The benefit of doubt
Maize is a triannual magazine about technology and the future, and this issue is all about doubt. The idea, as editor-in-chief Matteo Scanni writes in his opening editorial, is to defend the “art of doubting” as something necessary to combat disinformation. The magazine is a kind of defence of uncertainty.
There are less and more engaging interpretations of this theme. Articles by business leaders (including the president and CEO of Yves Saint Laurent) offer relatively dry takes on the trials of decision making. More interesting are a series of left field contributions, including a double-page spread devoted to moments of doubt in cinema (eg. Sophie’s Choice), and a history of the crossword by Italian cartoonist Paolo Bacilieri, partly told in the form of a graphic novel.
In my favourite piece in the issue, Don Luca Peyron, a former lawyer appointed by the Vatican to try and equip the catholic church for the digital age, is interviewed. Questions include “How can one encounter God today”, and the answers are lengthy, and often surprisingly funny (praying online is advised). Doubt is shown, on these pages, to be something both creative and oddly desperate.
