Radix Magazine with Ron Dart: The Timeless Hermann Hesse
In this interview with Matthew Steem, Ron grandly explicates the following points:
- Hermann Hesse's impact on counterculture (including misreads)
- Hesse's connections with other intellectuals (including Martin Buber)
- The Glass Bead Game
- Hesse's exploration of self-discovery
- The balance between contemplation and action, and quiet service to others as a form of true spirituality
- Hesse’s literary and philosophical influences (including, especially, Nietzsche and Jakob Burckhardt)
- The relevance of Hesse’s work today
- Insights on what authentic living is, our tendency toward cultural thinness, and thoughts on political polarization
*This interview will appear in Radix Magazine in the Spring Issue of 2025
Names mentioned in this interview:
C. S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, Evelyn Underhill, Bede Griffiths, George Grant, Stephen Leacock, Erasmus, Roger Scruton, Jordan Peterson, Friedrich Nietzsche, The Beats, Timothy Leary, Noam Chomsky, Dorothy L. Sayers, Jim Forrest, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Whalen, Martin Heidegger, Martin Buber, Seneca, Cicero, Plato, Walt Disney, Julie Andrews, German Pietism, Augustine of Hippo, Homer, Hesiod, Jacob Burckhardt, T.S. Eliot, J.R.R. Tolkien, Oswald Spengler.
Books mentioned:
A Preface to Paradise Lost (C. S. Lewis)
The Chronicles of Narnia (C. S. Lewis)
The Great Divorce (C. S. Lewis)
The Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri)
The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
Hermann Hesse: Phoenix Arising (Ron Dart)
Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse)
Steppenwolf (Hermann Hesse)
The Glass Bead Game (Hermann Hesse)
Peter Camenzind (Hermann Hesse)
Journey to the East (Hermann Hesse)
Under the Wheel (Hermann Hesse)
Demian (Hermann Hesse)
If The War Goes On (Hermann Hesse)
I and Thou (Martin Buber)
War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)
Confessions (St. Augustine)
The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien)
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