The Path - Pete's Newsletter - Issue #23
Photos of the Week
The many villages of the Cotswolds are interlaced with walking paths connecting its picturesque countryside. Yesterday we hiked the scenic route from Stow-on-the-Wold to the Bourton-on-the-Water.
Songs of the Week
I was a big fan of the first record by The Shins Oh Inverted World and then lost track of them over time. Ten years later this song drew me back in, with its simple lyrics about the fear of getting older, paired alongside a resigned but uplifting melody.
The Arctic Monkeys just released a concept album set in the near future in a Vegas-style hotel built on the surface of the moon. Alex Turner's lyrics quote Neil Postman's prophetic book Amusing Ourselves to Death whilst painting an uneasy picture of our digital addictions and where they intend to lead us.
Article of the Week
In a world where a nation's leader can fall so far short of its defining values and principles, it is only natural that its citizens will question the validity and worth of the entire system and its institutions.
This article argues a larger trend as it describes today's decline in values as no more than a symptom as the old systems grind their rusted gears towards their inevitable end.
National political authority is in decline, and, since we do not know any other sort, it feels like the end of the world. This is why a strange brand of apocalyptic nationalism is so widely in vogue. But the current appeal of machismo as political style, the wall-building and xenophobia, the mythology and race theory, the fantastical promises of national restoration – these are not cures, but symptoms of what is slowly revealing itself to all: nation states everywhere are in an advanced state of political and moral decay from which they cannot individually extricate themselves.
It's a depressing but convincing argument as the author reminds the reader that nation-states are a new phenomenon and are unfit to survive in a world where the economy operates outside their control.
Of course.. one could see this as an opportunity instead of the apocalypse.
Books of the Week
These two books fit within a similar theme and are both highly recommended.
First, an excellent Sci-fi novel set across the galaxies in the distant future during a time of upheaval.
Second, a non-fiction book about China's incomparable rise during the past thirty years as told by someone on the ground. Insightful and entertaining.
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ps. Revue was recently featured in Fast Company