I haven't read the interview, but I've been hanging out with this Dutch designer the last few weeks and talking about this idea of the decadence of the West. She definitely feels, coming from Europe and coming to and working in China and Korea often, that Europe is kind of closed and static whereas there's a sense of hope and possibility in Asia at the moment. For instance, an architect in Holland won't get to build a building until they're in their 50's, whereas in China she was meeting 22 year olds who're already expected to have had a few buildings under their belt. Of course it may be a bubble, but I think it might be the case that Asia is the new America, especially maybe for Europeans and certain classes of business people and professionals from every field that Asia is the place where you can go and really get things done and experiment in a way which isnt possible anymore in Europe or America or the West in general. I have a similar sense, though never having been to Europe or the US, in comparing Australia to Asia. This begs the question of why this might be the case, so here's a proposition; what if 'development' is entropic or innately decadent, that a so called 'developing' society is a society of dynamism and constant change and possibility and that a 'developed' society is essentially stagnant or decaying in a way, like you reach a tipping point where the negative externalities of the dynamic force of the economy overwhelms it's social wellbeing of the people or something like that.
That Dutch designer teaches in the 'Department of Well being' in a design academy in Rotterdam by the way.
I haven't read the interview, but I've been hanging out with this Dutch designer the last few weeks and talking about this idea of the decadence of the West. She definitely feels, coming from Europe and coming to and working in China and Korea often, that Europe is kind of closed and static whereas there's a sense of hope and possibility in Asia at the moment. For instance, an architect in Holland won't get to build a building until they're in their 50's, whereas in China she was meeting 22 year olds who're already expected to have had a few buildings under their belt.
ReplyDeleteOf course it may be a bubble, but I think it might be the case that Asia is the new America, especially maybe for Europeans and certain classes of business people and professionals from every field that Asia is the place where you can go and really get things done and experiment in a way which isnt possible anymore in Europe or America or the West in general. I have a similar sense, though never having been to Europe or the US, in comparing Australia to Asia. This begs the question of why this might be the case, so here's a proposition; what if 'development' is entropic or innately decadent, that a so called 'developing' society is a society of dynamism and constant change and possibility and that a 'developed' society is essentially stagnant or decaying in a way, like you reach a tipping point where the negative externalities of the dynamic force of the economy overwhelms it's social wellbeing of the people or something like that.
That Dutch designer teaches in the 'Department of Well being' in a design academy in Rotterdam by the way.