Eric Scheske

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Eric Scheske

Eric Scheske

Escaping the Cocooned Mind

Escaping the Cocooned Mind

We’re all wrapped up in rationalist cocoons, spun not by our own hands but by the sticky threads of a world gone mad with reason. Our spit’s in the walls, sure, but we didn’t design the daggone things. We were born into them, raised in them, schooled

Click Once; Scroll for Days

Click Once; Scroll for Days

Monday Essay We all need to break out of our rationalist cocoons. The Cocooned MindWe’re all wrapped up in rationalist cocoons, spun not by our own hands but by the sticky threads of a world gone mad with reason.Eric Scheske's Outside Modern LimitsEric Scheske I'

The Third Way Fever

The Third Way Fever

This modern world’s got a fever, and it ain’t for more cowbell. It’s for third alternatives. Everybody’s itching for that elusive other option, like it’s the last ticket out of a burning city. Ray Oldenburg lit a fuse back in ’89 with The Great Good

Documentary Review. Join or Die

Documentary Review. Join or Die

America’s crumbling civic soul gets a hard look in Join or Die, a documentary riffing on Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone (2000). It’s a 100-minute dirge for the death of social capital, that invisible glue of community that once held this nation together. But for all its otherwise-excellent

And Now We See that Trump is a Gaslighter

And Now We See that Trump is a Gaslighter

Paul Kingsnorth nailed it in 2023 when he said the pandemic response rewired his brain. He saw the unholy trinity of power (Big Government, Big Business, Big Media) weave a narrative so tight it could choke a nation, the kind of thing you’d expect from a dictatorship, not the

Five Reasons to Drink at the Bar

Five Reasons to Drink at the Bar

In the twilight of Western civilization, where the sterile grip of the left hemisphere has throttled the soul out of our culture, the pub stands as a defiant outpost of human connection against the gnostic tide. The churches once held the line too, but many—mainline Protestants, Jesuits, and their

GKC and McGilchrist

GKC and McGilchrist

I ain’t got a shred of hard proof, but I’d wager that G.K. Chesterton’s noggin was rigged with a hulking, boisterous right hemisphere that steamrolled the left like a runaway freight train. That jovial giant’s right hemisphere didn’t just outmuscle its analytical counterpart. It

Hand Me that Loaf of Nothing

Hand Me that Loaf of Nothing

America’s gone and lost its knack for wasting time, and we’re paying a butcher’s bill for it. Young folks, especially, ain’t lingering with each other, not in the aimless, sprawling way that used to stitch souls together. The fallout’s grim: depression’s up, suicide’s

Twisting Your Mind Back to Health

Twisting Your Mind Back to Health

Grab some nicotine and check out some art. Your right hemisphere needs the help.

A Local Bar is a Good Place to Be

A Local Bar is a Good Place to Be

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a splendid ode to local bars last week [https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/insight/2022/01/09/A-good-place-to-be-A-local-bar-can-be-more-than-a-place-to-get-a-drink/stories/202201090022] . Two people, neither from Pittsburgh, recommended it to me. It's the type of thing that could only be written by someone with a Catholic