Earlier this year, British artist Damien Hirst created “The Virtues”, a series of cherry blossom prints each named after one of the eight virtues of bushido – Japan’s old samurai code. Which is his favourite? “I like politeness,” he says, on a video call from his London studio. This is such an unexpected answer that he pulls out his phone, politely, to confirm it’s on the bushido list and, yes, it’s between mercy and honesty. “Politeness seems to be the weakest but there’s incredible strength in it,” he says. Hirst loves apparent contradictions and he loves conversational riffing so he...