ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests some ways in which we can and do live differently from the materialism of modernity. It wishes to take a more prosaic path and suggests that Vladimir Solovyov's description of egoism can be taken as a particular trait of modernity. Solovyov shows that egoism involves not the denigration of the self, but the denigration of others. The chapter addresses the difference between being good and actually leading a good life and will do so by again relying on fiction, in the form of a novel by John Irving. The novel tells us that pure egoism can be worked through, given the right conditions. The chapter relies on literary and cinematic examples to press author's case. It discusses not science but a cultural condition, and so the cultural artefacts of literature and cinema are valid expressions of that condition.
