Ego and Soul: the modern West in search of meaning
About this ebook
In this substantially revised edition of Ego and Soul, John Carroll examines the battlegrounds across which a struggle for meaning is being fought — including work, sport, intimacy, the university, shopping, tourism, computers, democracy, and a retreat into nature.
On the one side, depressive pessimism, rancour, and disenchantment have arisen, accompanied by rampant consumerism. The upper-middle-class elites, with their high culture, have lost their way. On the other side, much of what people still do disguises a search for meaning. Groping unconsciously for direction, inhabitants of the modern West are even, in their ordinary and everyday lives, casting lines into the transcendent in the hope of a catch. And there is success.
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.
About the author
John Carroll is professor of sociology at La Trobe University in Melbourne. His books include The Western Dreaming, Terror: a meditation on the meaning of September 11, The Existential Jesus, Ego and Soul: the modern west in search of meaning, and Greek Pilgrimage.
