By Wayne Allensworth Yes, it was just a speech, and Vance is a politician, but he went to the core of the problem we face in the political realm in his remarks at the Republican National Convention: Vance was heartfelt and, I believe, sincere in what he said last night. America is not an abstraction, we shouldn’t be asked to fight and strive and die for abstractions, but instead for a place and a...
By Wayne Allensworth Initial reports on an event of this magnitude are usually garbled or erroneous, and we will undoubtedly learn more about what took place in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday soon enough. But, as of Monday morning, there is enough to go on to offer some preliminary thoughts. Trump probably put this election away by surviving the attack and showing some grit in doing so. The...
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 To this end I was born, and for this cause came I into the world,that I should bear witness unto the truth — John 18:37 I had come to see Mr. K knowing that his birthday was in June, so I asked him what the exact date was. He couldn’t remember. He took a notebook from the old-fashioned TV tray that sits by his recliner and thumbed through the pages. A thin smile passed...
By Wayne Allensworth If there be any glory in war, let it rest on men like these — Dedication to Audie Murphy’s To Hell and Back The elaborate and politicized commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, held on a bluff overlooking what had been Omaha Beach on that momentous day, provoked a wave of memories and emotions in me that I had not anticipated...
By Wayne Allensworth Professor John Mearsheimer is a leading proponent of a realist foreign policy based on national interests and maintaining a balance of power among the major countries. In the video below, however, Professor Mearsheimer admits that the theory, which assumes that the great powers act according to a realist view of the world, doesn’t always work. A number of wildcards can skew...
By Wayne Allensworth And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven... Revelation 8:1 In Fear and Trembling, Soren Kierkegaard wrote that faith begins precisely where thought stops. What then is faith? In answering that question, YouTube’s “Boy In The Badlands” channel renders a very perceptive interpretation of Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film The Seventh Seal...
By Wayne Allensworth It was November in Moscow, 24 years ago. I was taking a walk, killing a little time before my next meeting with one of my Russian contacts. As I had often done in the past, I walked across Red Square, past the red walls and golden domes of the Kremlin. The air was cold, but not yet frosty, and I pulled my collar closer around my neck. I was headed for the Bolshoy Moscow...
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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