The Hungry Soul

"Our troubles are not economic or political, they are intellectual, moral, and spiritual. Our souls still crave the drama of what Tolstoy called "real life": immediately meaningful work, genuine love and intimacy, true ties to place and persons, kinship with nature, family, and community, dignity, understanding, and an openness to the divine. But real life has become nearly impossible as we have ceased to know and honor its forms. We are, of course, too sophisticated to allow ourselves to be self-deceived, to embrace any grand illusions. We would sooner quit the scene than live a noble lie, and so we continue (nervously) to applaud the intellectual demystifiers and debunkers of our traditions and mores. We fuss over our decadent art, our atonal music, and our haute cuisine. But when the lights grow dimmer and we look into the mirror, we do not like what we see: We look even to ourselves like hungry men who have been offered nothing but sawdust and tinsel." --Leon Kass, The Hungry Soul