If the present alienation of mind from nature, i.e., the Cartesian reality principle, is to be overcome, there "surely must be a climate of extreme depression amounting in many quarters to despair... One way or another there is an opportunity here for a good writer... who should fill out in terms of concrete events and experiences the issues... If a society is really faced with startling changes and fairly imminent ones (and there is a good deal of evidence that ours is) it cannot be amiss for a few people here and there to be peering ahead, however inadequately, by way of preparation for them."

Owen Barfield: The Coming Trauma of Materialism