There is massive contemporary interest in Darwin and ethics. I have finished the book I mentioned a few posts back (http://www.ethicsoffashion.com/courting-birds-huizinga-right/). The author’s argument is that evolution develops along two fronts, and one of these is aesthetic. Though Darwin himself argued this, contemporary Darwinism does not agree. It is scientific orthodoxy that biological…
Anyone who follows the fashion pages knows that since Brexit it has become axiomatic that fashion is global and that means fashion is on the side of the angels. For this axiom fully on display, see: https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/wjjjay/an-interview-with-maria-grazia-chiuri-dior. Of course, I have seen no fashion page defending this idea philosophically. In an earlier post, I point…
A little while ago over at the Law & Liberty website, I published a moral analysis of trusts. In the background was a wish to flesh out the moral character of high fashion. I do not know the percentage but I presume almost all haute couture is bought with monies disbursed from offshore trusts. Alta…
*It is with great delight that I introduce readers to Chris Wojtulewicz. Chris is a Catholic theologian, living in England and interested in post-modernism. It’s my hope that Chris will be a regular contributor. Chris is the author of monographs on medieval mysticism, especially Meister Eckhart, and is currently at work on a book about…
A professor of ornithology at Yale has penned a fantastic book which I plan on writing a bit about. The book is by Richard Prum and is called The Evolution of Beauty (Doubleday, 2017). The book argues that beauty is sui generis and an independent driver of evolution unable to be reduced to natural selection.…
A most interesting article about pre-historic Britons (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/08/09/ancient-britons-ate-dead-carved-mysterious-markings-bones/). Evidence has been found that about 15,000 years ago early Britons ate their dead but then ritually marked the bones. Scarring the bones, researchers speculate, may have been a way to memorialize the dead and even perhaps tell the story of their lives. It is a strange…
Is there a moral obligation to buy the more expensive offering on the American Apparel website? A Canadian clothing company purchased AA when it failed. Gildan is soon to launch a fresh AA website with the novel idea of offering two near-identical options: buy cheaper AA clothing derived from the savings that come from…
Brunello Cucinelli tops the list for Best Dressed Company Award. Regular readers know this is my on-going effort to list those companies which do best and worst on ethical business practice in the fashion industry. The list is incomplete, of course, but inspired mostly by whether a company models itself on the estate, Scheler’s theory…
A new memoir of Andy Warhol is out written by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni (http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/andy-warhol-natasha-fraser-cavassoni-memoir-captures-catholic-side-w495433). Fraser-Cavassoni was with Warhol in his last years and her memoir stresses the role Catholicism played in his life and art. I will be reading this and saying more. For now, merely passing on the good news! Update: finally got a…