (5 mins.)
Fleeing won’t solve your problems (even if not everything should be called an industrial complex). the late review on Substack (13 mins.)
RIP, road. The New York Times (7 mins.)
But, all hail CAHSR? The Asterisk (15 mins.)
Media
Hope and rebellion. Andor - Disney +
If you have ideas for what you would like to see on The Adret, please comment below or send me pitches and articles to read.
Hope you have a wonderful June, with sunny weather and maybe a little time off.