Japanese Clutter & Extended Suicide

Featured Articles

The world sees Japan as a paragon of minimalism. But its hidden clutter culture shows that ‘more’ can be as magical as ‘less’

Aeon • 11 Oct 2024 • ~5800 words

Matt Alt challenges the widespread perception of Japan as a bastion of minimalism. Through Kyoichi Tsuzuki’s captivating photographs of vibrant, cluttered interiors, he explores how this view often overlooks the prevalence of clutter and maximalism in everyday Japanese life. It questions the assumption that Japan is a "minimalist paradise" and suggests that clutter and tidiness are not opposites but two sides of the same cultural coin. The article delves into the history of this Western obsession, the rise of Japanese decluttering gurus, and the complex relationship between minimalism and clutter in Japanese aesthetics and spirituality.

Also read: Matt Alt's follow up on his substack

To the Japanese, there was nothing unusual about their empty rooms. Who needs chairs when you can sit on the floor? Why leave futons out when they can be folded up and put away each morning? Why wouldn’t an unused room be empty? Yet, into that void, early Western visitors projected their insecurities about their own societies. Alcock saw the ‘universal absence of luxury’ as a kind of transcendence, reading into it a liberation from the materialistic rat-race of Western consumerism.

A Husband in the Aftermath of His Wife’s Unfathomable Act

The New Yorker • 14 Oct 2024 • ~8850 words • Archive Link

This article explores the tragic case of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts woman who killed her three young children in January 2023 while suffering from severe postpartum mental illness. It delves into the complexities of her case, the challenges in diagnosing and treating postpartum psychosis, and the legal and societal responses to such devastating acts committed by mothers. The article also examines the lasting impact on Lindsay's husband, Patrick, as he grapples with forgiveness, grief, and the search for answers in the aftermath of this unimaginable tragedy.

Phillip Resnick, a leading filicide expert who was hired by Lindsay’s legal team to evaluate her, told me that women accused of killing their children might benefit from society’s reflexive assumptions about a mother’s “unconditional love”: she must have been insane to kill her child, since no sane mother ever would. Psychiatric studies often refer to the phenomenon of mothers killing their children before killing themselves as “extended suicide.” Killing one’s child under the delusion that it’s in his best interest is described, even more euphemistically, as “altruistic filicide.” In a perverse circular logic, the crime itself can come to seem like the clearest evidence of the condition that is held up to exculpate the mother—and also like its own form of punishment.

Recommended Articles

Catching the Carjackers

The Atlantic • 14 Oct 2024 • ~6250 words • Archive Link

This piece examines the rise of carjacking incidents in the Washington D.C. and Maryland area, focusing on the experiences of victims and the efforts of law enforcement to combat this growing crime wave. While it highlights the harrowing experiences of victims like Shantise Summers, who grapple with fear and systemic failures in the justice system, it also delves into the complexities of juvenile crime, exploring the balance between accountability and the need for reform in policing practices.

The concerns of a community worried about safety in the face of runaway violent crime are legitimate. So are concerns about the rights and life prospects of the sometimes quite young kids committing these crimes - kids born into poverty and structural racism, many of whom were themselves victims before they became criminals. Can these concerns be balanced effectively?

Mental health campaigns place huge trust in people’s ability to act as therapists. But when should professionals step in?

Aeon • 14 Oct 2024 • ~3850 words

As mental health discussions gain momentum and enter mainstream culture more and more, a question arises: when should informal conversations become the responsibility of trained professionals? This piece explores the blurred lines between casual support and expert intervention in an era where everyone feels empowered to share their struggles. It delves into the implications of mental health campaigns that encourage peer conversations while questioning the adequacy of this approach in addressing deeper psychological needs.

In the absence of strong social bonds or comprehensive political programmes, Western governments and their corporate and nonprofit allies have collapsed the two into one half-measure: everyone is a therapist, and everyone is in therapy. The loud part – which says that intimate, honest conversation is good – masks the quiet part, which is that it’s also meant to serve as an adjunct to the state’s mental healthcare capacity. The result is that conversation may seem an end in itself, with no proper attention paid to the actual content of these interactions.

Domestic Violence, Child Abuse and DUI Cases Are Being Dismissed en Masse in Anchorage

ProPublica • 13 Oct 2024 • ~2950 words

In Anchorage, a troubling trend has emerged as prosecutors struggle with a severe staffing shortage, leading to the mass dismissal of serious misdemeanor cases, including domestic violence and DUI charges. This piece uncovers the frustrations of victims and the justice system as hundreds of cases slip through the cracks, raising concerns about public safety and accountability and how the ripple effects of these dismissals are felt throughout the community.

Defendants in at least 930 Anchorage misdemeanor cases have walked free for this reason since May 1, the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica found. These include people accused of crimes ranging from violating a restraining order to driving drunk with children in the backseat.

Organized Looting Is Dispersing Islamic Heritage

New Lines Magazine • 11 Oct 2024 • ~3900 words

This article discusses the widespread looting and dispersal of Islamic cultural heritage, particularly ancient manuscripts and artifacts, through organized trafficking networks. It explores the challenges faced by scholars and institutions in trying to preserve this heritage, as well as the ethical dilemmas involved in potentially acquiring looted items to prevent their permanent loss. The article also examines how the rise of online marketplaces has exacerbated the problem and enabled the illicit trade in cultural objects.

One of the most egregious acts of violence against a manuscript, short of burning it completely, is to rip it up, yet this is what happens to many historical books, especially the most richly illuminated examples, because there is far more money to be made by selling them off page by page than by keeping them whole.

From Heartbreak to Hope: A Maine Father’s Unlikely Journey, One Year After the Lewiston Massacre

Boston Magazine • 9 Oct 2024 • ~7200 words • Archive Link

In the aftermath of the Lewiston mass shooting, Arthur Barnard navigates his grief as he grapples with the loss of his son, Artie. This piece chronicles Arthur's journey from heartbreak to a newfound purpose in advocating for gun law reform in Maine. It captures his quest to honor his son's memory while confronting the complexities of gun culture in a state known for its leniency.

In the aftermath of the shooting, though, a new set of questions consumed the 63-year-old father of seven and grandfather of 20, who became the only victim’s family member to speak out for gun law reform in a state grappling with its stance on firearms. He challenged everything—private sale loopholes, the legality of semiautomatic rifles, you name it. It gnawed at him how Maine had gotten sloppy with its gun laws. How the state required registration for cars but not for all firearms. It didn’t make sense.

Leo Strauss Was a Theorist of Counterrevolution

jacobin.com • 11 Oct 2024 • ~6200 words

This essay provides an examination of the political philosophy of Leo Strauss, a 20th century thinker who had a significant influence on neoconservatism in the United States. It explores Strauss's views on elitism, his critique of liberalism and democracy, and his advocacy for a "tyranny of the wise" - ideas that have had lasting impact on conservative and authoritarian political thought.

This search for control makes Strauss a cynic in relation to power and its application. While the philosopher kings emerge from Plato’s cave and strive toward the light of knowledge, the democratic masses must be guided in their natural ignorance. The “faith in universal enlightenment,” he writes, has obscured “from a few generations” the “importance of ‘propaganda’” and only now is one becoming aware of the “need for vulgar rhetoric” as the rhetoric for the vulgar.

The Staggering Price You’re Paying for America’s Nuclear Makeover

New York Times • 10 Oct 2024 • ~4700 words • Archive Link

As the U.S. military embarks on a $1.7 trillion modernization of its nuclear arsenal, the implications stretch far beyond the construction sites scattered across the nation. This piece provides an in-depth look at this effort as it examines the construction of new nuclear submarines, uranium facilities, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and plutonium production facilities across the country, and questions whether this unprecedented nuclear revitalization is necessary and whether it risks igniting another arms race.

If you don’t live where the submarines are welded or the missile silos are dug, there’s a good chance you wouldn’t know it’s happening. The federal government has said little about the plan in public, outside of congressional hearings and strategy papers, or the vast amount being spent. There has been no significant debate. The billion-dollar programs move under the radar. At a time when funding for politicized issues such as climate change, foreign military aid and border security are under a microscope, this issue miraculously appears to have sidestepped the crossfire.

Inside the Companies That Set Sports Gambling Odds

Bloomberg.com • 11 Oct 2024 • ~4750 words • Archive Link

In the ever-expanding world of sports gambling, data and algorithms plays a crucial role in setting the odds that keep bettors engaged. This piece explores how companies like Sportradar have transformed this landscape, relying on a blend of advanced technology and statistical modeling to predict outcomes across a staggering variety of sports. This piece delves into the behind-the-scenes operations that fuel the betting industry, revealing the interplay between traditional practices and modern innovations.

The great data deluge has allowed bookmakers to offer more: more odds, more sports, faster in-game bets. At the heart of this ultramodern oddsmaking is a 19th century probability model known as the Poisson distribution. Named after the French mathematician who developed it, the model has been applied to a host of purposes: counting photons, estimating DNA mutations, assessing the risk of large earthquakes and, once, calculating the frequency with which Prussian soldiers were accidentally killed by horse kicks. In his original paper, though, Poisson proposed its use to judge a gambler’s prospects in a game of chance.

The Anatomical Quirk That Saved Dr. No

Nautilus • 11 Oct 2024 • ~3400 words

This piece explores the fascinating topic of human organ asymmetry, focusing on the condition of situs inversus where the internal organs are reversed. It delves into the history of how this anatomical quirk was discovered, the underlying developmental biology behind it, and how it can both save lives (as in the case of the fictional character Dr. No) and lead to serious birth defects.

The process by which this happens is almost implausibly baroque. I am a molecular biologist, and in my 30 years of studying embryos, I’ve found few things quite so fantastical as the tortuous route embryos take to separate right from left. It’s fitting, then, that the story of how we came to understand these mysteries is equally tortuous. It’s not simply a story of developmental biology, but one of chronic coughing, sperm that can’t swim, a young cardiology fellow, and Japanese street food. Oddly enough, the story opens with another spy, and another doctor named Julius.

Marshall Plans

Phenomenal World • 11 Oct 2024 • ~2500 words

At the recent UN General Assembly, Brazil's President Lula criticized the global financial system, calling it a “Marshall Plan in reverse” that burdens the poorest countries while enriching the richest. This article explores the implications of Lula's statement and the contrasting proposals for a "green Marshall Plan" from the US and China. The piece examines the limitations and shortcomings of these proposals, highlighting the disconnect between what developing countries need and what the US and China are willing to provide in terms of finance, technology transfer, and support for local manufacturing.

The geoeconomic contest between the US and China rests on which of the two can forge domestic political coalitions that meet the demand of developing countries for local manufacturing value add in green value chains, without which the South will remain merely an export market or a resource colony.