Cultural Observations

if you don’t have a Black woman on your board, I better not see a Black woman on your billboard.” –Aurora James,

This is a generation that is both highly conflict-averse and virtually allergic to risk, particularly when it comes to markers of autonomous adulthood like driving, working, or sex. The bosses of Gen Z employees report that they can’t make eye contact, take criticism, or even ask questions when they don’t know how to do something. The post-work dri... See more

Imagination expands the world. Just as economic growth and technological invention create new things in the world—things unknown since the beginning of time—so does language. We live, as the poet Robert Graves said, in a web of language. The bigger our web, the bigger our world.

rationality is a method of dealing with uncertainty by devouring information and making simplifying assumptions about the outside world until you can convince yourself that you understand it

An avant-garde needs a scene, and the cities are too expensive for scenes now. An avant-garde needs an excess of time, and that’s in short supply nearly everywhere.

“A selection is now taking place among the forms and habits of higher morality, whose goal can be none other than the downfall of baser moralities.”

Eros—carnal desire—is an embodied experience, and our phones do a terrific job of getting us out of our bodies and into our heads. In the digital age, we often neglect our bodies entirely, and use them merely as a way to transport our heads to meetings. (The rise of rave culture and physical fitness programs since the 1990s is perhaps evidence that... See more

Two of the most important characteristics of good design are discoverability and understanding.

We will not think or argue our way out of modern culture’s pessimism. We will have to imagine our way out. We live, as Robert Graves said, in a web of language. The bigger our web, the bigger our world. In the philosopher Richard Rorty’s words (paraphrasing Percy Shelley), imagination sets the bounds of thought: imagination breaks the path that rea... See more