Monocle Quarterly Journal
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MONOCLE MONOCLE QUARTERLY QUARTERLY JOURNAL QUARTERLY JOURNAL Banking. Economics. Politics. VOLUME 4 ISSUE 2 VOLUME 4 • QUARTER 3 2019 VOLUME 4 ISSUE 2 QUARTER 3 2019 MONOCLE QUARTERLY JOURNAL Banking. Economics. Politics. VOLUME 4 ISSUE 2 QUARTER 3 2019 Published by Monocle Solutions (Pty) Ltd 13th Floor, Greenpark Corner, 3 Lower Road Morningside, Sandton South Africa [email protected] www.monocle.co.za MONOCLE QUARTERLY JOURNAL ISSN 2519-0784 Volume 4 Issue 2 Quarter 3 2019 Copyright © 2019 Monocle Solutions (Pty) Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Editor: David Buckham Authors: Chris Straeuli and Robyn Wilkinson Contributor: Catia De Freitas Cover and book designer: Vanessa Wilson Typesetting and production: Quickfox Publishing Printing: Tandym Print, Cape Town Photo credits p.6, Lloyd Arnold, Wikimedia Commons (Ernest Hemingway); p.7, Carl Van Vechten, United States Library of Congress (Gertrude Stein); p.13, Adam Cuerden, Wikimedia Commons (Katherine Johnson); p.14, Recuerdos de Pandora, Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0 (Kathrine Switzer); p.53, Cs-wolves, Wikimedia Commons (Jon Mould); p.54, Marco Verch, Flickr CC BY 2.0 (Zwift Setup); p.58, Volkswagen AG, Wikimedia Commons (Martin Winterkorn); p.61, de:Benutzer:Hase, Wikimedia Commons (Lance Armstrong); p.68, Author Unknown, Gente Magazine (Walter Bonatti); p.74, Tom Frost, Wikimedia Commons (Yvon Chouinard) FROM THE CEO t is with signifi cant pride that we publish this, to obey the rules that govern our behaviour, both on ourI seventh issue of the Monocle Quarterly Journal. the fi eld of play as well as within the realm of business. It is no mean feat to produce a business journal in And yet also, we seek to explore what it is that drives the fi rst place, but, in the midst of these complicated us essentially, as human beings, irrespective of social and challenging times – whilst also in the pursuit of boundaries altogether, to pursue success with such growing our business – we are particularly proud of enormous passion and intent. getting this one to print. I ask only that you keep an open mind, and that you Th is issue is titled Fair Play and it attempts to tolerate this attempt to further unravel the meaning of contrast the world of sport and games – that is, the work, and of sport , and of our lives themselves. It is a world of leisure – with the world in which we spend privilege to possess this unique platform, this journal. the majority of our waking hours, the world of We can only hope that we have done it some justice. commerce and business. It is somewhat unusual for a Enjoy reading! business journal, particularly a journal that represents such a specifi cally focused business as ours, to cover more general and somewhat esoteric topics. We have done this before in prior issues to some extent, such as in #Work and Deep Learning, but in this issue, we truly strike out on a new path altogether. Th e intrinsic idea behind this issue is to experi- ment with a stylistic literary device employed by Ernest Hemingway in his early work – to deliberately interrupt one narrative with another in order to elicit a more nuanced and emotive response in the reader. We are seeking to explore what it is that compels us CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 6 2 RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE 8 3 THE BOSTON MARATHON 11 4 DEATH AT SANTA ANITA 15 5 BAD ACTORS 19 6 THE SPIRIT OF THE GAME 23 7 THE LOSS OF INNOCENCE 28 8 SCHADENFREUDE 32 9 A PRIVATE LIFE 37 10 THE GREATEST SHOWMAN ON EARTH 40 11 PUSHING THROUGH THE PAIN 44 12 COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE 48 13 MINOR OFFENCES 52 14 SYSTEMATIC CHEATING 56 15 VIVE LE TOUR 60 16 THE FUTILITY OF SABOTAGE 64 17 THE PUREST PURSUIT 68 18 THE RELUCTANT BUSINESSMAN 72 19 A TRIBUTE TO DUNCAN ELLIOTT 76 MONOCLE QUARTERLY JOURNAL | FAIR PLAY 1 INTRODUCTION he image of Ernest Hemingway that has been of the narrative lies. Hemingway’s style changed litera- establishedT in the Western mind is one of a rugged and ture forever and became a major influence on many adventurous man, who fought bravely in World War I, other great writers, including Thomas Pynchon, JD and returned home from the horrors he endured there to Salinger, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Bret Easton Ellis write about masculine pursuits such as fishing, hunting and Anne Beattie. Hemingway received the Nobel Prize and bull fighting. Regarded as a truly unique personality in Literature in 1954 in recognition of his profound of the 20th century, there is nothing – not his four contribution to the art of prose. marriages, nor his alcoholism, nor his death by suicide In total, Hemingway’s oeuvre includes seven novels, – that has tarnished his reputation as a great American six short-story collections and two non-fiction works. writer or detracted from the canon of literature that One of his short stories, which we take inspiration from 6 remains his legacy. in this issue of the Monocle Quarterly Journal, is titled The true art of Hemingway’s work lies, of course, “Big Two-Hearted River” (1925). On the surface, the in his unique style of writing, which he developed story is about a young man named Nick, who journeys during his time as a foreign correspondent in Paris in by train into the countryside to go fishing. However, the early 1920s. There he immersed himself in a group interrupting his seemingly benign adventure into nature of expatriate modernist writers and artists, including is a short vignette that describes the hanging of Sam Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who Cardinella. Though little information is provided about became known as the “Lost Generation”. For Heming- way, the most influential among these was a writer and art collector named Gertrude Stein, who became a close friend and mentor. Hemingway regularly frequented Stein’s salon, at 27 rue de Fleurus, where he met painters such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Juan Gris. Stein encouraged Hemingway to take inspiration from the great works of these artists, by studying the way in which the full meaning of the canvas is elicited through the use of very small, repetitive brush strokes. What resulted was a style of writing marked by simple language and clipped declarative statements, together with a completely original use of repetition. Hemingway’s narratives are markedly minimalistic, demonstrating what he referred to as the Iceberg Theory. In this approach, what is explicit- ly articulated is only a tiny piece of the story; rather it is in what is unspoken, in that which is happening ERNEST HEMINGWAY underneath the obvious action, where the true meaning INTRODUCTION who Sam Cardinella is or what he has done to deserve a sentence of death, the brief description of the hanging is visceral and disturbing. And although the story of Sam Cardinella is completely unrelated to Nick’s story, the hanging has a subliminal effect on the reader’s mind and evokes a sense of violence and malice in the fishing story that was entirely absent before. The two stories, though completely distinct, illuminate one another in a very powerful way. The structure of “Big Two-Hearted River” has in- spired us in this issue of the Monocle Quarterly Journal, as we continue to attempt to examine the political and metaphysical meaning of the western world, driven pre- dominantly as it is by business and commerce, and by the neo-liberal capitalist framework. Drawing on Heming- way’s distinctive style, we hope to illuminate certain GERTRUDE STEIN aspects of the stories that emanate from this realm, by placing them alongside famous sporting stories. By Of particular interest to us are the instances in which locating a counterpoint in sport for each of the business a particular law is transgressed in terms of the system of stories we cover, we have initiated a line of ques tion- governance that contains the game. In some cases, this is ing into how the world of business works and what its owing to a mistake or an uncontrollable external force, rules are – as well as what it means when these rules are in others, the very worst aspects of human nature are 7 broken. exposed as the spirit of fair play is completely subsumed Underlying this story-telling approach is the ques- by the individual’s drive to win. In this issue of the Monocle tion of why we, as a society, are so enamoured with Quarterly Journal, we interrupt each of the sport stories sport – a series of actions that essentially serve no real with corollaries from the world of business and com- purpose and which are, when viewed in their most basic merce, where similar kinds of behaviour have breached form, completely meaningless. The answer, we suspect, the laws, both written and unwritten, that govern how is because in the world of sport, there are a set of defined this substantially important part of our society operates. rules that determine how the game should be played and Through this methodology we wish to create a which create a clear ethical code that governs all actions pastiche of documentary stories that seek to illuminate taken within the context of the game. There is a technique the complexity of human nature as it expresses itself both to playing successfully, fairness is guaranteed – at least in sport and in business, and where the consequences in theory – and winners and losers are determined by of transgressing the rules of fair play are both negligible the strict application of the rules that govern the game.