Unconscious Civilization

Title: Unconscious Civilization
Author: John R Saul
ISBN: 9780887847318
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc.
Published: 2024
Binding: Paperback
Language: English
Edition: 10th ed.
Number of Pages: 226
Condition Note: Clean, unmarked copy with some edge wear. Good binding. Dust jacket included if issued with one. We ship in recyclable American-made mailers. 100% money-back guarantee on all orders.
Publisher Description:

Governor General's Award Winner

Tenth Anniverary Edition, with a new preface

Our society, John Ralston Saul argues in his 1995 CBC Massey Lectures, is only superficially based on the individual and democracy. Increasingly it is conformist and corporatist, a society in which legitimacy lies with specialist or interest groups and decisions are made through constant negotiations between these groups.

The paradox of our situation is that knowledge has not made us conscious. Instead, we have sought refuge in a world of illusion where language is cut off from reality. Reconnecting language to reality, clarifying what we mean by individualism and democracy, making these realities central to the citizen's life, identifying ideologies in order to control them, these are among the first elements of equilibrium which Saul proposes in these lectures.

John Ralston Saul argues that our society is only superficially based on democracy, and that increasingly it is conformist and corporatist.