Wednesday, January 14, 2015

"Loss of soul" affects us individually and socially

On the Real Clear Religion site, Mark Judge writes about Thomas Moore's classic, Care of the Soul under the headline "What Happened to Our Souls?" After quoting from Moore's Introduction, Judge states:
"Rereading it in 2014, the book seems wiser than ever. With our materialism, imagination-crushing technology, political superficiality, dumb movies, Oprah confessionals, and glib Jon Stewart-snark, the Western world has lost even more soul since Care of the Soul was published in 1992. The budding illness that Moore diagnosed two decades ago has now metastasized and is threatening the life of the patient."
Judge distinguishes between soul and spirit in his observations of contemporary society, turning to music as one of the few places left where soul may be expressed. He cites U2's song "The Troubles," writing "the band observes that the loss of one's soul is far more serious than any social or political problem:

Somebody stepped inside your soul,
Somebody stepped inside your soul,
Little by little they robbed and stole,
'Til somebody else was in control."