Ego and Soul: The Modern West in Search of Meaning
Is the modern West lost in a crisis of meaning, like a rudderless ship pitching and rolling on the swells of existence?. "Or are events like those surrounding the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, signs of something else? Could they be expressions of the contemporary drive to find a myth we can all believe in?. "Ego and Soul is look at where Western society is heading as we approach the new millennium. Modern preoccupations such as work, sport, computers, cars and the celebrity cults of...
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The crisis of meaning is the issue of our time. The old beliefs that guided the West have faded, without credible replacement. Who lives well? What characterizes the good life? More particularly, what may we in the modern West claim about ourselves? And, ultimately, does how we live and what we do make any sense? Concerned for today’s society and its problems as they relate to meaning, faith, belief, morale, moral attachment, and social direction, John Carroll surveys these questions in Ego and Soul. He examines how people in their ordinary and everyday lives grope unconsciously for direction, casting lines into the transcendent in the hope of a catch. He focuses on the main areas of modern life—work, sport, popular culture, family, friendship, intimacy, shopping, tourism, computers, cars, do-it-yourself renovation, our democratic temper, and the retreat into nature. He also examines high culture, the upper-middle-class elites, and the universities, tracing why they have lost their way and failed to provide a language that might help modern people understand their condition. Ego and Soul offers a surprising and compelling new look at the way we live today, and the way we try to make sense of our lives.
1Modern Western culture - five theses1Pt. IPrincipal battle grounds112Work133Sport274The lower middle class and popular culture445Family-intimacy-friendship63Pt. IIThe two-pronged threat: nihilism - consumerism836The upper middle class and high culture857The modern university1048Shopping - consumerism as consolation1189Tourism - the profane quest136Pt. IIIStrategic gains15110Personal computers15311Motor cars16312Democracy17113Nature - anima mundi18714The Diana cult202Pt. IVProspects21315The end of the capitalist-bourgeois golden age21516The deepening sacred breath231Notes255Bibliography269Index275
