05 Jun 23 Monday Briefing

Experimenting with a slightly longer format, thanks V!

A brief exchange with a reader has prompted me to experiment with a format that has slightly longer commentary attached to each link I feel is worth spending your time on. Comments welcome!

Transculturalism

Most modern societies are littered with the whited sepulchres of “multiculturalism”. Hanzi Freinacht, a recent discovery from the slowly disintegrating platform that is Medium, offers transculturalism.

”The transculturalist position holds that it is both true that diversity is good, that racism, inequality, and discrimination are real issues with their own respective (often postcolonial) historical roots, and that there are real problems of integration and inter-cultural relations, as well as real limitations to and problems inherent in the cultures of different ethnic groups and cultures in society. As such, it takes a transformational view on ethnic groups (whether these happen to be constructed along the lines of race, nationality, ethnic denominations, or religious practices) and holds them responsible vis-à-vis one another as parts of “the whole” of society that results from their interactions.”

Now, I’m not entirely convinced just yet, but Freinacht makes a convincing argument and provides a language for a kind of worldview that looks a lot like my own. How any kind of -ism is implemented in real life remains the proof of the pudding. For instance:

”If cultures are to have the right to exist and gain recognition in an environment of other cultures that they interact with, they must also be charged with the obligation to develop and transform into versions of themselves that are — not subjected to, but — compatible with the other cultures.”

The above statement is something I wholeheartedly agree with (thanks Freinacht for articulating it), but this immediately makes our favourite non-pluralistic Abrahamic religions/belief systems non-starters for transculturalism. I’m pretty sure they prefer it that way, too. And given their sway over vast swathes of the world, trans- rather than multi- could be a long, long time away. Time that we as a species on this planet probably don’t have.

Homeschooling Exposé

While we’re on the topic of non-pluralistic Abrahamic religions, an extreme version of Christianity I grew up in is the subject of an exposé series in WaPo. On the one hand, I’m gratified that mainstream press is taking notice of the counterculture trend of religion-driven homeschooling and how it is intimately tied with home and community.

On the other, hundreds of thousands of homeschooled older Millennials such as myself are still processing the trauma of having poor/misinformed educational choices forced upon us in our formative stages, many of us languishing socially and educationally, all this while starting our own families and realising that making choices for our children are rarely that black and white.

I have refrained from sharing my story with WaPo, mostly because I don’t trust mainstream media, particularly American, and also because if I’m to tell my story, I’ll do it myself, all the way to the printing press if I have to. The story of how a uniquely American religious phenomenon took hold in developing, cosmopolitan Singapore in the 1990s is a tale that its survivors should tell, in a format of their choosing.

Check Your Privilege

My main takeaway is that “DEI” is such a pathologically American corporate redemption arc that fails abysmally when transplanted wholesale into another context, especially in Asia-Pacific. I’ve had so many pointless and fruitless arguments about how we do not have “Chinese privilege” here in Singapore, and yet I have (not always a white woman, but somehow always a white woman in these kinds of corporate positions here in APAC, the irony) insisting that we do. Perhaps they could start with de-centring themselves first? That people are starting to smell this bullshit is the first small step towards reclaiming some sanity from the assumption that we are all oppressed or oppressors.

Why Doncha Build?

Land is something humans have always fought over, whether grazing, migration, settlement or invasion. With settlement, you settle, and then you build. So why did Britain, which got rid of city walls relatively early on compared to their continental neighbours (TIL on the Internet!), suffer both a failure of politics and of imagination?

Is central planning completely at odds with localised innovation, or would reallocation of assets help communities plan and build better? “Why Britain Doesn’t Build” is a bit of a clickbait title, which serves its purpose well. This is a long read and by necessity, political, as you can never divorce built environments from the politics that drive the planning and building in the first place. If you read one article this week, make it this, and do check out Watling’s other work.

Gimme Gelato

Ok, nerds, buckle up, this is gonna be a pretty wild ride. What is “climate finance”? No idea? Well, neither do I, and almost anyone else. Seems it could be anything you want it to be. A gelato chain? Check. A love story movie? Bring it, bro. All good.

Reuters has started an investigative series in this murky yet rather well-publicised subset of international finance. Sometimes journalists do carry out the Lord’s work.