I recently re-read Colin Feltham's Keeping Ourselves in the Dark. His career has mostly been in the field of counselling, and he has come to doubt some of the claims of talking therapies; his degree is in theology, and he is a certain atheist; he entertained many hopes for a better world reached by politics and human goodness and now embraces what he calls 'depressive realism'. It's a brilliant book. A tonic for shallow optimism about the human race. His title gives the clue: Keeping ourselves in the Dark.
He coins various terms, including anthropathology. And he develops that to speak of 'anthropathological enmeshment' which he defines as “the common experience of (i) finding oneself in a difficult, painful situation; (ii) recognizing the high costs, perhaps impossibility, of extrication, and (iii) experiencing a sense of impotence”. He gives this example: “you are stressed by working conditions but are trapped by financial constraints and, even as you visualize an escape, such as downshifting, you recognize that such a move will simply enmesh you in a different set of difficulties. Most of us are enmeshed in the conditions of capitalism but recognize that the alternatives of homelessness, voluntary austerity, communism, or anarchism also have their unattractive aspects.”
A superficial reading will make you conclude that this is a gloomy book. In fact, it's gloriously liberating.
He coins various terms, including anthropathology. And he develops that to speak of 'anthropathological enmeshment' which he defines as “the common experience of (i) finding oneself in a difficult, painful situation; (ii) recognizing the high costs, perhaps impossibility, of extrication, and (iii) experiencing a sense of impotence”. He gives this example: “you are stressed by working conditions but are trapped by financial constraints and, even as you visualize an escape, such as downshifting, you recognize that such a move will simply enmesh you in a different set of difficulties. Most of us are enmeshed in the conditions of capitalism but recognize that the alternatives of homelessness, voluntary austerity, communism, or anarchism also have their unattractive aspects.”
A superficial reading will make you conclude that this is a gloomy book. In fact, it's gloriously liberating.