The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world. — Max Weber: Essays in Sociology By Wayne Allensworth I craned my neck to see the magnificent ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I felt the exhilarating sensation of a tingle running through my scalp as I gazed at the Creation, the Fall, the Expulsion from the...
By Wayne Allensworth That time is past,And all its aching joys are now no more — William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey Sometime in the 1990s I admitted to myself that a return to our golden age, however one might imagine it, could never happen. Not a golden age, not even a silver one. A baser metal would have to serve. In researching my book, The Russian Question: Nationalism...
By Wayne Allensworth You only live twice Once when you are born And once when you look death in the face — James Bond, after Japanese poet Basho in You Only Live Twice My first encounter with James Bond at the movies was quite memorable, partly because I was trying to watch Goldfinger from the backseat of our family car at Thunderbird Drive-in in Houston, Texas, and partly because my...
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By Wayne Allensworth (Edvard Munch, The Scream) Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold… William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming This is the third of my articles on Iain McGilchrist’s hemisphere theory, and its implications. An overview of his ideas is found in A Hole in the World and Between Two Worlds: Iain...
By Wayne Allensworth In Act 3, Scene 2 of King Henry IV, part II, Shakespeare’s grand comic knave, Falstaff, reminisces about old times with his friend Justice Shallow, particularly a memorable night more than 50 years in the past. They recall a woman, Jane Nightwork, who, like Falstaff and Shallow, has fallen victim to advancing age, as time flows on, and the chimes will eventually toll for the...
By Wayne Allensworth (Factfile.org) The man who was our greatest living writer, a man who wrestled with God along with the ghosts of Faulkner, Melville, Dostoevsky, and Conrad, has passed away at the age of 89. May he rest in peace after having struggled mightily as an artist with the big questions—meaning, purpose, God and Man, life and death, good and evil–he never let go of in his...
By Wayne Allensworth I’ve always known there were dogs that wouldn’t hunt, and that you should let sleeping dogs lie. I’ve walked in high cotton, bit off more than I could chew, kept tabs on something or someone, had to be careful what I’ve wished for more than once, and have been disturbed to find the fly in the buttermilk (or ointment). Your humble servant is always fixing to do...
By Wayne Allensworth Some readers have occasionally criticized my writing for amounting to “mere” nostalgia, which is apparently supposed to be a bad thing. To that I plead guilty. Americans have long been conditioned to think of themselves as living in the land of tomorrow, a tomorrow without any yesterdays. I look back to a past that never seems distant to me, as dreamlike as it can be. Without...
By Wayne Allensworth To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme (Herman Melville, Moby Dick) I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things (Isiah 45:7) Did he who made the Lamb make thee? (William Blake, The Tyger) From Rockwell Kent’s illustrations for Moby Dick Call me Ishmael…One of the most memorable opening lines...
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