China poised for pre-eminence while the West‘s ‘precariat’ is seeking a voice. A COVID contagion pattern is emerging. Weak ties can be a source of strong wellbeing, but don’t overlook the benefits of solitude.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“It is no secret that what is good for Wall Street is bad for Main Street.” – Nouriel Roubini
Yuan Peng, The Coronavirus Pandemic and a Once-in-a-Century Change
(Reading the China Dream, 17 June 2020)
This is a must-read to understand China’s perspective on the post-pandemic world. Yuan, a renowned academic, explains why and how COVID will accelerate the change to a new international order after a period of confusion. In his view, today’s America is like Britain a century ago: “not overextended but thoroughly dysfunctional”, and incapable of making the hard choices necessary to engineer a national revival. By contrast, “China is vibrant, dynamic, but not yet ready to lead”. The results of the transition “will be messy” (a 20+ min read, but worth it!).
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Nouriel Roubini, The Main Street Manifesto
(Project Syndicate, 24 June 2020)
The economist argues that the historic protests that have swept the US were long overdue, not just as a response to racism and police violence, but also as a revolt against entrenched plutocracy. But this phenomenon is not limited to the US: in most countries around the world, a growing number of people live in economic insecurity (the “precariat”) and risk falling into unemployment while big corporations take bailouts and slash labor costs. Something has to give (reads in 6-7 min).
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Carl Zimmer, Most People With Coronavirus Won’t Spread It. Why Do a Few Infect Many?
(The New York Times, 30 June 2020)
A most useful read to understand the pattern of COVID infections: growing scientific evidence shows that most infected people aren’t spreading the virus. Super-spreaders do, and super-spreading seems to depend more on circumstance than biology. At the moment, research concludes that 10 percent of infected people are responsible for 80 percent of new infections, meaning that most people pass on the virus to few, if any, others (reads in 8-9 min).
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Ian Leslie, Why your ‘weak-tie’ friendships may mean more than you think
(BBC, 3 July 2020)
As our subscribers know, weak ties are more important than strong ones to generate new insights and ideas. The same goes for friends. Close friends are important, but research shows that building networks of casual acquaintances can boost happiness, knowledge, and a sense of belonging.
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Irina Dimitrescu, In Praise of Solitude
(Los Angeles Review of Books, 28 June 2020)
This review of The Art of Solitude does not contradict the posting above: friendship and solitude are not incompatible but co-exist! According to the author (a former monk), solitude has little to do with the place one inhabits or the other people in it. It is not a state of mind, but rather “a practice, a way of life – as understood by the Buddha and Montaigne alike.” It is not isolation or alienation, though these are its shadow side. Rather, it is a way of caring for one’s soul, of sheltering it from noise and agitation, of directing it toward its authentic purpose.
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