Self and Soul A Defense of Ideals

This is a book about ideals— and about their potential disappear-
ance from the world.
It is no secret: culture in the West has become progressively more
practical, materially oriented, and skeptical. When I look out at my
students, about to gradu ate, I see people who are in the pro cess of
choosing a way to make money, a way to succeed, a strategy for get-
ting on in life. (Or they are, in a few instances, rejecting the materi-
ally based life, though often with no cogent alternative to pursue in
its stead.) It’s no news: we’re more and more a worldly culture, a
money- based culture geared to the life of getting and spending,
trying and succeeding, and reaching for more and more. We are a
pragmatic people. We do not seek perfection in thought or art, war
or faith. The profound stories about heroes and saints are passing
from our minds. We are anything but idealists. From the halls of
academe, where a debunking realism is the order of the day, to the
fl oor of the market, where a debunking realism is also the order of
the day, nothing is in worse repute than the ideal. Unfettered capi-
talism runs amok; Nature is ravaged; the rich gorge; prisons are full
to bursting; the poor cry out in their misery and no one seems to
hear. Lust of Self rules the day.

Polemical Introduction

The Triumph of Self