Cut off in the literal age. Owen Barfield & Carl Jung on alienation and political disillusionment
There is a link between rising levels of mental-ill health and political disillusionment. Feeling cut off is not just an economic and psychological problem, but is a symptom of a wider alienation arising from modern consciousness. Owen Barfield argued that contemporary political problems are fundamentally due to estrangement not only from others but from ourselves, due to a loss of soul and spirit to materialism and literalism. As Carl Jung put it, the gods have become diseases – diseases o...