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螚 魏慰蠀位蟿慰蠉蟻伪 蟿慰蠀 谓伪蟻魏喂蟽蟽喂蟽渭慰蠉: 螚 伪渭蔚蟻喂魏伪谓喂魏萎 味蠅萎 蟽蔚 渭喂伪 蔚蟺慰蠂萎 渭蔚喂慰蠉渭蔚谓蠅谓 蟺蟻慰蟽未慰魏喂蠋谓
[...] 韦慰 尾喂尾位委慰 伪蠀蟿蠈, 蠅蟽蟿蠈蟽慰, 蟺蔚蟻喂纬蟻维蠁蔚喂 苇谓伪谓 蟿蟻蠈蟺慰 味蠅萎蟼 蟺慰蠀 蟺蔚胃伪委谓蔚喂 - 蟿畏谓 魏慰蠀位蟿慰蠉蟻伪 蟿慰蠀 伪谓蟿伪纬蠅谓喂蟽蟿喂魏慰蠉 伪蟿慰渭喂魏喂蟽渭慰蠉, 蟺慰蠀 蟽蟿畏谓 蟺伪蟻伪魏渭萎 蟿畏蟼 苇蠂蔚喂 慰未畏纬萎蟽蔚喂 蟿畏 位慰纬喂魏萎 蟿慰蠀 伪蟿慰渭喂魏喂蟽渭慰蠉 蟽蟿慰 维魏蟻慰 蟿慰蠀 蟺慰位苇渭慰蠀 蠈位蠅谓 蔚谓伪谓蟿委慰谓 蠈位蠅谓, 蟿畏谓 蔚蟺喂未委蠅尉畏 蟿畏蟼 蔚蠀蟿蠀蠂委伪蟼 蟽蟿慰 伪未喂苇尉慰未慰 蟿畏蟼 谓伪蟻魏喂蟽蟽喂蟽蟿喂魏萎蟼 蔚谓伪蟽蠂蠈位畏蟽畏蟼 蟿慰蠀 魏伪胃蔚谓蠈蟼 渭蔚 蟿慰谓 蔚伪蠀蟿蠈 蟿慰蠀. 螣喂 蟽蟿蟻伪蟿畏纬喂魏苇蟼 谓伪蟻魏喂蟽蟽喂蟽蟿喂魏萎蟼 蔚蟺喂尾委蠅蟽畏蟼 蟺伪蟻慰蠀蟽喂维味慰谓蟿伪喂 蟿蠋蟻伪 蠅蟼 伪蟺蔚位蔚蠀胃苇蟻蠅蟽畏 伪蟺蠈 蟿喂蟼 魏伪蟿伪蟺喂蔚蟽蟿喂魏苇蟼 蟽蠀谓胃萎魏蔚蟼 蟿慰蠀 蟺伪蟻蔚位胃蠈谓蟿慰蟼, 魏伪喂 蟺蟻慰魏伪位慰蠉谓 苇蟿蟽喂 渭委伪 芦蟺慰位喂蟿喂蟽蟿喂魏萎 蔚蟺伪谓维蟽蟿伪蟽畏禄, 蟺慰蠀 伪谓伪蟺伪蟻维纬蔚喂 蟿伪 蠂蔚喂蟻蠈蟿蔚蟻伪 蠂伪蟻伪魏蟿畏蟻喂蟽蟿喂魏维 蟿慰蠀 魏伪蟿伪蟻蟻苇慰谓蟿慰蟼 蟺慰位喂蟿喂蟽渭慰蠉, 蟿慰谓 慰蟺慰委慰 喂蟽蠂蠀蟻委味蔚蟿伪喂 蠈蟿喂 蔚蟺喂魏蟻委谓蔚喂. 螣 蟺慰位喂蟿喂蟽渭喂魏蠈蟼 蟻喂味慰蟽蟺伪蟽蟿喂蟽渭蠈蟼 苇蠂蔚喂 纬委谓蔚喂 蟿蠈蟽慰 蟿慰蠀 蟽蠀蟻渭慰蠉, 魏伪喂 蟿蠈蟽慰 慰位苇胃蟻喂慰蟼 蟽蟿畏谓 蠀蟺慰蟽蟿萎蟻喂尉畏 蟺慰蠀 蟺蟻慰蟽蠁苇蟻蔚喂 伪胃苇位畏蟿伪 蟽蟿慰 status quo (魏伪蟿蔚蟽蟿畏渭苇谓慰), 蠋蟽蟿蔚 慰蟺慰喂伪未萎蟺慰蟿蔚 魏蟻喂蟿喂魏萎 蟿畏蟼 蟽蠉纬蠂蟻慰谓畏蟼 魏慰喂谓蠅谓委伪蟼 蔚位蟺委味蔚喂 谓伪 蔚喂蟽未蠉蟽蔚喂 魏维蟿蠅 伪蟺蠈 蟿畏谓 蔚蟺喂蠁维谓蔚喂伪, 蟺蟻苇蟺蔚喂 谓伪 伪蟽魏蔚委 蟽蠀纬蠂蟻蠈谓蠅蟼 魏蟻喂蟿喂魏萎 魏伪喂 蟽蟿伪 蟺蔚蟻喂蟽蟽蠈蟿蔚蟻伪 伪蟺蠈 蠈蟽伪 蟽萎渭蔚蟻伪 蟺伪蟻慰蠀蟽喂维味慰谓蟿伪喂 蠀蟺蠈 蟿慰 蠈谓慰渭伪 蟿慰蠀 蟻喂味慰蟽蟺伪蟽蟿喂蟽渭慰蠉. [...] (螒蟺蠈 蟿慰谓 蟺蟻蠈位慰纬慰 蟿畏蟼 苇魏未慰蟽畏蟼)
266 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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19.9k people want to read
About the author
Christopher Lasch
37听books320听followersChristopher "Kit" Lasch (June 1, 1932 鈥� February 14, 1994) was an American historian, moralist, and social critic who was a history professor at the University of Rochester.
Lasch sought to use history as a tool to awaken American society to the pervasiveness with which major institutions, public and private, were eroding the competence and independence of families and communities. He strove to create a historically informed social criticism that could teach Americans how to deal with rampant consumerism, proletarianization, and what he famously labeled the 'culture of narcissism.'
His books, including The New Radicalism in America (1965), Haven in a Heartless World (1977), The Culture of Narcissism (1979), and The True and Only Heaven (1991), and The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy published posthumously in 1996 were widely discussed and reviewed. The Culture of Narcissism became a surprise best-seller and won the National Book Award in the category Current Interest (paperback).
Lasch was always a critic of liberalism, and a historian of liberalism's discontents, but over time his political perspective evolved dramatically. In the 1960s, he was a neo-Marxist and acerbic critic of Cold War liberalism. During the 1970s, he began to become a far more iconoclastic figure, fusing cultural conservatism with a Marxian critique of capitalism, and drawing on Freud-influenced critical theory to diagnose the ongoing deterioration that he perceived in American culture and politics. His writings during this period are considered contradictory. They are sometimes denounced by feminists and hailed by conservatives for his apparent defense of the traditional family. But as he explained in one of his books The Minimal Self, "it goes without saying that sexual equality in itself remains an eminently desirable objective...". Moreover, in Women and the Common Life, Lasch clarified that urging women to abandon the household and forcing them into a position of economic dependence, in the workplace, pointing out the importance of professional careers does not entail liberation, as long as these careers are governed by the requirements of corporate economy.
He eventually concluded that an often unspoken but pervasive faith in "Progress" tended to make Americans resistant to many of his arguments. In his last major works he explored this theme in depth, suggesting that Americans had much to learn from the suppressed and misunderstood Populist and artisan movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Lasch sought to use history as a tool to awaken American society to the pervasiveness with which major institutions, public and private, were eroding the competence and independence of families and communities. He strove to create a historically informed social criticism that could teach Americans how to deal with rampant consumerism, proletarianization, and what he famously labeled the 'culture of narcissism.'
His books, including The New Radicalism in America (1965), Haven in a Heartless World (1977), The Culture of Narcissism (1979), and The True and Only Heaven (1991), and The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy published posthumously in 1996 were widely discussed and reviewed. The Culture of Narcissism became a surprise best-seller and won the National Book Award in the category Current Interest (paperback).
Lasch was always a critic of liberalism, and a historian of liberalism's discontents, but over time his political perspective evolved dramatically. In the 1960s, he was a neo-Marxist and acerbic critic of Cold War liberalism. During the 1970s, he began to become a far more iconoclastic figure, fusing cultural conservatism with a Marxian critique of capitalism, and drawing on Freud-influenced critical theory to diagnose the ongoing deterioration that he perceived in American culture and politics. His writings during this period are considered contradictory. They are sometimes denounced by feminists and hailed by conservatives for his apparent defense of the traditional family. But as he explained in one of his books The Minimal Self, "it goes without saying that sexual equality in itself remains an eminently desirable objective...". Moreover, in Women and the Common Life, Lasch clarified that urging women to abandon the household and forcing them into a position of economic dependence, in the workplace, pointing out the importance of professional careers does not entail liberation, as long as these careers are governed by the requirements of corporate economy.
He eventually concluded that an often unspoken but pervasive faith in "Progress" tended to make Americans resistant to many of his arguments. In his last major works he explored this theme in depth, suggesting that Americans had much to learn from the suppressed and misunderstood Populist and artisan movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
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April 11, 2008
I would give this book five stars but there was not enough about me in it.
July 27, 2011
Lasch, on the evidence of this book, is the American Adorno. He writes in a similar style; each sentence is perfectly formed, but often not so well connected to the preceding and following sentences. He has no patience for the conservative/progressive distinction, and would rather discuss the effects of an idea or practice rather than immediately laud or damn it (so, for instance, 'feminism' isn't abruptly praised or scornfully ignored; rather, the difficulties of putting feminist doctrine into effect, and the inadequacy of feminism as a theory of society, are outlined... without concluding that women are inferior to men). Finally, this is Major Theory. He is not 'making a space for conversation' or 'analyzing discourses' or adding one brick to the great Academic Wall. He has a theory that late twentieth century life is really messed up, he traces out how we got to be like we are and speculates about how we could stop being that way. And his theory does seem to explain an awful lot.
In short, the conjunction of progressive liberalism and capitalism destroys traditional forms of life without providing any satisfactory replacement. Since people can no longer rely on those traditional forms, we feel a) at a loss, homeless, as if the world is out to crush us, but also, b) we're completely and increasingly dependent on the world. Our psychological defense against this is to become 'narcissistic,' reliant upon others for praise to boost our self-esteem. That praise needn't be genuine, in fact, it's usually better if it's not, since then there's no danger of our becoming dependent upon anyone. Relationships seem to require co-dependence, rather than friendship or love. It's increasingly difficult for us to become mature adults. Nonetheless, Lasch doesn't seem to be advocating a return to feudalism or anything. Socialism - not bureaucracy, but the human control of the economy, state and society - is his chosen solution to these problems.
The big problem with the book is that it's all a little Freudy. If you're allergic to Freud, as many people seem to be, you'll find that pretty off-putting. But there's not a whole lot of the really whacky Oedipus stuff. Lasch relies on the later Freud's theory of the id/ego/super-ego, to suggest that the revolt against authority makes it impossible for us to form an effective ego. Instead, it's all id (uncontrolled instinct) and terrifying super-ego (crushing guilt and self-loathing). You can and should cherry-pick chapters, even if you don't like Freud.
The second problem is that this is not a book for people who don't know about sociology and psychology as traditions of thought. In that way he's like Adorno too- this isn't popular non-fiction, whatever else it is. How it became a best-seller I'll never know. I do think that someone who's done a good job with a core undergraduate education should be able to muddle through and get the point; but how many people have done that? This is frustrating, because I want to recommend it to everyone I know. And if I do that, half of my friends will think I've become a knee-jerk conservative, one quarter will say 'oh Justin, up to his commie tricks again,' and the other quarter will roll their eyes and wish I wasn't such an elitist. Well suck it up, friends- I'm a conservative, socialist, elitist. Maybe I just like this book because I already agreed with it.
In short, the conjunction of progressive liberalism and capitalism destroys traditional forms of life without providing any satisfactory replacement. Since people can no longer rely on those traditional forms, we feel a) at a loss, homeless, as if the world is out to crush us, but also, b) we're completely and increasingly dependent on the world. Our psychological defense against this is to become 'narcissistic,' reliant upon others for praise to boost our self-esteem. That praise needn't be genuine, in fact, it's usually better if it's not, since then there's no danger of our becoming dependent upon anyone. Relationships seem to require co-dependence, rather than friendship or love. It's increasingly difficult for us to become mature adults. Nonetheless, Lasch doesn't seem to be advocating a return to feudalism or anything. Socialism - not bureaucracy, but the human control of the economy, state and society - is his chosen solution to these problems.
The big problem with the book is that it's all a little Freudy. If you're allergic to Freud, as many people seem to be, you'll find that pretty off-putting. But there's not a whole lot of the really whacky Oedipus stuff. Lasch relies on the later Freud's theory of the id/ego/super-ego, to suggest that the revolt against authority makes it impossible for us to form an effective ego. Instead, it's all id (uncontrolled instinct) and terrifying super-ego (crushing guilt and self-loathing). You can and should cherry-pick chapters, even if you don't like Freud.
The second problem is that this is not a book for people who don't know about sociology and psychology as traditions of thought. In that way he's like Adorno too- this isn't popular non-fiction, whatever else it is. How it became a best-seller I'll never know. I do think that someone who's done a good job with a core undergraduate education should be able to muddle through and get the point; but how many people have done that? This is frustrating, because I want to recommend it to everyone I know. And if I do that, half of my friends will think I've become a knee-jerk conservative, one quarter will say 'oh Justin, up to his commie tricks again,' and the other quarter will roll their eyes and wish I wasn't such an elitist. Well suck it up, friends- I'm a conservative, socialist, elitist. Maybe I just like this book because I already agreed with it.
November 17, 2011
I read this book and thought This is a good book.
I read this book and thought I've learned from this book.
I read this book and thought Kit Lasch is the bomb.
I read this book and thought Man can be as slippery as Saturday's soap.
I read this book and thought Man can be as silly as Bugsy Malone.
I read this book and thought This is a serious book, with serious thoughts, and serious insights, and here I am chewing gum and popping bubbles.
I read this book and thought I really like this book. It's aces.
I read this book and thought This book mirrors a society a mile wide and an inch deep.
I read this book and thought My mirror shows splintered eyes haunted by failure.
I read this book and thought This looks to be another let's see year for the Nucks.
I read this book and thought Thanks to 鈥斺€斺€斺€斺€�, I haven't had a decent dump in six goddamn years.
I read this book and thought Man is like me, severely constipated.
I read this book and thought And when it comes out, it's hard and it hurts.
I read this book and thought Why can't I accept finitude?
I read this book and thought Ol' Kit fucking nailed it. He fucking nailed me.
I read this book and thought Why does everybody talk about me?
I read this book and thought And if they aren't, why?
I read this book and thought Are my lungs expelling septic stink?
I read this book and thought We've seen better days.
I read this book and thought Better days can still be had.
I read this book and thought Salad days and tart vinaigrette.
I read this book and thought My daddy didn't cry, so neither do I.
I read this book and thought Not even when he beat me.
I read this book and thought I'm lying, he never actually beat me.
I read this book and thought But if I was hypnotized, I might think that he did.
I read this book and thought I've read most of Kit Lasch's books. They are smart but gloomy, tempestuous like my stomach.
I read this book and thought My stomach after Harvey's at the airport.
I read this book and thought I loved this book. Does the book love me?
I read this book and thought Good stuff, Kit. Merci beaucoup.
I read this book and thought In Vancouver the sun can hide itself away for months on end.
I read this book and thought Despite this, the suicide rate in Vancouver hovers around the national mean.
I read this book and thought I haven't yet erased my map.
I read this book and thought I once saw a woman jump to her death.
I read this book and thought Cracked me inside like a beat-up eggshell.
I read this book and thought To a chicken, an eggbeater is a rooster accused of child abuse.
I read this book and thought With that and Woody Woodpickle, I'm always armed.
I read this book and thought But I've got lots and lots of books to go.
I read this book and thought This is a solid four stars.
I read this book and thought Everybody should read this book.
I read this book and thought I did.
I read this book and thought I've learned from this book.
I read this book and thought Kit Lasch is the bomb.
I read this book and thought Man can be as slippery as Saturday's soap.
I read this book and thought Man can be as silly as Bugsy Malone.
I read this book and thought This is a serious book, with serious thoughts, and serious insights, and here I am chewing gum and popping bubbles.
I read this book and thought I really like this book. It's aces.
I read this book and thought This book mirrors a society a mile wide and an inch deep.
I read this book and thought My mirror shows splintered eyes haunted by failure.
I read this book and thought This looks to be another let's see year for the Nucks.
I read this book and thought Thanks to 鈥斺€斺€斺€斺€�, I haven't had a decent dump in six goddamn years.
I read this book and thought Man is like me, severely constipated.
I read this book and thought And when it comes out, it's hard and it hurts.
I read this book and thought Why can't I accept finitude?
I read this book and thought Ol' Kit fucking nailed it. He fucking nailed me.
I read this book and thought Why does everybody talk about me?
I read this book and thought And if they aren't, why?
I read this book and thought Are my lungs expelling septic stink?
I read this book and thought We've seen better days.
I read this book and thought Better days can still be had.
I read this book and thought Salad days and tart vinaigrette.
I read this book and thought My daddy didn't cry, so neither do I.
I read this book and thought Not even when he beat me.
I read this book and thought I'm lying, he never actually beat me.
I read this book and thought But if I was hypnotized, I might think that he did.
I read this book and thought I've read most of Kit Lasch's books. They are smart but gloomy, tempestuous like my stomach.
I read this book and thought My stomach after Harvey's at the airport.
I read this book and thought I loved this book. Does the book love me?
I read this book and thought Good stuff, Kit. Merci beaucoup.
I read this book and thought In Vancouver the sun can hide itself away for months on end.
I read this book and thought Despite this, the suicide rate in Vancouver hovers around the national mean.
I read this book and thought I haven't yet erased my map.
I read this book and thought I once saw a woman jump to her death.
I read this book and thought Cracked me inside like a beat-up eggshell.
I read this book and thought To a chicken, an eggbeater is a rooster accused of child abuse.
I read this book and thought With that and Woody Woodpickle, I'm always armed.
I read this book and thought But I've got lots and lots of books to go.
I read this book and thought This is a solid four stars.
I read this book and thought Everybody should read this book.
I read this book and thought I did.
November 24, 2022
9.95/10.
Lasch, evolving from his radical and social reformist roots, dissects American life in the era of permissiveness. Bringing from his leftist beginnings a much-needed critique of corporations, "experts", and bureaucrats in general, he presents one of the best diagnoses of the current miasma of America ever written. Narcissism and infantilism its two defining traits, modern America has no future, no past 鈥� just the ever woeful present. Life having become so free of sensation and struggle through technological advances, modern life becomes one dull, muted pain. The problem never seems to present itself, but the melancholy remains. The solution? The revivification of sensation through drugs, drink, and porn. The carousel of infinite Netflix shows or Instagram pictures works just as well. Endless, useless novelty: the Last Man's favorite cup of tea.
Where has his purpose gone? It has been sucked away by a presentism that sees current affairs and decisions as utterly different than anything before. Due to the relentless innovations of technology and the hijacking of education by its "pragmatic" counterpart, adolescents are informed that today is a new day, a day where Science and Innovation have buried the silly ideas of dead White men. Presentism displaces any role of parents beyond love, as they can no longer impart wisdom to the next generation. More often than not it is the parents dressing up in the new, trendy fashions; trying with all their might to stay young; falling behind with the new technology. Wisdom is outdated in the minds of the youth. "Experts" take all the other roles of parents, displacing all familial functions to corporations and bureaucrats 鈥� doctors, psychiatrists, counselors, public schools, social workers, daycare providers. These experts 鈥� and wonderful new products for children 鈥� are ready to advise parents in all aspects. They can take care of everything for them 鈥� how great!
But, parents, one thing we should watch out for is authoritarianism. This can give a child a psychiatric illness for life, which your psychiatrist will inform you about. So can not feeding them enough milk . . . or not giving them enough vitamins . . . or not letting them play video games two hours per day. Thus are parents blamed on all failures of their child, which "experts" through "parental counseling" are sure to fix. Parents become neurotic and are told to follow the cult of feeling, whereby if one expresses one's true feelings to the child, all will be okay. No discipline: simply understand the child's feelings and all will be well. This immediately degenerates into a renunciation of all authority and a training ground for narcissism. With no spankings (nor any rebukes at all), the child begins to see themself as all-powerful. Instead of facing the reality that others have desires which are not your own, the narcissist continues to believe that others should be focused on his needs.
No morality is left to check this narcissism. Lasch traces the Protestant work ethic (PWE) thuswise. First, the Puritans believed that improving one's material station was a duty to the community, which was for God. Ben Franklin secularized this duty and made the virtues (temperance, chastity, courage, honesty) valuable goals in their own aspect. One should pursue them to become a virtuous person. Then, during the mid-late 1800s, they became externalized: one should be good-mannered and honest because such actions will get you more business and sales. P.T. Barnum advocated this mentality. Then, finally, in the early-mid 1900s, the PWE degenerated into "how can I manipulate people so as to rise as high as possible on the corporate ladder". How can I win friends and influence people through my interpersonal manipulation skills? Religious virtue has fallen into base greed.
And what motivator is that? How can that give one real purpose? Yet the cult of narcissism is hung in front of our eyes every day in the form of celebrity. Celebrity is not defined by achievement, but simply by the deification of one's being. "I want to be known as me" 鈥� the ultimate narcissistic line. And so we get the tabloids glorifying the personal feuds, breakups, and new releases of celebrities. Children are asked who they want to become. The answer? Themselves 鈥� but glorified.
Celebrities aren't just there, but remake our society and morals in their own image, especially their sexual looseness. Chivalry's slow destruction after the revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries culminated in feminism, the freedom of women to be sexually degraded in every way possible. The pious deification of the female during patriarchal times has deformed into a war of the sexes, whereby each sex calumniates the other for its weaknesses ("unfeeling men", "emotional slaves"). We are bombarded with messages that we have no future ("global warming", "overpopulation", "nuclear warfare", "environmental degradation", "children are a money suck", etc.), turning relationships into short flings. No one wants real commitment, real self-divulgence. Most just want real sex instead of porn. Women are indoctrinated so as to despise what men have done to them in the supposedly terrible patriarchal past, while men silently harbor violent sexual fantasies about women, hoping to destroy them like their favorite porn spastic.
The sexes are being torn apart so each can become a consumer. They will be able to consume lots of therapeutic "advice" about their favorite love lives, paying tens of thousands of dollars to experts for what should come naturally. Even politics becomes therapy. LGBTIDGAF are emotionally harmed by mean policies. We must fix that! Parents are failing their children. The state must come in and fix that! Little Johnny is making strange remarks about Mexicans and Africans. Call in the psychiatrist! The therapeutic society and consumerism pair perfectly with permissiveness. Permissiveness atomizes everyone, thus driving them to goods and services (instead of families and communities) for consolation. Advertising continually creates new needs and desires in their heart, and it becomes enflamed to fill the hole that keeps ending up empty. As they become ever more lonely due to bureaucratic experts taking away all functions of loved ones, they turn to therapeutic "experts" for help, who are greatly willing to help 鈥� for a price. Ending up on an eternity of pills and looking at their fat faces continually more, they seep down into a perennial self-consciousness and self-criticism. Lonely and self-enamored, they cannot see any other goal than mere survival. Such are the "morals" of today.
Managerial experts invade the schools, telling of the great advances they will make with our children. Armed with PhDs and school board placements, they are eminently certified to teach our children. Beginning in the Progressive era, they began to make our schools more "practical". Civics replaced political science; social studies replaced philosophy; physical education and home economics replaced logic and rhetoric. These changes were necessary to make good citizens, as opposed to the useless verbiage of the ancients. A democratic country needed a democratic education: a truly mass education. Students should not be thinking about "the good life", but instead learning how to work with machines.
But something was forgotten. What happens to Western Culture when no one is taught it? It falls into oblivion. Mass education creates education in the image of the masses 鈥� that is, mediocrity. Thus we get a "literacy" rate higher than ever 鈥� if defined as the ability to sign one's name 鈥�, but a cultural literacy more debased and degraded than man has ever known. Biblical literacy 鈥� utterly lost. Classical literacy 鈥� gone forever. Latin and Greek 鈥� dead languages. Western literature? 鈥� forgotten in the dust of pragmatics and ethnic consciousness-raising. Our historical sense has waned, our mastery of foreign languages has declined, and our recollection of eminent minds and their works is nigh naught. Once again: we live in an eternal present. Not only do we turn our noses up at the past, but we don't even know what happened in it! That's what Wikipedia is for.
But cell phones are for a different purpose. They make us stars of the show of our own lives. Narcissistic furor makes everyone view themselves as if they are always on camera 鈥� as they now are (Lasch predicted this in '79). Everyone can be a star. They can show what they ate today, who they went to a concert with, and what party they went to. No, I forgot! The food, the concert, the party . . . none of those matter. All that matters is that I went to them and can show that to the world. Reality becomes a perennial spectacle, a display for a digital world of people who are not physically there. The cult of celebrity goes from nation to state to locality to town to high school. I'm sure it now infects preschool.
When children grow up, they get to experience the wonders of the consumerist university. Instead of a comprehensive and coherent general education, the students get what they want: a low-effort elective buffet. Shopping commences on RateMyProfessor.com, where the easiest professors can be hand-picked. From there, all learning takes the form of a course. Books are for classes, not learning. All knowledge becomes nicely packaged into a course that one can pay for, and all courses (except the easy ones) are dreaded as obstacles in the "survival" mentality of modern college students. The only books seen being read on campus are fantasy and sci-fi novels; non-fiction is anathema. Remember, courses are for learning, not books! As colleges expanded more and more (hospitals, recreational centers, parks, career centers, food places, etc.) the administrative octopus expanded as well. It took control of a sprawling menace whose purpose no student could decipher. With pragmatism usurping the humane letters and elective soup left as an aborted fetus, students devolved into apathy about all learning. Taking "Qing Literature", "Women in Medieval Europe", "Mexican Politics", and "African Music", they found absolutely zero coherence (assumed to come naturally by "experts") and left with a massive feeling of self-doubt about the pile of debt they accumulated and their intellectual ineptitude.
Just kidding. They never realized they were intellectually illiterate. Able to access any piece of information at any time (from Wikipedia), they were the experts. A peer-reviewed study always at their fingertips, they could back up their arguments strongly. Going into their career they were greeted with more permissiveness. Their employers told them to give them "constructive criticism" and advocated workplace democracy, as well as other social justice issues. Their boss always subtly suggested that they do things, but never directly told them. Was it soft manipulation? Was it all a farce? Doubts always raced through the mind.
Going back to their homes, they yearned for an escape. They yearned for eternal youth: eternal ignorance. They just wanted to play, to have fun! Riddled with self-doubt and without a purpose in life, sacrificing their life to the corporate Baal, they dreaded the future. More of the same, more of the same! Video games were their escape at night, but demons always came while they were in bed. With the help of their psychiatrist, psychotherapist, counselor, doctor, and social worker, they survived another day. No standards, no morals, no purpose, no telos, no God, no virtue 鈥� all that uplifted man washed away by permissiveness and therapists, a deluge of numbness fell upon them. Wake up they could not. The womb their ideal, numbness their reality, and conscience their demon, they couldn't help but feel that something was wrong. Was modernity a mistake? Experts liars? Standards real? God existent? The questions haunted them day and night, yet inertia pushed them onwards. Left foot, right foot 鈥� repeat the next day. Such is the life of he who has been tricked.
Lasch, evolving from his radical and social reformist roots, dissects American life in the era of permissiveness. Bringing from his leftist beginnings a much-needed critique of corporations, "experts", and bureaucrats in general, he presents one of the best diagnoses of the current miasma of America ever written. Narcissism and infantilism its two defining traits, modern America has no future, no past 鈥� just the ever woeful present. Life having become so free of sensation and struggle through technological advances, modern life becomes one dull, muted pain. The problem never seems to present itself, but the melancholy remains. The solution? The revivification of sensation through drugs, drink, and porn. The carousel of infinite Netflix shows or Instagram pictures works just as well. Endless, useless novelty: the Last Man's favorite cup of tea.
Where has his purpose gone? It has been sucked away by a presentism that sees current affairs and decisions as utterly different than anything before. Due to the relentless innovations of technology and the hijacking of education by its "pragmatic" counterpart, adolescents are informed that today is a new day, a day where Science and Innovation have buried the silly ideas of dead White men. Presentism displaces any role of parents beyond love, as they can no longer impart wisdom to the next generation. More often than not it is the parents dressing up in the new, trendy fashions; trying with all their might to stay young; falling behind with the new technology. Wisdom is outdated in the minds of the youth. "Experts" take all the other roles of parents, displacing all familial functions to corporations and bureaucrats 鈥� doctors, psychiatrists, counselors, public schools, social workers, daycare providers. These experts 鈥� and wonderful new products for children 鈥� are ready to advise parents in all aspects. They can take care of everything for them 鈥� how great!
But, parents, one thing we should watch out for is authoritarianism. This can give a child a psychiatric illness for life, which your psychiatrist will inform you about. So can not feeding them enough milk . . . or not giving them enough vitamins . . . or not letting them play video games two hours per day. Thus are parents blamed on all failures of their child, which "experts" through "parental counseling" are sure to fix. Parents become neurotic and are told to follow the cult of feeling, whereby if one expresses one's true feelings to the child, all will be okay. No discipline: simply understand the child's feelings and all will be well. This immediately degenerates into a renunciation of all authority and a training ground for narcissism. With no spankings (nor any rebukes at all), the child begins to see themself as all-powerful. Instead of facing the reality that others have desires which are not your own, the narcissist continues to believe that others should be focused on his needs.
No morality is left to check this narcissism. Lasch traces the Protestant work ethic (PWE) thuswise. First, the Puritans believed that improving one's material station was a duty to the community, which was for God. Ben Franklin secularized this duty and made the virtues (temperance, chastity, courage, honesty) valuable goals in their own aspect. One should pursue them to become a virtuous person. Then, during the mid-late 1800s, they became externalized: one should be good-mannered and honest because such actions will get you more business and sales. P.T. Barnum advocated this mentality. Then, finally, in the early-mid 1900s, the PWE degenerated into "how can I manipulate people so as to rise as high as possible on the corporate ladder". How can I win friends and influence people through my interpersonal manipulation skills? Religious virtue has fallen into base greed.
And what motivator is that? How can that give one real purpose? Yet the cult of narcissism is hung in front of our eyes every day in the form of celebrity. Celebrity is not defined by achievement, but simply by the deification of one's being. "I want to be known as me" 鈥� the ultimate narcissistic line. And so we get the tabloids glorifying the personal feuds, breakups, and new releases of celebrities. Children are asked who they want to become. The answer? Themselves 鈥� but glorified.
Celebrities aren't just there, but remake our society and morals in their own image, especially their sexual looseness. Chivalry's slow destruction after the revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries culminated in feminism, the freedom of women to be sexually degraded in every way possible. The pious deification of the female during patriarchal times has deformed into a war of the sexes, whereby each sex calumniates the other for its weaknesses ("unfeeling men", "emotional slaves"). We are bombarded with messages that we have no future ("global warming", "overpopulation", "nuclear warfare", "environmental degradation", "children are a money suck", etc.), turning relationships into short flings. No one wants real commitment, real self-divulgence. Most just want real sex instead of porn. Women are indoctrinated so as to despise what men have done to them in the supposedly terrible patriarchal past, while men silently harbor violent sexual fantasies about women, hoping to destroy them like their favorite porn spastic.
The sexes are being torn apart so each can become a consumer. They will be able to consume lots of therapeutic "advice" about their favorite love lives, paying tens of thousands of dollars to experts for what should come naturally. Even politics becomes therapy. LGBTIDGAF are emotionally harmed by mean policies. We must fix that! Parents are failing their children. The state must come in and fix that! Little Johnny is making strange remarks about Mexicans and Africans. Call in the psychiatrist! The therapeutic society and consumerism pair perfectly with permissiveness. Permissiveness atomizes everyone, thus driving them to goods and services (instead of families and communities) for consolation. Advertising continually creates new needs and desires in their heart, and it becomes enflamed to fill the hole that keeps ending up empty. As they become ever more lonely due to bureaucratic experts taking away all functions of loved ones, they turn to therapeutic "experts" for help, who are greatly willing to help 鈥� for a price. Ending up on an eternity of pills and looking at their fat faces continually more, they seep down into a perennial self-consciousness and self-criticism. Lonely and self-enamored, they cannot see any other goal than mere survival. Such are the "morals" of today.
Managerial experts invade the schools, telling of the great advances they will make with our children. Armed with PhDs and school board placements, they are eminently certified to teach our children. Beginning in the Progressive era, they began to make our schools more "practical". Civics replaced political science; social studies replaced philosophy; physical education and home economics replaced logic and rhetoric. These changes were necessary to make good citizens, as opposed to the useless verbiage of the ancients. A democratic country needed a democratic education: a truly mass education. Students should not be thinking about "the good life", but instead learning how to work with machines.
But something was forgotten. What happens to Western Culture when no one is taught it? It falls into oblivion. Mass education creates education in the image of the masses 鈥� that is, mediocrity. Thus we get a "literacy" rate higher than ever 鈥� if defined as the ability to sign one's name 鈥�, but a cultural literacy more debased and degraded than man has ever known. Biblical literacy 鈥� utterly lost. Classical literacy 鈥� gone forever. Latin and Greek 鈥� dead languages. Western literature? 鈥� forgotten in the dust of pragmatics and ethnic consciousness-raising. Our historical sense has waned, our mastery of foreign languages has declined, and our recollection of eminent minds and their works is nigh naught. Once again: we live in an eternal present. Not only do we turn our noses up at the past, but we don't even know what happened in it! That's what Wikipedia is for.
But cell phones are for a different purpose. They make us stars of the show of our own lives. Narcissistic furor makes everyone view themselves as if they are always on camera 鈥� as they now are (Lasch predicted this in '79). Everyone can be a star. They can show what they ate today, who they went to a concert with, and what party they went to. No, I forgot! The food, the concert, the party . . . none of those matter. All that matters is that I went to them and can show that to the world. Reality becomes a perennial spectacle, a display for a digital world of people who are not physically there. The cult of celebrity goes from nation to state to locality to town to high school. I'm sure it now infects preschool.
When children grow up, they get to experience the wonders of the consumerist university. Instead of a comprehensive and coherent general education, the students get what they want: a low-effort elective buffet. Shopping commences on RateMyProfessor.com, where the easiest professors can be hand-picked. From there, all learning takes the form of a course. Books are for classes, not learning. All knowledge becomes nicely packaged into a course that one can pay for, and all courses (except the easy ones) are dreaded as obstacles in the "survival" mentality of modern college students. The only books seen being read on campus are fantasy and sci-fi novels; non-fiction is anathema. Remember, courses are for learning, not books! As colleges expanded more and more (hospitals, recreational centers, parks, career centers, food places, etc.) the administrative octopus expanded as well. It took control of a sprawling menace whose purpose no student could decipher. With pragmatism usurping the humane letters and elective soup left as an aborted fetus, students devolved into apathy about all learning. Taking "Qing Literature", "Women in Medieval Europe", "Mexican Politics", and "African Music", they found absolutely zero coherence (assumed to come naturally by "experts") and left with a massive feeling of self-doubt about the pile of debt they accumulated and their intellectual ineptitude.
Just kidding. They never realized they were intellectually illiterate. Able to access any piece of information at any time (from Wikipedia), they were the experts. A peer-reviewed study always at their fingertips, they could back up their arguments strongly. Going into their career they were greeted with more permissiveness. Their employers told them to give them "constructive criticism" and advocated workplace democracy, as well as other social justice issues. Their boss always subtly suggested that they do things, but never directly told them. Was it soft manipulation? Was it all a farce? Doubts always raced through the mind.
Going back to their homes, they yearned for an escape. They yearned for eternal youth: eternal ignorance. They just wanted to play, to have fun! Riddled with self-doubt and without a purpose in life, sacrificing their life to the corporate Baal, they dreaded the future. More of the same, more of the same! Video games were their escape at night, but demons always came while they were in bed. With the help of their psychiatrist, psychotherapist, counselor, doctor, and social worker, they survived another day. No standards, no morals, no purpose, no telos, no God, no virtue 鈥� all that uplifted man washed away by permissiveness and therapists, a deluge of numbness fell upon them. Wake up they could not. The womb their ideal, numbness their reality, and conscience their demon, they couldn't help but feel that something was wrong. Was modernity a mistake? Experts liars? Standards real? God existent? The questions haunted them day and night, yet inertia pushed them onwards. Left foot, right foot 鈥� repeat the next day. Such is the life of he who has been tricked.
Shelved as 'wish-list'
January 12, 2019Description from Robert Reich:
In 1979, when 33-year-old Donald Trump was building Trump Tower -- his first big narcissistic project -- sociologist Christopher Lasch published 鈥淭he Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations.鈥�
In his book, Lasch argued that a host of economic factors, especially rampant consumerism, had made people self-obsessed, hyper-competitive, cut off from reality, erratic, unempathetic, angry, and vindictive. As a result, he wrote, 鈥渢ruth has given way to credibility, facts to statements that sound authoritative without conveying any authoritative information.鈥� Lasch cited the example of Nixon鈥檚 press secretary, Ron Ziegler, who at one point 鈥渁dmitted that his previous statements on Watergate had become 鈥榠noperative.'鈥�
The narcissistic personality, Lasch wrote, will 鈥渄isplay鈥� the prevailing obsession with celebrity and a determination to achieve it even at the cost of rational self-interest and personal safety. The narcissist divides society into two groups: the rich, great, and famous on the one hand, and the common herd on the other. 鈥� [Narcissists] worship heroes only to turn against them when their heroes disappoint them. 鈥� The narcissist admires and identifies himself with 鈥榳inners鈥� out of his fear of being labeled a loser. 鈥� his admiration often turns to hatred if the object of his attachment does something to remind him of his own insignificance.鈥�
For Lasch, a person possessing such traits was unable to function as a rational or trustworthy member of society -- as a human being capable of kindness, empathy and attentiveness to others people鈥檚 reality.
37 years later, Trump was elected president.
What do you think?
August 10, 2024
Narcissism (noun): 1) excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one's physical appearance. 2)PSYCHOLOGY selfishness, involving a sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy, and a need for admiration, as characterizing a personality type. 3)PSYCHOANALYSIS self-centeredness arising from failure to distinguish the self from external objects, either in very young babies or as a feature of mental disorder. 鈥�-顿颈肠迟颈辞苍补谤测.肠辞尘鈥�
I鈥檓 guessing that Donald Trump has never been, and never will be, a pet person. One has to be able to think beyond one鈥檚 own narrow self-interest in order to take care of a dog or a cat or even a lizard. I鈥檓 pretty sure Trump鈥檚 initial thought upon seeing any domesticated animal is 鈥淐an I eat it?鈥�
But why pick on just Trump? After all, even his biggest fans know that Trump鈥檚 narcissism is merely a symptom of a bigger problem within our society. They would say that we鈥檝e become too lazy, too soft, too apathetic as a society. Our ridiculous self-love is the least of our problems. Or is it?
Despite its publication date of 1979, Christopher Lasch鈥檚 now-classic 鈥淭he Culture of Narcissism鈥� could just as easily be read and appreciated today. If it鈥檚 not already on required reading lists for college psychology courses, it probably should be.
Lasch, in 鈥�79, couldn鈥檛 have fathomed the level of self-indulgence in 2024. He couldn鈥檛 have foreseen the Internet and the subsequent generations of children addicted to an isolated virtual world. He couldn鈥檛 have foreseen the dangerous anonymity of social media where people can 鈥渟peak鈥� to millions of people but really only be speaking to themselves. He couldn鈥檛 foresee a political divisiveness that went beyond just a disagreement between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, but a hyper-dangerous mentality of 鈥淢y opinion is the correct one, and anyone that disagrees with it is evil.鈥�
Whether it鈥檚 the epidemic of depression and anxiety of young girls so obsessed with smartphone selfies and trying to be as beautiful as those AI-generated supermodels or the sharp rise in white Christian nationalists or the uptick in violent incidents perpetrated by young men who dub themselves 鈥渋nvoluntary celibates鈥�, a.k.a. incels, or elected politicians who deny the values they supposedly hold so dear in order to align themselves with a megalomaniac that allegedly has the power to end their political careers if they don鈥檛 agree with him, narcissism is at the root of most problems. We all want to look good, get ahead, keep up with the Joneses, regardless of whether we are making a better world. That doesn鈥檛 matter anymore. Today, it鈥檚 all about
making a better world for ourselves.
It鈥檚 really all about 鈥渙ptics鈥�. You鈥檝e heard the word, ad nauseam. It鈥檚 the buzzword in entertainment, sports, politics, law enforcement, business, education. It鈥檚 no longer 鈥淗ow can we fix this?鈥� but rather 鈥淗ow can we spin this to make it look good?鈥�
鈥淔or all his inner suffering, the narcissist has many traits that make for success in bureaucratic institutions, which put a premium on the manipulation of interpersonal relations, discourage the formation of deep personal attachments, and at the same time provide the narcissist with the approval he needs in order to validate his self-esteem. Although he may resort to therapies that promise to give meaning to life and to overcome his sense of emptiness, in his professional career the narcissist often enjoys considerable success. The management of personal impressions comes naturally to him, and his mastery of its intricacies serves him well in political and business organizations where performance now counts for less than 鈥渧isibility鈥�, 鈥渕omentum,鈥� and a winning record.鈥� (p. 91-92)
Trump, as the archetypal narcissist, is all about 鈥渨inning鈥�. To his credit, Trump鈥檚 brilliance lies in his ability to convince a wide swath of Americans that he actually gives a shit about them, that he actually wants to help them. In truth鈥�-and his own track record shows this鈥�-Trump鈥檚 only out to help himself. For a narcissist, that is the end-all-be-all:
鈥淭he pursuit of self-interest, formerly identified with the rational pursuit of gain and the accumulation of wealth, has become a search for pleasure and psychic survival. Social conditions now approximate the vision of republican society conceived by the Marquis de Sade at the very outset of the republican epoch. In many ways the most far-sighted and certainly the most disturbing of the prophets of revolutionary individualism, Sade defended unlimited self-indulgence as the logical culmination of the revolution in property relations鈥�-the only way to attain revolutionary brotherhood in its purest form. By regressing in his writings to the most primitive level of fantasy, Sade uncannily glimpsed the whole subsequent development of personal life under capitalism, ending not in revolutionary brotherhood but in a society of siblings that has outlived and repudiated its revolutionary origins.鈥� (p. 131)
In a narcissistic society, all the trust-worthy institutions that we once turned to for help and security are no longer trust-worthy. The media is 鈥渇ake news鈥�. The government is 鈥渂roken鈥�. The family is 鈥渂roken鈥�. Our teachers and professors are 鈥渟preading liberal propaganda鈥�. Businesses are 鈥減rice-gouging鈥�. Hospitals are 鈥渋n bed with insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies鈥�. Churches are either 鈥渢oo political鈥� or 鈥渘ot political enough鈥�.
鈥淭he superego can no longer ally itself, in its battle against impulse, with outside authorities. It has to rely almost entirely on its own resources, and these too have diminished in their effectiveness.鈥� (p.342)
The end result? We鈥檝e stopped caring. About our own families, about our friends, about our community, about our government, about our world.
鈥淭he narcissist feels consumed by his own appetites鈥� He longs to free himself from his own hunger and rage, to achieve a calm detachment beyond emotion, and to outgrow his dependence on others. He longs for the indifference to human relationships and to life itself that would enable him to acknowledge its passing in Kurt Vonnegut鈥檚 laconic phrase, 鈥淪o it goes,鈥� which so aptly expresses the ultimate aspiration of the psychiatric seeker.鈥� (p. 342-243)
I鈥檓 guessing that Donald Trump has never been, and never will be, a pet person. One has to be able to think beyond one鈥檚 own narrow self-interest in order to take care of a dog or a cat or even a lizard. I鈥檓 pretty sure Trump鈥檚 initial thought upon seeing any domesticated animal is 鈥淐an I eat it?鈥�
But why pick on just Trump? After all, even his biggest fans know that Trump鈥檚 narcissism is merely a symptom of a bigger problem within our society. They would say that we鈥檝e become too lazy, too soft, too apathetic as a society. Our ridiculous self-love is the least of our problems. Or is it?
Despite its publication date of 1979, Christopher Lasch鈥檚 now-classic 鈥淭he Culture of Narcissism鈥� could just as easily be read and appreciated today. If it鈥檚 not already on required reading lists for college psychology courses, it probably should be.
Lasch, in 鈥�79, couldn鈥檛 have fathomed the level of self-indulgence in 2024. He couldn鈥檛 have foreseen the Internet and the subsequent generations of children addicted to an isolated virtual world. He couldn鈥檛 have foreseen the dangerous anonymity of social media where people can 鈥渟peak鈥� to millions of people but really only be speaking to themselves. He couldn鈥檛 foresee a political divisiveness that went beyond just a disagreement between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, but a hyper-dangerous mentality of 鈥淢y opinion is the correct one, and anyone that disagrees with it is evil.鈥�
Whether it鈥檚 the epidemic of depression and anxiety of young girls so obsessed with smartphone selfies and trying to be as beautiful as those AI-generated supermodels or the sharp rise in white Christian nationalists or the uptick in violent incidents perpetrated by young men who dub themselves 鈥渋nvoluntary celibates鈥�, a.k.a. incels, or elected politicians who deny the values they supposedly hold so dear in order to align themselves with a megalomaniac that allegedly has the power to end their political careers if they don鈥檛 agree with him, narcissism is at the root of most problems. We all want to look good, get ahead, keep up with the Joneses, regardless of whether we are making a better world. That doesn鈥檛 matter anymore. Today, it鈥檚 all about
making a better world for ourselves.
It鈥檚 really all about 鈥渙ptics鈥�. You鈥檝e heard the word, ad nauseam. It鈥檚 the buzzword in entertainment, sports, politics, law enforcement, business, education. It鈥檚 no longer 鈥淗ow can we fix this?鈥� but rather 鈥淗ow can we spin this to make it look good?鈥�
鈥淔or all his inner suffering, the narcissist has many traits that make for success in bureaucratic institutions, which put a premium on the manipulation of interpersonal relations, discourage the formation of deep personal attachments, and at the same time provide the narcissist with the approval he needs in order to validate his self-esteem. Although he may resort to therapies that promise to give meaning to life and to overcome his sense of emptiness, in his professional career the narcissist often enjoys considerable success. The management of personal impressions comes naturally to him, and his mastery of its intricacies serves him well in political and business organizations where performance now counts for less than 鈥渧isibility鈥�, 鈥渕omentum,鈥� and a winning record.鈥� (p. 91-92)
Trump, as the archetypal narcissist, is all about 鈥渨inning鈥�. To his credit, Trump鈥檚 brilliance lies in his ability to convince a wide swath of Americans that he actually gives a shit about them, that he actually wants to help them. In truth鈥�-and his own track record shows this鈥�-Trump鈥檚 only out to help himself. For a narcissist, that is the end-all-be-all:
鈥淭he pursuit of self-interest, formerly identified with the rational pursuit of gain and the accumulation of wealth, has become a search for pleasure and psychic survival. Social conditions now approximate the vision of republican society conceived by the Marquis de Sade at the very outset of the republican epoch. In many ways the most far-sighted and certainly the most disturbing of the prophets of revolutionary individualism, Sade defended unlimited self-indulgence as the logical culmination of the revolution in property relations鈥�-the only way to attain revolutionary brotherhood in its purest form. By regressing in his writings to the most primitive level of fantasy, Sade uncannily glimpsed the whole subsequent development of personal life under capitalism, ending not in revolutionary brotherhood but in a society of siblings that has outlived and repudiated its revolutionary origins.鈥� (p. 131)
In a narcissistic society, all the trust-worthy institutions that we once turned to for help and security are no longer trust-worthy. The media is 鈥渇ake news鈥�. The government is 鈥渂roken鈥�. The family is 鈥渂roken鈥�. Our teachers and professors are 鈥渟preading liberal propaganda鈥�. Businesses are 鈥減rice-gouging鈥�. Hospitals are 鈥渋n bed with insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies鈥�. Churches are either 鈥渢oo political鈥� or 鈥渘ot political enough鈥�.
鈥淭he superego can no longer ally itself, in its battle against impulse, with outside authorities. It has to rely almost entirely on its own resources, and these too have diminished in their effectiveness.鈥� (p.342)
The end result? We鈥檝e stopped caring. About our own families, about our friends, about our community, about our government, about our world.
鈥淭he narcissist feels consumed by his own appetites鈥� He longs to free himself from his own hunger and rage, to achieve a calm detachment beyond emotion, and to outgrow his dependence on others. He longs for the indifference to human relationships and to life itself that would enable him to acknowledge its passing in Kurt Vonnegut鈥檚 laconic phrase, 鈥淪o it goes,鈥� which so aptly expresses the ultimate aspiration of the psychiatric seeker.鈥� (p. 342-243)
March 6, 2018
I was surprisingly a little underwhelmed by this book, not because its insights and criticisms didn't ring true but rather because they all seemed quite familiar already. This could probably be attributable to the fact that it was written several decades ago and the arguments have already been internalized by the broader culture (even if changes haven't really been effectuated). After reading Patrick Deneen's "Why Liberalism Failed," this book seemed like a more granular retread of some of the points of that work.
Having said that I did really appreciate Lasch's class-based analyses, particularly his scathing depiction of modern society as an individualistic "war of all against all." This hyper-competitive and brutal way of living has trickled up from the poorest strata of society and thoroughly encompassed the middle classes as well, leaving only a small elite relatively free of its grasp. Although I liked some of the Marxist stuff I was less enthralled by the Freudian analysis that Lasch employs, which perhaps merely reflects my own biases.
The book is short and straightforwardly written and is probably worthwhile for galvanizing those not already aware of our deteriorating contemporary society.
Having said that I did really appreciate Lasch's class-based analyses, particularly his scathing depiction of modern society as an individualistic "war of all against all." This hyper-competitive and brutal way of living has trickled up from the poorest strata of society and thoroughly encompassed the middle classes as well, leaving only a small elite relatively free of its grasp. Although I liked some of the Marxist stuff I was less enthralled by the Freudian analysis that Lasch employs, which perhaps merely reflects my own biases.
The book is short and straightforwardly written and is probably worthwhile for galvanizing those not already aware of our deteriorating contemporary society.
January 30, 2023
i've been hearing lasch's name come up more and more, often from the red scare / new right / tradcath crowd (goodreads tells me that lasch readers also like camille paglia, mark fisher, michel houellebecq, and bronze age pervert, lol). upon digging deeper, i was surprised to find out that lasch identified as a secular marxist. this was intriguing enough to get me to pick up this book鈥攖he Culture War TM and many of the ex-left anti-woke contrarians who've led its charge have been a pet interest.
first off, the culture of narcissism has some serious bangers: when lasch is right, he's so right, and so eloquently and sharply so, that i'd end up highlighting entire pages of quotes. it's immediately obvious why his work has resurged in popularity despite being published in 1978鈥攕o many of his diagnoses (therapy culture, the rise of autofiction, bullshit bureaucracies) feel devastatingly 21st century.
as the book progressed, though, i found lasch overly cynical about modernity, overly romantic about the american past (many of these narcissistic impulses have always existed), and his sweeping cultural analyses dependent on a bunch of debunked and crudely applied psychoanalytic theory. nominally leftist or not, lasch is fundamentally conservative in his tastes: skeptical of all forms of diversity and self-expression, and correspondingly nostalgic for the return of religious authority.
i still think it was a good book for understanding the growing "socially conservative, fiscally liberal" strand of recent political thought. and i have a soft spot for provocateurs in general, or anyone whose writing forces me to think / argue with it, regardless of whether i agree.
anyway, here are some of the good bits:
on the retreat from the political to the personal:
on american pessimism:
on the irrelevance of mis/information:
on PMC alienation and irony:
first off, the culture of narcissism has some serious bangers: when lasch is right, he's so right, and so eloquently and sharply so, that i'd end up highlighting entire pages of quotes. it's immediately obvious why his work has resurged in popularity despite being published in 1978鈥攕o many of his diagnoses (therapy culture, the rise of autofiction, bullshit bureaucracies) feel devastatingly 21st century.
as the book progressed, though, i found lasch overly cynical about modernity, overly romantic about the american past (many of these narcissistic impulses have always existed), and his sweeping cultural analyses dependent on a bunch of debunked and crudely applied psychoanalytic theory. nominally leftist or not, lasch is fundamentally conservative in his tastes: skeptical of all forms of diversity and self-expression, and correspondingly nostalgic for the return of religious authority.
i still think it was a good book for understanding the growing "socially conservative, fiscally liberal" strand of recent political thought. and i have a soft spot for provocateurs in general, or anyone whose writing forces me to think / argue with it, regardless of whether i agree.
anyway, here are some of the good bits:
on the retreat from the political to the personal:
After the political turmoil of the sixties, Americans have retreated to purely personal preoccupations. Having no hope of improving their lives in any of the ways that matter, people have convinced themselves that what matters is psychic self-improvement: getting in touch with their feelings, eating health food, taking lessons in ballet or belly-dancing, immersing themselves in the wisdom of the East, jogging, learning how to 鈥渞elate,鈥� overcoming the 鈥渇ear of pleasure.鈥� Harmless in themselves, these pursuits, elevated to a program and wrapped in the rhetoric of authenticity and awareness, signify a retreat from politics and a repudiation of the recent past.
on american pessimism:
Today Americans are overcome not by the sense of endless possibility but by the banality of the social order they have erected against it.
on the irrelevance of mis/information:
The rise of mass media makes the categories of truth and falsehood irrelevant to an evaluation of their influence. Truth has given way to credibility, facts to statements that sound authoritative without conveying any authoritative information... Knowing that an educated public craves facts and cherishes nothing so much as the illusion of being well informed, the modern progagandist avoids using high-sounding slogans; he rarely appeals to a higher destiny; he seldom calls for heroism and sacrifice or reminds his audience of the glorious past. He sticks to the 鈥渇acts.鈥� Propaganda thus merges with "information.鈥�
on PMC alienation and irony:
When jobs consist of little more than meaningless motions, and when social routines, formerly dignified as ritual, degenerate into role playing, the worker鈥攚hether he toils on an assembly line or holds down a high-paying job in a large bureaucracy鈥攕eeks to escape from the resulting sense of inauthenticity by creating an ironic distance from his daily routine... He takes refuge in jokes, mockery, and cynicism. If he is asked to perform a disagreeable task, he makes it clear that he doesn鈥檛 believe in the organization鈥檚 objectives of increased efficiency and greater output... By demystifying daily life, he conveys to himself and others the impression that he has risen beyond it, even as he goes through the motions and does what is expected of him.
June 9, 2012
A bore. Reader, pass by! This farrago of ludicrous banalities could have been a good book: interesting, informative, critical. Instead, the author has squandered the opportunity 鈥斕齛nd the reader's time 鈥斕齱ith two hundred and sixty-eight dull pages of pompous, pious, neo-conservative cant. It's barber-shop talk 鈥斕齋unday-school self-righteousness 鈥� gussied up in the pretentious, pseudo-academic argot of the chattering classes of New York City, circa 1979, with a liberal garnish of end notes masquerading as scholarly apparatus. The book is a fake: "All hat and no cattle!" There are no real arguments being advanced here in a coherent and logical discourse; merely听a piling-on of assertion and anecdote. Its natural companion on the remainder table would be another fatuous best-seller of the era, The Greening of America. You'd learn more about mid-century America's culture of narcissism (and have more fun) by listening to Carly Simon sing, "You're So Vain (You Probably Think This Song Is About You)."
February 15, 2013
Christopher Lasch鈥檚 鈥淭he Culture of Narcissism鈥� was originally published in 1979, and has been a major cynosure of cultural and social criticism ever since. English literary critic Frank Kermode called it, not inaccurately, a 鈥渉ellfire sermon.鈥� It is a wholesale indictment of contemporary American culture. It also happens to fall into a group of other books which share the same body of concerns that I have been working my way through, or around, in recent months: Daniel Boorstin鈥檚 鈥淭he Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America,鈥� Guy Debord鈥檚 鈥淪ociety of the Spectacle,鈥� Philip Rieff鈥檚 entire corpus (especially 鈥淐harisma,鈥� but also his earlier work on Freud), and even the book I鈥檓 currently reading, Tony Judt鈥檚 鈥淚ll Fares the Land.鈥�
All of these books discuss some aspect of social anomie, loss of community, and subsequent feelings of dissolution. This isn鈥檛 by any means a new debate; in the field of sociology, it dates at least as far back as Ferdinand Tonnies鈥� distinction between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft, a distinction that was almost a prerequisite for the invention of modernism.
First, a note on the word 鈥渘arcissism.鈥� It was formerly a clinical term to diagnose the individual, but has 鈥済one global鈥� - or at least national. Lasch doesn鈥檛 really mean for the term to be a diagnosis in the clinical sense, but rather a 鈥渕etaphor for the human condition鈥� in contemporary times. In his argot, the word means much more than just lack of empathy, a tendency toward manipulative actions and pretentious behavior. 鈥淧eople today hunger not for personal salvation, let alone for the restoration of an earlier golden age, but for the feeling, the momentary illusion, of personal well-being, health, and psychic security鈥� (p. 7). Lasch is more interested in the dissolution of communities and relationships that makes us feel as if we live highly individualized, atomized lives detached from the concerns of others. The book spells out the ways in which these patterns are positively correlated with the rise of materialism, technologism, 鈥減ersonal liberation鈥� (those bywords of sixties radicalism) and nominal egalitarianism.
His few words on contemporary corporate America will strike anyone who has ever worked in one of these organizational hellscapes: he states that corporate bureaucracies 鈥減ut a premium on the manipulation of interpersonal relations, discourage the formation of deep personal attachments and at the same time provide the narcissist with the approval he needs in order to validate his self-esteem.鈥�
A la Debord, the politics of narcissism become more about 鈥渕anaging impressions鈥� and 鈥渉uman relations鈥� more than actually solving problems, citing Kennedy鈥檚 disaster at the Bay of Pigs as an example. To steal from the language of yet another late French thinker, it鈥檚 all about the simulacra. In a chapter called 鈥淭he Degradation of Sport,鈥� he notes that enormous amounts of corporate money have turned athletes into mere entertainers to be sold to the most prestigious sports syndicate. The central concept of the sporting even 鈥� the agon, the contest 鈥� has been displaced in order to sell products and personalities who will invariably be with the team for only a short time.
Lasch鈥檚 political affiliations are sometimes interestingly and tellingly misconstrued. Though often criticized for being a reactionary conservative simply because he points to the radicalism of the sixties as one of the desiderata under consideration, Lasch鈥檚 analysis is self-consciously informed by both Marx and Freud, two figures hardly recognized for being popularly co-opted by various brands of twentieth-century conservatism. Those who believe that Lasch is a blind ideologue on other side of the spectrum need to read him again: he explicitly faults both the right for their veneration of the market鈥檚 鈥渋nvisible hand鈥� and the left for their cultural progressivism. Lasch is in politics, above all else, a democratic humanist.
He writes in the Afterword, 鈥淭he best defenses against the terrors of existence are the homely comforts of love, work, and family life, which connect us to a world that is independent of our wishes yet responsive to our needs. It is through love and work, as Freud noted 鈥� that we exchange crippling emotional conflict for ordinary unhappiness.鈥� It might not sound like a prognosis abounding in optimism, but it drips with the sincerity of an honest, heartfelt critic of American culture.
All of these books discuss some aspect of social anomie, loss of community, and subsequent feelings of dissolution. This isn鈥檛 by any means a new debate; in the field of sociology, it dates at least as far back as Ferdinand Tonnies鈥� distinction between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft, a distinction that was almost a prerequisite for the invention of modernism.
First, a note on the word 鈥渘arcissism.鈥� It was formerly a clinical term to diagnose the individual, but has 鈥済one global鈥� - or at least national. Lasch doesn鈥檛 really mean for the term to be a diagnosis in the clinical sense, but rather a 鈥渕etaphor for the human condition鈥� in contemporary times. In his argot, the word means much more than just lack of empathy, a tendency toward manipulative actions and pretentious behavior. 鈥淧eople today hunger not for personal salvation, let alone for the restoration of an earlier golden age, but for the feeling, the momentary illusion, of personal well-being, health, and psychic security鈥� (p. 7). Lasch is more interested in the dissolution of communities and relationships that makes us feel as if we live highly individualized, atomized lives detached from the concerns of others. The book spells out the ways in which these patterns are positively correlated with the rise of materialism, technologism, 鈥減ersonal liberation鈥� (those bywords of sixties radicalism) and nominal egalitarianism.
His few words on contemporary corporate America will strike anyone who has ever worked in one of these organizational hellscapes: he states that corporate bureaucracies 鈥減ut a premium on the manipulation of interpersonal relations, discourage the formation of deep personal attachments and at the same time provide the narcissist with the approval he needs in order to validate his self-esteem.鈥�
A la Debord, the politics of narcissism become more about 鈥渕anaging impressions鈥� and 鈥渉uman relations鈥� more than actually solving problems, citing Kennedy鈥檚 disaster at the Bay of Pigs as an example. To steal from the language of yet another late French thinker, it鈥檚 all about the simulacra. In a chapter called 鈥淭he Degradation of Sport,鈥� he notes that enormous amounts of corporate money have turned athletes into mere entertainers to be sold to the most prestigious sports syndicate. The central concept of the sporting even 鈥� the agon, the contest 鈥� has been displaced in order to sell products and personalities who will invariably be with the team for only a short time.
Lasch鈥檚 political affiliations are sometimes interestingly and tellingly misconstrued. Though often criticized for being a reactionary conservative simply because he points to the radicalism of the sixties as one of the desiderata under consideration, Lasch鈥檚 analysis is self-consciously informed by both Marx and Freud, two figures hardly recognized for being popularly co-opted by various brands of twentieth-century conservatism. Those who believe that Lasch is a blind ideologue on other side of the spectrum need to read him again: he explicitly faults both the right for their veneration of the market鈥檚 鈥渋nvisible hand鈥� and the left for their cultural progressivism. Lasch is in politics, above all else, a democratic humanist.
He writes in the Afterword, 鈥淭he best defenses against the terrors of existence are the homely comforts of love, work, and family life, which connect us to a world that is independent of our wishes yet responsive to our needs. It is through love and work, as Freud noted 鈥� that we exchange crippling emotional conflict for ordinary unhappiness.鈥� It might not sound like a prognosis abounding in optimism, but it drips with the sincerity of an honest, heartfelt critic of American culture.
March 3, 2025
Christopher Lasch - A Cultura do Narcisismo
Espantosamente actual para um livro escrito na d茅cada de 70. Com uma primeira edi莽茫o em 1979, o autor soube antecipar com 30 a 40 anos o que seria o primeiro quartil deste mil茅nio. Como um 谩uspice, soube ler na poeira dos tempos de que forma os nascidos j谩 depois do seu livro publicado, os 鈥渕illenius鈥�, a gera莽茫o da internet, como iriam comportar-se, como se relacionariam entre si, e que tipo de sociedade iriam alimentar. N茫o previu Donald Trump nem o movimento MAGA que abalou todas as estruturas e conven莽玫es que tom谩vamos como s茅rias e s贸lidas. N茫o previu esta reac莽茫o populista, mas sem d煤vida que identificou a deriva Woke que justificou o tsunami de 5 de novembro de 2024.
Neste seu livro Christopher Lasch descreve o narcisismo secund谩rio como um tra莽o predominante na sociedade que seria dominante nas grandes metr贸poles e que acabaria por ser o 鈥渮eitgeist鈥�, de muitos desses meios culturais, sociais e econ贸micos. C Lasch descreveu estes narcisistas secund谩rios como algu茅m grande fragilidade emocional, dependendo constantemente de valida莽茫o externa, algu茅m cuja sua personalidade 茅 mais moldada pela perce莽茫o de terceiros que pelo conte煤do interno. Este narcisista secund谩rio 茅 algu茅m que vive rodeado de vazio e t茅dio, algu茅m que busca prazeres imediatos e distra莽玫es constantes sem nunca se sentir plenamente satisfeito. Leva uma vida superficial sem prop贸sito ou empenho de se conectar com outros. Para o narcisista secund谩rio o desejo de relacionamento com outros tem sempre de partir de outros, ainda que sem o reconhecer tudo fa莽a para que os outros o apreciem com ele acha que dever谩 ser apreciado. Ao contr谩rio do narcisista prim谩rio, o amor que ele tem por si mesmo n茫o 茅 o seu tra莽o principal, o narcisista secund谩rio precisa que os outros gostem de si.
Este narcisista tem medo do envelhecimento e da morte, tem uma obsess茫o pela juventude, beleza e desempenho alimentada por uma cultura de apar锚ncia e consumismo. A morte e a velhice s茫o reprimidas ou transformadas em tabu pois a perda de controlo e da identidade. Tem dificuldade em estabelecer rela莽玫es profundas, e os seus relacionamentos s茫o usados para satisfa莽茫o social ou benef铆cios materiais. S贸 consegue estabelecer rela莽玫es superficiais e ef茅meras. Depende constantemente da aprova莽茫o dos outros, 茅 hipersens铆vel 脿 critica e busca constantemente o reconhecimento e elogios. N茫o tem empatia por ningu茅m. Recorrentemente 茅 hostil e c铆nico. N茫o tem rela莽玫es sociais, a denota um desencantamento com institui莽玫es como fam铆lia, religi茫o e pol铆tica. N茫o acredita na coletividade e para ele os outros s茫o sempre amea莽as ou obst谩culos. Por茅m, esta independ锚ncia 茅 apenas aparente, pois o narcisista secund谩rio tem um irresist铆vel fasc铆nio pelo poder e o reconhecimento social. Tem uma fixa莽茫o pela fama, influ锚ncia e prest铆gio como forma de apaziguar a sua inseguran莽a interior. Esta permanente busca pela fama e grandiosidade pode gerar uma 谩urea majest谩tica, mas apenas s茫o mecanismos para esconder uma evidente fragilidade interior. O narcisista secund谩rio 茅 algu茅m que rejeita a hist贸ria e a tradi莽茫o. 脡 algu茅m que se desinteressa pelo passado e vive em permanente fuga para um presente onde tudo 茅 consumido e descartado rapidamente.
Este narcisista secund谩rio que Christopher Lasch previu e descreveu, foi por ele antecipado em algumas caracter铆sticas da sociedade que pareciam despontar na d茅cada de 70. Para Lasch a perda de autoridade de estruturas sociais como fam铆lia, religi茫o, poder secular, a menoriza莽茫o dos valores 茅ticos, formataram o molde no qual essa nova sociedade narcisista se come莽ou a configurar.
O decl铆nio da influencia da hist贸ria e do passado, a perda de uma 茅tica do trabalho onde o reconhecimento se estabelece pelos bens que se possuem e n茫o pela forma como se construiu o nosso trilho, a degrada莽茫o da pol铆tica que a reduziu a um palco de publicidade onde a governa莽茫o e discurso pol铆tico desceu de tal forma que transformou a escolha c铆vica num 鈥渆ventos desportivos鈥� levaria anos mais tarde 脿 degenera莽茫o da pol铆tica em espet谩culo perdendo-se qualquer perspectiva de debate pol铆tico鈥�. Um sistema educativo, tal como previu o autor, que resultaria da perda da autoridade da fam铆lia e da socializa莽茫o da educa莽茫o, levaria ao aparecimento de uma sociedade formada por indiv铆duos incapazes de lidar com a frustra莽茫o, incapazes de assumir a sua responsabilidade e dependentes de terceiros e da sociedade para quem remetem sempre a responsabilidade de resolver as suas frustra莽玫es.
脡 impressionante a lucidez deste autor que na d茅cada de 70 viu no ensino americano e nas suas teorias pedag贸gicas pensadas para contrariar as desigualdades raciais e econ贸micas todo o seu cortejo de efeitos perversos como o descredito do m茅rito, as formas inversas de segrega莽茫o, o descr茅dito cultural e cient铆fico, a distopia do multiculturalismo e da Interseccionalidade
Espantosamente actual para um livro escrito na d茅cada de 70. Com uma primeira edi莽茫o em 1979, o autor soube antecipar com 30 a 40 anos o que seria o primeiro quartil deste mil茅nio. Como um 谩uspice, soube ler na poeira dos tempos de que forma os nascidos j谩 depois do seu livro publicado, os 鈥渕illenius鈥�, a gera莽茫o da internet, como iriam comportar-se, como se relacionariam entre si, e que tipo de sociedade iriam alimentar. N茫o previu Donald Trump nem o movimento MAGA que abalou todas as estruturas e conven莽玫es que tom谩vamos como s茅rias e s贸lidas. N茫o previu esta reac莽茫o populista, mas sem d煤vida que identificou a deriva Woke que justificou o tsunami de 5 de novembro de 2024.
Neste seu livro Christopher Lasch descreve o narcisismo secund谩rio como um tra莽o predominante na sociedade que seria dominante nas grandes metr贸poles e que acabaria por ser o 鈥渮eitgeist鈥�, de muitos desses meios culturais, sociais e econ贸micos. C Lasch descreveu estes narcisistas secund谩rios como algu茅m grande fragilidade emocional, dependendo constantemente de valida莽茫o externa, algu茅m cuja sua personalidade 茅 mais moldada pela perce莽茫o de terceiros que pelo conte煤do interno. Este narcisista secund谩rio 茅 algu茅m que vive rodeado de vazio e t茅dio, algu茅m que busca prazeres imediatos e distra莽玫es constantes sem nunca se sentir plenamente satisfeito. Leva uma vida superficial sem prop贸sito ou empenho de se conectar com outros. Para o narcisista secund谩rio o desejo de relacionamento com outros tem sempre de partir de outros, ainda que sem o reconhecer tudo fa莽a para que os outros o apreciem com ele acha que dever谩 ser apreciado. Ao contr谩rio do narcisista prim谩rio, o amor que ele tem por si mesmo n茫o 茅 o seu tra莽o principal, o narcisista secund谩rio precisa que os outros gostem de si.
Este narcisista tem medo do envelhecimento e da morte, tem uma obsess茫o pela juventude, beleza e desempenho alimentada por uma cultura de apar锚ncia e consumismo. A morte e a velhice s茫o reprimidas ou transformadas em tabu pois a perda de controlo e da identidade. Tem dificuldade em estabelecer rela莽玫es profundas, e os seus relacionamentos s茫o usados para satisfa莽茫o social ou benef铆cios materiais. S贸 consegue estabelecer rela莽玫es superficiais e ef茅meras. Depende constantemente da aprova莽茫o dos outros, 茅 hipersens铆vel 脿 critica e busca constantemente o reconhecimento e elogios. N茫o tem empatia por ningu茅m. Recorrentemente 茅 hostil e c铆nico. N茫o tem rela莽玫es sociais, a denota um desencantamento com institui莽玫es como fam铆lia, religi茫o e pol铆tica. N茫o acredita na coletividade e para ele os outros s茫o sempre amea莽as ou obst谩culos. Por茅m, esta independ锚ncia 茅 apenas aparente, pois o narcisista secund谩rio tem um irresist铆vel fasc铆nio pelo poder e o reconhecimento social. Tem uma fixa莽茫o pela fama, influ锚ncia e prest铆gio como forma de apaziguar a sua inseguran莽a interior. Esta permanente busca pela fama e grandiosidade pode gerar uma 谩urea majest谩tica, mas apenas s茫o mecanismos para esconder uma evidente fragilidade interior. O narcisista secund谩rio 茅 algu茅m que rejeita a hist贸ria e a tradi莽茫o. 脡 algu茅m que se desinteressa pelo passado e vive em permanente fuga para um presente onde tudo 茅 consumido e descartado rapidamente.
Este narcisista secund谩rio que Christopher Lasch previu e descreveu, foi por ele antecipado em algumas caracter铆sticas da sociedade que pareciam despontar na d茅cada de 70. Para Lasch a perda de autoridade de estruturas sociais como fam铆lia, religi茫o, poder secular, a menoriza莽茫o dos valores 茅ticos, formataram o molde no qual essa nova sociedade narcisista se come莽ou a configurar.
O decl铆nio da influencia da hist贸ria e do passado, a perda de uma 茅tica do trabalho onde o reconhecimento se estabelece pelos bens que se possuem e n茫o pela forma como se construiu o nosso trilho, a degrada莽茫o da pol铆tica que a reduziu a um palco de publicidade onde a governa莽茫o e discurso pol铆tico desceu de tal forma que transformou a escolha c铆vica num 鈥渆ventos desportivos鈥� levaria anos mais tarde 脿 degenera莽茫o da pol铆tica em espet谩culo perdendo-se qualquer perspectiva de debate pol铆tico鈥�. Um sistema educativo, tal como previu o autor, que resultaria da perda da autoridade da fam铆lia e da socializa莽茫o da educa莽茫o, levaria ao aparecimento de uma sociedade formada por indiv铆duos incapazes de lidar com a frustra莽茫o, incapazes de assumir a sua responsabilidade e dependentes de terceiros e da sociedade para quem remetem sempre a responsabilidade de resolver as suas frustra莽玫es.
脡 impressionante a lucidez deste autor que na d茅cada de 70 viu no ensino americano e nas suas teorias pedag贸gicas pensadas para contrariar as desigualdades raciais e econ贸micas todo o seu cortejo de efeitos perversos como o descredito do m茅rito, as formas inversas de segrega莽茫o, o descr茅dito cultural e cient铆fico, a distopia do multiculturalismo e da Interseccionalidade
August 13, 2019
Although the author did not position his book as such, it's turned out to be an extremely prescient book about my Boomer generation. I'm a mid-Boomer, born in 1955. When the author wrote the book, many of the front-end Boomers had already entered their 30's. The Yippies had become Yuppies. The common thread of self-indulgence and narcissism was intact and would remain for many until this day. We now live an era, a new Gilded Age, where some Boomers have become extremely wealthy. But many more have spent their way into near poverty, never having saved a nickel. We were supposed to learn from the mistakes of our parents, but we have not been so successful, such as getting entrenched in pointless wars. And we failed to imitate their strong points, such as fiscal responsibility. I can only hope the the Millennials learn from our mistakes.
==========
What I've written above was the fundamental insight I got from the first time I read the book many years ago and it has stood the test of time.
What I was reminded of this time around was how much I originally learned from the book even though surrounded by chapters of some dense Freudian analysis which I think is not so useful.
-----
A later book that Lasch wrote. "The Minimal Self," is a companion book to this one. Allow me to commend BlackOxford's review of that one....
/review/show...
==========
What I've written above was the fundamental insight I got from the first time I read the book many years ago and it has stood the test of time.
What I was reminded of this time around was how much I originally learned from the book even though surrounded by chapters of some dense Freudian analysis which I think is not so useful.
-----
A later book that Lasch wrote. "The Minimal Self," is a companion book to this one. Allow me to commend BlackOxford's review of that one....
/review/show...
January 10, 2020
During reading, I was completely unaware how old this book was. Because it all felt so fresh, relevant, current and actual. All the time the author was talking about narcissistic preoccupations with ephemeral aspects of one's all too important self and celebrities, I imagined, for sure, it was all the physically impossible buttocks on Instagram and 50 year old dudes that look like 20 yo girls he had in mind. Turns out, the author died at least 20 years before this Gomora of new milenium stepped on the scene, and almost the same number of years AFTER he wrote the book!
The only clue I might have taken in right direction, but I didn't, was how heavy on psychoanalysis it is. Many things are over the top, for sure. I think Freudian analysts themselves, those rare specimen still in habitat, that is, sometimes take their own trade as sort of intellectual gymnastics and nothing more.
The other times, which is some 95%, it all rings more than true. It rings and hits right in the head. I regret the author didn't live to this day to witness the fruition of his predictions, which he thought were statements about the state of affairs in seventies. What would he say about this day and age?
Maybe I enjoyed this book so much because there's a lot of me in it.
Which means I am narcissist myself.
If there's no me in it, I'm still narcissist thinking that it was.
So. Yeah.
The only clue I might have taken in right direction, but I didn't, was how heavy on psychoanalysis it is. Many things are over the top, for sure. I think Freudian analysts themselves, those rare specimen still in habitat, that is, sometimes take their own trade as sort of intellectual gymnastics and nothing more.
The other times, which is some 95%, it all rings more than true. It rings and hits right in the head. I regret the author didn't live to this day to witness the fruition of his predictions, which he thought were statements about the state of affairs in seventies. What would he say about this day and age?
Maybe I enjoyed this book so much because there's a lot of me in it.
Which means I am narcissist myself.
If there's no me in it, I'm still narcissist thinking that it was.
So. Yeah.
April 14, 2020
This is an angry book. I like a tough, angry book. We know the story. From the position of the 1970s, Lasch is critiquing the permissiveness of the 1960s. The 1960s created permissiveness, staunch feminism and a decline of the family.
Because ... afterall, morality, women and the family were so happy, organized and successful in the 1950s...
While I disagree with much of the book, validating 'the past' through a nostalgic lens, there is great attention to the transformations of the individual and individualism. It was also fascinating to see a reclaiming of the 19th century rendering of Self Help in light of the 1960s and 'awareness.'
I love a bit of self-righteous anger at hippies. I disagree with the target and the mode of analysis. But what a ride.
Because ... afterall, morality, women and the family were so happy, organized and successful in the 1950s...
While I disagree with much of the book, validating 'the past' through a nostalgic lens, there is great attention to the transformations of the individual and individualism. It was also fascinating to see a reclaiming of the 19th century rendering of Self Help in light of the 1960s and 'awareness.'
I love a bit of self-righteous anger at hippies. I disagree with the target and the mode of analysis. But what a ride.
December 15, 2017
Meh. Here is a crank who used to have some good ideas who now overuses the word "narcissist" to describe everything he doesn't like in the left and "kids these days." He's sometimes right, but mostly just shouting meaningless things in words that sound somewhat scientific.
September 13, 2018
Important read for me personally. Forced me to rethink about a lot of my beliefs. Quite surprisingly, despite being originally published in 1979, little of this thoughtful analysis of American culture has dated. It's kind of eerie, honestly, to see all the current artifacts, from Trump to MRA to identity politics.
I can understand that it can come across as an old man curmudgeonly ranting at the world and the Freudian psychobabble doesn't help. But if you ignore that [*], it's probably the best for conservative principles, not that anyone seems to care much about those right now. Some parts reminded me of James Scott's description of destruction of metis in . However, it's quite dense with some contradictory parts (like for all the psychobabble, the term narcissism is primarily metaphorically used).
And the funny thing is that you are still left with the same crippling self-doubt whether anything can be done about any if it, as an individual. Also see: .
Some interesting highlights:
On narcissism:
As an aside I do recommend reading the .
On authenticity:
Others:
[*]: Although Lasch is guilty of taking it a lot more seriously than he should, Freud does make as a good metaphor. Consider this remark: "It is through love and work, that we exchange crippingly emotional conflict for ordinary unhappiness"
I can understand that it can come across as an old man curmudgeonly ranting at the world and the Freudian psychobabble doesn't help. But if you ignore that [*], it's probably the best for conservative principles, not that anyone seems to care much about those right now. Some parts reminded me of James Scott's description of destruction of metis in . However, it's quite dense with some contradictory parts (like for all the psychobabble, the term narcissism is primarily metaphorically used).
And the funny thing is that you are still left with the same crippling self-doubt whether anything can be done about any if it, as an individual. Also see: .
Some interesting highlights:
On narcissism:
鈥he character traits associated with pathological narcissism, which in less extreme form appear in such profusion in the every day life of our age: dependence on the vicarious warmth provided by others combined with a fear of dependence, a sense of inner emptiness, boundless repressed rage, and unsatisfied oral cravings. Nor do they discuss what might be called the secondary characteristics of narcissism: pseudo self-insight, calculating seductiveness, nervous, self-deprecatory humor.
As an aside I do recommend reading the .
On authenticity:
In eighteenth-century London or Paris, sociability did not depend on intimacy. 鈥淪trangers meeting in parks or on the street might without embarrassment speak to each other.鈥� They shared a common fund of public signs which enabled people of unequal rank to conduct a civilized conversation and to cooperate in public projects without feeling called upon to expose their innermost secrets. The romantic cult of sincerity and authenticity tore away the masks that people once had worn in public and eroded the boundary between public and private life. As the public world came to be seen as a mirror of the self, people lost the capacity for detachment and playful encounter, which presupposes a certain distance from the self.
Others:
As John R. Seeley noted in 1959, the transfer of parental knowledge to other agencies parallels the expropriation of the worker鈥檚 technical knowledge by modern management 鈥� 鈥渢he taking over from the worker of the sad necessity of providing himself with the means of production.鈥� By 鈥渉elpfully鈥� relieving the worker from 鈥渟uch onerous responsibilities鈥� as the provision of his own and his children鈥檚 needs, society has freed him, as Seeley wrote, 鈥渢o become a solder in the army of production and a cipher in the process of decision.鈥�
The introduction of courses in home-making, health, citizenship, and other nonacademic subjects, together with the proliferation of athletic programs and extracurricular activities, reflected the dogma that schools had to educate 鈥渢he whole child鈥�; but it also reflected the practical need to fill up the students鈥� time and to keep them reasonably contented. Such programs spread rapidly through the public schools in the twenties and thirties, often justified by the need to make 鈥済ood citizenship,鈥� in the words of a dean of Teachers College, 鈥渁 dominant aim of the American public school.鈥�
摆鈥
Dimly recognizing that in many areas 鈥� precisely those that lie outside the formal curriculum 鈥� experience teaches more than books, educators then proceeded to do away with books: to import experience into the academic setting, to re-create models of learning formerly associated with the family, to encourage students to 鈥渓earn by doing.鈥� 摆鈥 Two educators wrote in 1934, without any awareness of the irony of their prescriptions:
鈥淏y bringing into the school those who are practical doers from the world鈥� to supplement and stimulate the teaching of those whose training has been in the normal school, education can be vitalized鈥︹€�
The more closely education approximated this empty ideal, however, the more effectively it discouraged ambition of any sort, except perhaps the ambition to get away from school by one expedient or another. By draining the curriculum not merely of academic but of practical content, educators deprived students of challenging work and forced them to find other means of filling time which the law nevertheless required them to spend in school 摆鈥 Though teachers and administrators deplored their students鈥� obsession with popularity, they themselves encouraged it by giving so much attention to the need to get along with others 鈥� to master the cooperative habits considered indispensable to industrial success.
Society no longer expects authorities to articulate a clearly reasoned, elaborately justified code of law and morality; nor does it expect the young to internalize moral standards of the community. It demands only conformity to the conventions of everyday intercourse, sanctioned by psychiatric definitions of normal behavior.
[*]: Although Lasch is guilty of taking it a lot more seriously than he should, Freud does make as a good metaphor. Consider this remark: "It is through love and work, that we exchange crippingly emotional conflict for ordinary unhappiness"
February 4, 2022
One of those books that are often mentioned but seldom read, though that might change. Its central thesis is that modernity undermining people's confidence in traditional authorities and social institutions has largely been for the worse, resulting in a neurotic inwards-looking people incapable of having a psychologically healthy relationship with any kind of authority or institution. Especially not when the gap has been filled by inhuman centralised technocracies in both the public and private sectors.
"The Culture of Narcissism" was published a year before Ronald Reagan's election by a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, and it shows. The narcissistic culture Lasch warns us against is basically a prototype for the popular caricature of 1980's yuppie culture. Indeed, it would not surprise me if Bret Easton Ellis wrote both "Less Than Zero" and "American Psycho" with a dog-eared and annotated copy of this book at his side! The context of the Carter administration also explains Lasch's initially baffling combination of Marxist economic analysis and American conservative moral values. I find it very noticeable out of the "recommended similar books" on here for "The Culture of Narcissism" 50% are by conservative authors (e. g. Camille Paglia, Michel Houellebecq) 50% by Marxist authors. (e. g. Mark Fisher, Slavoj Zizek)
As many valid observations as Lasch makes, though, I'm not sure if I follow through with all of it. Not only does he rely on Freudian psychological theories I'm not 100% on board with myself, but the afore-mentioned mix of Marxist economic theory and conservative morality results in his analysis often coming across as ideologically incoherent to me. To say nothing of the fact that my beginner level knowledge of economics, sociology and similar disciplines means that I am often not that sure exactly what Lasch means, a writing style that when you think about it undermines the anti-elitist political message of book...
"The Culture of Narcissism" was published a year before Ronald Reagan's election by a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, and it shows. The narcissistic culture Lasch warns us against is basically a prototype for the popular caricature of 1980's yuppie culture. Indeed, it would not surprise me if Bret Easton Ellis wrote both "Less Than Zero" and "American Psycho" with a dog-eared and annotated copy of this book at his side! The context of the Carter administration also explains Lasch's initially baffling combination of Marxist economic analysis and American conservative moral values. I find it very noticeable out of the "recommended similar books" on here for "The Culture of Narcissism" 50% are by conservative authors (e. g. Camille Paglia, Michel Houellebecq) 50% by Marxist authors. (e. g. Mark Fisher, Slavoj Zizek)
As many valid observations as Lasch makes, though, I'm not sure if I follow through with all of it. Not only does he rely on Freudian psychological theories I'm not 100% on board with myself, but the afore-mentioned mix of Marxist economic theory and conservative morality results in his analysis often coming across as ideologically incoherent to me. To say nothing of the fact that my beginner level knowledge of economics, sociology and similar disciplines means that I am often not that sure exactly what Lasch means, a writing style that when you think about it undermines the anti-elitist political message of book...
July 12, 2022
This book has a basically sound premise that modern post-industrial capitalism promotes narcissism. This connects socially conservative ideas to socialist economics by arguing that capitalism errodes these values. However, most of this book is just long digressions full of absurd non-falsifiable conjecture. A lot of these chapters are full of ridiculous similies (like arguing schizophrenia is a form narcissistic personality disorder). Basically, he writes a book with a lot of the ideas in psychology and sociology, but uses the methodology of philsophy, which is just giving out random opinions without justification.
He also uses a lot of random novels and movies from the 60s and 70s that no one has ever heard of to prove his points...idk why Joseph Heller's obscure book "Something Happened" get like 12 mentions.
He also uses a lot of random novels and movies from the 60s and 70s that no one has ever heard of to prove his points...idk why Joseph Heller's obscure book "Something Happened" get like 12 mentions.
August 3, 2018
I'm so conflicted...
Christopher Lasch put forth the most cohesive explanation I've seen for the surreal nightmare we're living in 2018...in 1978.
"Narcissism," in this context, isn't merely a reference to selfishness or vanity. Indeed, it's nothing short of existential crisis. To be seen is to be humiliated; To be unseen is death. We save face by wearing masks of ironic detachment. Alienated from tradition and terrified of myth, we find ourselves driven farther and farther inward. This endless search for self ultimately amounts to circular rationalization. No wonder we're all such hypocrites. (He explains all this much better than I have.)
Though he primarily takes aim at the left, conservatives don't get off easy. Wherever you stand, ideologically, prepare to be confronted. This is us. And it's been forming in the shadows for decades.
My problem with this book...is a big one. Though he briefly touches on the subject of narcissistic parenting, he's far more critical of social workers and activists for interfering with families. This interference, according to Lasch, fosters detachment, panicky self-doubt and guilty permissiveness that ultimately do more harm than good. Fair enough. But what about the harm done by excessive discipline? While he stops short of explicitly advocating violence towards children, he quotes those who do, uncritically. He kinda just lets it go by. When he quotes Ellen Richards as saying that children are not "the property of their parents" but "assets of the state," he only addresses the latter part of her statement. The question of whether children are property goes unaddressed and unchallenged by Lasch. In framing this debate as "parents' rights" issue, he tacitly concedes that the rights of children are completely irrelevant. This is not only a huge oversight, it's a curious one given that his own mother was a social worker and his own father was an activist! That doesn't render all his points invalid, but it left a sour taste in my mouth.
No, Lasch doesn't have the answers. Still, this book is worth reading (with a grain of salt). (And then read some Alice Miller.)
Christopher Lasch put forth the most cohesive explanation I've seen for the surreal nightmare we're living in 2018...in 1978.
"Narcissism," in this context, isn't merely a reference to selfishness or vanity. Indeed, it's nothing short of existential crisis. To be seen is to be humiliated; To be unseen is death. We save face by wearing masks of ironic detachment. Alienated from tradition and terrified of myth, we find ourselves driven farther and farther inward. This endless search for self ultimately amounts to circular rationalization. No wonder we're all such hypocrites. (He explains all this much better than I have.)
Though he primarily takes aim at the left, conservatives don't get off easy. Wherever you stand, ideologically, prepare to be confronted. This is us. And it's been forming in the shadows for decades.
My problem with this book...is a big one. Though he briefly touches on the subject of narcissistic parenting, he's far more critical of social workers and activists for interfering with families. This interference, according to Lasch, fosters detachment, panicky self-doubt and guilty permissiveness that ultimately do more harm than good. Fair enough. But what about the harm done by excessive discipline? While he stops short of explicitly advocating violence towards children, he quotes those who do, uncritically. He kinda just lets it go by. When he quotes Ellen Richards as saying that children are not "the property of their parents" but "assets of the state," he only addresses the latter part of her statement. The question of whether children are property goes unaddressed and unchallenged by Lasch. In framing this debate as "parents' rights" issue, he tacitly concedes that the rights of children are completely irrelevant. This is not only a huge oversight, it's a curious one given that his own mother was a social worker and his own father was an activist! That doesn't render all his points invalid, but it left a sour taste in my mouth.
No, Lasch doesn't have the answers. Still, this book is worth reading (with a grain of salt). (And then read some Alice Miller.)
October 16, 2017
A stunning work, written by a man who defies our current definitions of conservative and liberal, which were born in the 1960s. The issues Lasch raises still plague us today because we have elevated capitalism to a religion and the baby boomers, who Lasch consistently blasts, are now in full control. If this book were written in 2012 it would still make sense.
None of this means the book is perfect. Lasch discusses obscure thinkers without describing their ideas. He is too Freudian and his afterword is dismissive towards the obvious thrust of his book: the rise of individualism, for if discussing the fallout from the decay of the family was his goal, then he failed to a degree, for that is never explicitly stated nor given a more prominent place in the text than his other points of discussion. The book seems to be discussing less a world without the family, and more so a world where the progressive and capitalist dreams were turning into iron cages. In that regard Lasch was right, and our poverty of ideas in the face of the current crisis is because of those cages we lavishly built for ourselves.
None of this means the book is perfect. Lasch discusses obscure thinkers without describing their ideas. He is too Freudian and his afterword is dismissive towards the obvious thrust of his book: the rise of individualism, for if discussing the fallout from the decay of the family was his goal, then he failed to a degree, for that is never explicitly stated nor given a more prominent place in the text than his other points of discussion. The book seems to be discussing less a world without the family, and more so a world where the progressive and capitalist dreams were turning into iron cages. In that regard Lasch was right, and our poverty of ideas in the face of the current crisis is because of those cages we lavishly built for ourselves.
May 10, 2010
What a pity that a book about a very fascinating concept should turn out so awful; readers, be sure you have your PhDs in sociology, psychology, and vocabulary before embarking on this journey. The book is more dense than a black hole. I couldn't tell what the author was trying to say at all, his arguments are not easy to follow, etc. I feel like the author used this book as an ostentatious display of his own intelligence instead of a means of explaining his ideas.
January 26, 2024
I strongly disagree with most of the chapters on Education, but generally, it's a great book. It is worth every minute spent with it, although it wasn't what I needed for my research.
August 30, 2022
Echo de menos m谩s ensayos de este tipo en castellano. Queda pendiente la traducci贸n -d铆ficil, intuyo- de Philip Rieff, en especial, su libro sobre Freud y "The triumph of the therapeutic", en el que acu帽a el tipo "hombre psicol贸gico" y su organizaci贸n en forma de "sociedad terape煤tica". De ambos libros de Rieff creo que tira Christopher Lasch en este ensayo en torno a la cultura del narcisismo.
La tesis central es el dominio generalizado en nuestras sociedades occidentales de una estructura de la personalidad que responde a los rasgos del narcisismo patol贸gico, sin que necesariamente se manifiesten en su extrema intensidad. Se trata del tono caracter铆stico de la sociedad actual. La cultura de dicha sociedad estimula y premia de diversas formas el narcisismo.
En el desarrollo de esta tesis y a lo largo del libro el lector encontrar谩 abundantes fundamentos psicoanal铆ticos, por lo que quien abomine de tal enfoque y disciplina, una de dos, o prorrumpe en sonoras carcajadas, o abandona la lectura buscando con ello evitar un shock anafil谩ctico.
Se parte de la familia, como buen an谩lisis freudiano, y de su progresiva descomposici贸n. El derrumbe de la autoridad paterna, la externalizaci贸n de la crianza de los hijos, la figura del padre ausente, la insidiosa corrosi贸n de la confianza de los progenitores, etc. 驴Qu茅 consecuencias se derivan de una transformaci贸n semejante en una instituci贸n clave como es la familia? Pues Lasch nos lo cuenta. Adem谩s de la familia, toca temas como el reflejo del narcisismo en el arte, las consecuencias de la educaci贸n universal obligatoria, la guerra de sexos, la degradaci贸n del deporte, el mundo laboral y sus transformaciones paralelas a la evoluci贸n del capitalismo, la fama y la celebridad, y un largo e interesante etc茅tera.
No siempre es f谩cil seguir las ideas del libro, no s茅 si debido al nivel de densidad que alcanza el texto o a causas atribuibles a la traducci贸n. Tambi茅n al hecho de que, aqu铆 el lector, da hasta cierto punto y no m谩s all谩.
La tesis central es el dominio generalizado en nuestras sociedades occidentales de una estructura de la personalidad que responde a los rasgos del narcisismo patol贸gico, sin que necesariamente se manifiesten en su extrema intensidad. Se trata del tono caracter铆stico de la sociedad actual. La cultura de dicha sociedad estimula y premia de diversas formas el narcisismo.
En el desarrollo de esta tesis y a lo largo del libro el lector encontrar谩 abundantes fundamentos psicoanal铆ticos, por lo que quien abomine de tal enfoque y disciplina, una de dos, o prorrumpe en sonoras carcajadas, o abandona la lectura buscando con ello evitar un shock anafil谩ctico.
Se parte de la familia, como buen an谩lisis freudiano, y de su progresiva descomposici贸n. El derrumbe de la autoridad paterna, la externalizaci贸n de la crianza de los hijos, la figura del padre ausente, la insidiosa corrosi贸n de la confianza de los progenitores, etc. 驴Qu茅 consecuencias se derivan de una transformaci贸n semejante en una instituci贸n clave como es la familia? Pues Lasch nos lo cuenta. Adem谩s de la familia, toca temas como el reflejo del narcisismo en el arte, las consecuencias de la educaci贸n universal obligatoria, la guerra de sexos, la degradaci贸n del deporte, el mundo laboral y sus transformaciones paralelas a la evoluci贸n del capitalismo, la fama y la celebridad, y un largo e interesante etc茅tera.
No siempre es f谩cil seguir las ideas del libro, no s茅 si debido al nivel de densidad que alcanza el texto o a causas atribuibles a la traducci贸n. Tambi茅n al hecho de que, aqu铆 el lector, da hasta cierto punto y no m谩s all谩.
March 15, 2022
A nice critique of the post-capitalist culture in America from a Marxist and psychological perspective. As all the traditional institutions collapse under the pressure of new capitalism, the individual loses all substance and in turn collapses in his/her inner self in the company of self-pleasure and self-admiration. Therapy, marketing, experts, and all new institutions promote this new type of self-centered and free-floating individual. Since published more than 40 years ago, most of the references in this book are no longer familiar today 鈥� however one recognizes some old and still popular books that promoted this kind of narcissism: , , and similar.
January 30, 2012
And I thought I was a pessimist.....
June 29, 2016
Chock full of trenchant insights about what forms and constitutes our cultural narcissism. A tad too much Freud and Marx for my taste, but even those frameworks are utilized deftly.
January 2, 2021
A historical cliche is that the 60's are the decade of social consciousness and revolution, while the 70's are a cynical followup, marked by a withdrawl from culture, political apathy and general me-ism. Many thinkers at that time assumed this new attitude would last around a decade. However, reading this book felt like it was written yesterday, which perhaps extends the timeline on the aformentioned me-ism.
Before I tell you to buy the book, I want to write out here on some themes it's forced on my mind.
Starting earlier in the year, I had read partially through a half-dozen books about 60s and 70s politics, like e.g. nixonland, reaganland, what's the matter with kansas, after watergate, conservatives without conscious. The main goal was to piece together my own coherent story on our modern malaise and a blocker has been the lack of rationales in what seems like either overreactions to calculated political action, or lack of reaction to incoherent political action, and indiscriminate, incoherent violence.
The dynamics just didn't make sense. What did it mean for collective efforts when organizing leaders like Bobby Kennedy, Fred Hampton, MLK to kept getting shot dead? When does this kill a movement vs enervating others to take their place? Why did political leaders play kick-the-can with what they knew was a doomed, wasteful war? Where is the split between public and self interest? Why did yippie-like "revolutionaries" (e.g. Abbie Hoffman, Jane Fonda, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dhorne etc...) constantly hamstring popular leftist movements, eschewing the Ralph Naders to a relatively isolated existence? Most of all, why did young progressives assume that, automatically, once Nixon was out of office, the country would be guaranteed anything more progressive?
Here's a quote giving some of our author's perspectives on these struggles:
The puzzle piece this book unlocked, is the role of people's self-perception relative to a moving system of ambiguous values.
So first, what is narcissism? Is it just being selfish and rude? To a psychologist, it's a personality disorder. Defined by the APA it represents a need for grandiosity of the self, fantasies aound the self, need for constant approval to maintain self-image, an unreasonalbe and automatic sense of entitlement, interpersonal exploitativeness, lack of empathy, with a dusting of envy and arrogance.
In the book, Lasch, the author, uses the two freudian types of narcissism(one is more annoying), both of which are essentially the above APA bullet points but with the lore of stemming from "an inability to distinguish the boundary between the self and the world". Here's an illustrative quote of a personality type, the book is filled with these.
So it's essentially talking about how these personality traits manifest and are promoted in late 70s america in things like celebrity worship, externalization of responsibilities and denial of economic enfranchisement.
Before a phenomenon hits culture, politics, it's usually brewed elsewhere for a while. Lasch notes the increase in incidences of narcissistic personality disorder and links the cause with a lack of meaning in work, religion, community. Essentially, in late industrialization work has become trivial and the lack of material pressures indirectly weakens community bonds (e.g. by upending the central industries of towns) without anything to replace them. Society starts to change from community oriented to global, with little more contract between citizens than consumption of the same media. More recent authors would call this the atomization of the individual from neoliberalism.
The book is not primarily a critique of capitalism, and the role that a changing world plays into its story is in directing the change in an individual's self in relation to the rest of the world. Essentially Lasch concludes that while the pro-capitalist ideologies continue to erode traditional mores by means of austerity and economic stratification, the counter-balance force to this is not restorative but an equal and oppossing self-serving distortion. Some examples he gives are (a) sports, where the extreme commercialization takes the spirit of participation out of the viewer, and the popular contrary view is not to reduce commercialization but reduce the competitiveness and make it a more bland but inclusive product, and (b) work-labor-societal relations, where being ground into 80%-fat human capital is countered by being neatly bottled into grades of bromides.
While distinctly melancholy in tone, Lasch clinically dresses each and every part of daily life where he's sniffed a change in human's object-relations, past or present. One of the more interesting sections discusses the various factors leading slow transition into the 60s. Intellecutals in the 50s themselves were worried and aware of the trends of industrialization and the change of educational institutions from places of authority to businesses. I don't get the sense they were particularly pessimistic, and I wonder how this period could have been navigated differently.
So maybe there's somewhat of a lack of meaning, and a lack of a vision to work towards outside of the immediate gratificaitons of the self. You're creating hyper-aware individuals and giving them nothing to do, paired with pessimistic outlooks, they start devouring themselves. At the moment, I view personality disorders themselves as a way to rationalize within one's world-view their aggression onto others without percieving it as such. In an age of diminishing expectations, when there's not enough for everyone to be the start of their own shows, such personality disorders at least offer a way to meet ambitions from an earlier time, getting ahead in the short-term at the expense of others.
My take away, politically, is that the lack of a reformed, collective american identity after '68 resulted in conflicting subgroups of identity living in their own simplified worldviews. Each faction is inheritor to the american idea and privileges itself over others, explicitly or implicitly, by virtue of exclusion. The gradual bipartisan outcome of this split is the common denominator of the virtuous self vs the corrupt society. Anyone can claim to have an ideal and feel betrayed when the rest of the country doesn't agree, thereby justifing withdrawal from the collective. Consequentially, the me-movements of the 70s would then just a projection of separate ideologies that all happen to be the good guy. Perhaps then total neoliberalism seems natural. Maybe pillaging the commons is itself a revenge from the americans too ignorant to adopt your world-views? Reagan's unusually good numbers from this generation vouch for his popularity among former radicals, and the distance between his austeric, liberal rhetoric and actual bloated, regressive policies even mirrored the performative nature of 60s revolutions.
Self fulfilment won over social responsibility. It continues to reign supreme in varying degrees to everyone living here.
The ensuing social-relational maze is, I feel, also the part taken for grant in most of social texts, even Chomsky's macro-analyses. In fixing exploitative parts of our economy, and brutal parts of our foreign policy, the personal cost of unifying across class lines, aka finding a way to work out our differences instead of morally trampling over each other, is fighting against a tragedy of the epistemic commons. This I think most social philosophers trivialize when it's in-fact a structure as complex as any modern political system. The work of getting individuals to cooperate and even resolve their cornucopea of differences, which often stem from real justifiale not-immediately-solvable anger, is no more guaranteed than developing a multi-billion dollar jet, and similarly fragile and corruptible. Without taking into account the nature of these differences, which necessarily means humanizing others and letting go the narcissistic/borderline mechanism of dividing into good/bad, or more specifically useful people and in-the-way bodies, can we start to form lasting coalitions that might see even half-decde projects like dams, levees, reactors, etc... to completion.
What about cultural relevance now? In our modern day conflicts? Well, the most recent protests only became powerful after getting violent, which made people uncomfortable, but is inherently less performative. The battle of effective politics in the future, which really means cooperation in the future, depends on the ability to be less performative, dramatic, self-actualizing and more pragmatic, mission-driven and uncomfortable.
To project the chances of this, imagine that if the modern millenials were similarly economically enfranchised to previous generations, would anything be different or would we live the 60s over again? Are we so much smarter and empathetic that we would volunteer away parts of our egos and freedom to create a better world for all, or would we stay clutching our wealth while reciting market slogans to shun those complaining about not having enough. Can anything other than a painful collective struggle form cross-group empathy? I'm afraid to consider the answers to these questions.
The most important point is, we're all narcissistic today in some form. It's part of the core of our culture, for better or worse. We're the greatest nation on earth, but for what? We have the highest valued stock exchanges in the world, but sitting on overleveraged companies and federal reserve aid. We produce the most students through higher education in the world, though standards are declining and underemployment is rampant and we lost that lead since 2000. We produce the most intellectual, subversive, anti-establishment media in the world which then gets thoroughly integrated into the the capitalistic machine. We miss the point.
We look bafflingly at those intellectually handicapped people practicing religion, playing their rituals, clearly having no effect on the real world. To a modern intellectual, it looks like they're playing make-believe, role-playing back to a different time with different rules that don't apply anymore. Maybe they are dumb, but at some level it's perhaps a choice against the vacuum of meaning in our industrialized, materialistic society. Maybe given an archaic skill-set or disposition such an attitude is inevitable, but even with those, the modern liberated TV lifestyle may just not seem that enviable to them.
Anyway, this book made me think a lot. I read it twice in one week. It's real sociology, and it's worth a dozen other general-decline-depressing-nonfiction books(my favorite genre). If you want to think about how much individual psychological issues play into cultural and political solutions to inherently collective problems, this is should be your next book.
Before I tell you to buy the book, I want to write out here on some themes it's forced on my mind.
Starting earlier in the year, I had read partially through a half-dozen books about 60s and 70s politics, like e.g. nixonland, reaganland, what's the matter with kansas, after watergate, conservatives without conscious. The main goal was to piece together my own coherent story on our modern malaise and a blocker has been the lack of rationales in what seems like either overreactions to calculated political action, or lack of reaction to incoherent political action, and indiscriminate, incoherent violence.
The dynamics just didn't make sense. What did it mean for collective efforts when organizing leaders like Bobby Kennedy, Fred Hampton, MLK to kept getting shot dead? When does this kill a movement vs enervating others to take their place? Why did political leaders play kick-the-can with what they knew was a doomed, wasteful war? Where is the split between public and self interest? Why did yippie-like "revolutionaries" (e.g. Abbie Hoffman, Jane Fonda, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dhorne etc...) constantly hamstring popular leftist movements, eschewing the Ralph Naders to a relatively isolated existence? Most of all, why did young progressives assume that, automatically, once Nixon was out of office, the country would be guaranteed anything more progressive?
Here's a quote giving some of our author's perspectives on these struggles:
"The struggle over desegregation brought to the surface the inherent contradiction between the American commitment to universal education on the one hand and the realities of a class society on the other. Americans in the nineteenth century had adopted a system of common schooling without giving up their belief in the inevitability of social inequality."
The puzzle piece this book unlocked, is the role of people's self-perception relative to a moving system of ambiguous values.
So first, what is narcissism? Is it just being selfish and rude? To a psychologist, it's a personality disorder. Defined by the APA it represents a need for grandiosity of the self, fantasies aound the self, need for constant approval to maintain self-image, an unreasonalbe and automatic sense of entitlement, interpersonal exploitativeness, lack of empathy, with a dusting of envy and arrogance.
In the book, Lasch, the author, uses the two freudian types of narcissism(one is more annoying), both of which are essentially the above APA bullet points but with the lore of stemming from "an inability to distinguish the boundary between the self and the world". Here's an illustrative quote of a personality type, the book is filled with these.
Economic man himself has given way to the psychological man of our times鈥攖he final product of bourgeois individualism. The new narcissist is haunted not by guilt but by anxiety. He seeks not to inflict his own certainties on others but to find a meaning in life. Liberated from the superstitions of the past, he doubts even the reality of his own existence. Superficially relaxed and tolerant, he finds little use for dogmas of racial and ethnic purity but at the same time forfeits the security of group loyalties and regards everyone as a rival for the favors conferred by a paternalistic state. His sexual attitudes are permissive rather than puritanical, even though his emancipation from ancient taboos brings him no sexual peace. Fiercely competitive in his demand for approval and acclaim, he distrusts competition because he associates it unconsciously with an unbridled urge to destroy. Hence he repudiates the competitive ideologies that flourished at an earlier stage of capitalist development and distrusts even their limited expression in sports and games. He extols cooperation and teamwork while harboring deeply antisocial impulses. He praises respect for rules and regulations in the secret belief that they do not apply to himself. [...] The narcissist has no interest in the future because, in part, he has so little interest in the past. He finds it difficult to internalize happy associations or to create a store of loving memories with which to face the latter part of his life, which under the best of conditions always brings sadness and pain.
So it's essentially talking about how these personality traits manifest and are promoted in late 70s america in things like celebrity worship, externalization of responsibilities and denial of economic enfranchisement.
Before a phenomenon hits culture, politics, it's usually brewed elsewhere for a while. Lasch notes the increase in incidences of narcissistic personality disorder and links the cause with a lack of meaning in work, religion, community. Essentially, in late industrialization work has become trivial and the lack of material pressures indirectly weakens community bonds (e.g. by upending the central industries of towns) without anything to replace them. Society starts to change from community oriented to global, with little more contract between citizens than consumption of the same media. More recent authors would call this the atomization of the individual from neoliberalism.
"When jobs consist of little more than meaningless motions, and when social routines, formerly dignified as ritual, degenerate into role playing, the worker-whether he toils on an assembly line or holds down a high-paying job in a large bureaucracy-seeks to excape from the resulting sense of inauthenticity by creating an ironic distance from his daily routine. He attempts to transform role playing into a symbolic elevation of daily life. He takes refuge in jokes, mockery, and cynicism. If he is asked to perform a disagreeable task, he makes it clear that he doesn't believe in the organization's objectives of increased efficiency and greater output. If he goes to a party, he shows by his actions that it's all a game-false, artificial, insincere; a grotesque travesty of sociability. In this way he attempts to make himself invulnerable to the pressures of the situation. By refusing to take seriously the routines he has to perform, he denies their capacity to injure him. Although he assumes that it is impossible to alter the iron limits imposed on him by society, a detaches awareness of those limits seems to make them matter less. By demystifying daily life, he conveys to himself and others the impression that he has risen beyond it, even as he goes through the motions and does what is expected of him."
The book is not primarily a critique of capitalism, and the role that a changing world plays into its story is in directing the change in an individual's self in relation to the rest of the world. Essentially Lasch concludes that while the pro-capitalist ideologies continue to erode traditional mores by means of austerity and economic stratification, the counter-balance force to this is not restorative but an equal and oppossing self-serving distortion. Some examples he gives are (a) sports, where the extreme commercialization takes the spirit of participation out of the viewer, and the popular contrary view is not to reduce commercialization but reduce the competitiveness and make it a more bland but inclusive product, and (b) work-labor-societal relations, where being ground into 80%-fat human capital is countered by being neatly bottled into grades of bromides.
While distinctly melancholy in tone, Lasch clinically dresses each and every part of daily life where he's sniffed a change in human's object-relations, past or present. One of the more interesting sections discusses the various factors leading slow transition into the 60s. Intellecutals in the 50s themselves were worried and aware of the trends of industrialization and the change of educational institutions from places of authority to businesses. I don't get the sense they were particularly pessimistic, and I wonder how this period could have been navigated differently.
"What precipitated the crisis of the sixties was not simply the pressure of unprecedented numbers of students (many of whom would gladly have spent their youth elsewhere) but a fatal conjunture of historical challenges: the emergence of a new social conscience among students acivated by the moral rhetoric of the New Frontier and by the civil rights movement, and the simultaneous collapse of the university's claims to moral and intellectual legitimacy. Instead of offering a rounded program of humane learning, the university now frankly served as a cafeteria for which students had to select so many "credits." Instead of diffusing peace and enlightenment, it allied itself with the war machine. Eventually, even its claim to provide better jobs became suspect."
So maybe there's somewhat of a lack of meaning, and a lack of a vision to work towards outside of the immediate gratificaitons of the self. You're creating hyper-aware individuals and giving them nothing to do, paired with pessimistic outlooks, they start devouring themselves. At the moment, I view personality disorders themselves as a way to rationalize within one's world-view their aggression onto others without percieving it as such. In an age of diminishing expectations, when there's not enough for everyone to be the start of their own shows, such personality disorders at least offer a way to meet ambitions from an earlier time, getting ahead in the short-term at the expense of others.
My take away, politically, is that the lack of a reformed, collective american identity after '68 resulted in conflicting subgroups of identity living in their own simplified worldviews. Each faction is inheritor to the american idea and privileges itself over others, explicitly or implicitly, by virtue of exclusion. The gradual bipartisan outcome of this split is the common denominator of the virtuous self vs the corrupt society. Anyone can claim to have an ideal and feel betrayed when the rest of the country doesn't agree, thereby justifing withdrawal from the collective. Consequentially, the me-movements of the 70s would then just a projection of separate ideologies that all happen to be the good guy. Perhaps then total neoliberalism seems natural. Maybe pillaging the commons is itself a revenge from the americans too ignorant to adopt your world-views? Reagan's unusually good numbers from this generation vouch for his popularity among former radicals, and the distance between his austeric, liberal rhetoric and actual bloated, regressive policies even mirrored the performative nature of 60s revolutions.
Self fulfilment won over social responsibility. It continues to reign supreme in varying degrees to everyone living here.
The ensuing social-relational maze is, I feel, also the part taken for grant in most of social texts, even Chomsky's macro-analyses. In fixing exploitative parts of our economy, and brutal parts of our foreign policy, the personal cost of unifying across class lines, aka finding a way to work out our differences instead of morally trampling over each other, is fighting against a tragedy of the epistemic commons. This I think most social philosophers trivialize when it's in-fact a structure as complex as any modern political system. The work of getting individuals to cooperate and even resolve their cornucopea of differences, which often stem from real justifiale not-immediately-solvable anger, is no more guaranteed than developing a multi-billion dollar jet, and similarly fragile and corruptible. Without taking into account the nature of these differences, which necessarily means humanizing others and letting go the narcissistic/borderline mechanism of dividing into good/bad, or more specifically useful people and in-the-way bodies, can we start to form lasting coalitions that might see even half-decde projects like dams, levees, reactors, etc... to completion.
What about cultural relevance now? In our modern day conflicts? Well, the most recent protests only became powerful after getting violent, which made people uncomfortable, but is inherently less performative. The battle of effective politics in the future, which really means cooperation in the future, depends on the ability to be less performative, dramatic, self-actualizing and more pragmatic, mission-driven and uncomfortable.
To project the chances of this, imagine that if the modern millenials were similarly economically enfranchised to previous generations, would anything be different or would we live the 60s over again? Are we so much smarter and empathetic that we would volunteer away parts of our egos and freedom to create a better world for all, or would we stay clutching our wealth while reciting market slogans to shun those complaining about not having enough. Can anything other than a painful collective struggle form cross-group empathy? I'm afraid to consider the answers to these questions.
The most important point is, we're all narcissistic today in some form. It's part of the core of our culture, for better or worse. We're the greatest nation on earth, but for what? We have the highest valued stock exchanges in the world, but sitting on overleveraged companies and federal reserve aid. We produce the most students through higher education in the world, though standards are declining and underemployment is rampant and we lost that lead since 2000. We produce the most intellectual, subversive, anti-establishment media in the world which then gets thoroughly integrated into the the capitalistic machine. We miss the point.
We look bafflingly at those intellectually handicapped people practicing religion, playing their rituals, clearly having no effect on the real world. To a modern intellectual, it looks like they're playing make-believe, role-playing back to a different time with different rules that don't apply anymore. Maybe they are dumb, but at some level it's perhaps a choice against the vacuum of meaning in our industrialized, materialistic society. Maybe given an archaic skill-set or disposition such an attitude is inevitable, but even with those, the modern liberated TV lifestyle may just not seem that enviable to them.
Anyway, this book made me think a lot. I read it twice in one week. It's real sociology, and it's worth a dozen other general-decline-depressing-nonfiction books(my favorite genre). If you want to think about how much individual psychological issues play into cultural and political solutions to inherently collective problems, this is should be your next book.
March 13, 2017
Can I give this six stars? I highly recommend this book for all serious, critical thinkers 鈥� now more than ever 鈥� even after forty years. The 鈥渃ulture of narcissism鈥� in America has exploded beyond anyone鈥檚 imagination, would anyone disagree? But beware 鈥� this critique isn鈥檛 about the 45th president, Donald J. Trump, he was just getting started when the book was written, no it鈥檚 about you. Yes, you can recognize elements of Trump鈥檚 personality here, but as I鈥檝e written about elsewhere, Trump is a mutant manic narcissist, totally unique; which I鈥檒l return to his role later on in this review.
It鈥檚 impossible to pick out portions of this book to quote because there are just too many; but I鈥檒l attempt to summarize the big idea. Lasch鈥檚 analysis is based on Freudian theory, and historical events. Because of the Industrial Revolution, he posits, and the subsequent absence of the father in the home as an authoritarian disciplinarian 鈥� general authority shifted from the home to the corporation and the state, which undermined a healthy sense of self and groundedness for all members of the family, and people in general, a life that was balanced and made sense. Slowly over time (it was not a revolution, but an evolution); the 鈥淢anagerial and Professional Elite鈥�; so-called 鈥渆xperts鈥� replaced the father and mother as The Authority. Consequently, all members of the family became unmoored and set adrift 鈥� the natural response was a move toward narcissism, where nothing mattered but the here and now and the self. And the self鈥檚 instant gratification. The anchor of tradition, the past, and the expectation and hope that things would get better, the future, were lost. The tradition of family and the tribe, being central to existence, were replaced by one鈥檚 own feelings being front and center. Work lost its connection to life, due to the industrialization of production, concurrent with the explosion of the advertising industry 鈥� which combined 鈥� shifted people from prideful, respectful skilled workers, to consumers/clients/patients 鈥� the message being that if you possessed certain objects, commodities, and with the help of expert advice and counsel, the emptiness inside, a natural general angst that comes from living in a hostile world, would be relieved. But, as Lasch points out, 鈥淚nstead, the new professionals themselves invented many of the needs they claim to satisfy.鈥� (pg. 385) This is blatantly evident today, especially with regard to the mass media and the helping professionals, who deem their services, and themselves, indispensable. Pervasive is the culture of 鈥渘arcissistic entitlement.鈥� (Example: Obamacare and the current fight over its 鈥渞epeal and replace.鈥� In addition, there is a pervasive idea that higher education, as well as 鈥渉ealth care鈥� is a human right and ought to be provided for every and anyone who wants it. This is the epitome of primary narcissism鈥攁 baby鈥檚, wherein they demand that all their needs and desires be met because they experience the world only from one perspective鈥攖heir own, with no regard how it might impact the Other.)
Lasch attacks almost every Institution or Field as being culpable: art, education, work, housework/homemaking, child rearing, health care, social services, literature, politics, entertainment, comedy, sport, the courts, the family, psychology, sex (Although he does leave alone the military and religion, for the most part. Oddly, the Military Industrial Complex isn鈥檛 mentioned, nor the threat of nuclear annihilation, which I think played a part. Also not mentioned is the financial industry, banking, the stock market, and the increasing use of the credit card and debt, perhaps because that industry was just getting started as a ubiquitous part of American life.); and points out it wasn鈥檛 a conspiracy, or planned or designed 鈥� it just happened. The culture shifted from one of the Utilitarian Ethic 鈥� self-reliance and self-actualization, to one of dependence upon experts, and the 鈥淭herapeutic Ethic.鈥� It no longer mattered what you did but how you felt. People forgot (my word) how to be and who they were; and grew into empty, narcissistic, robotic-like machines, pretending to care about others, but underneath harboring hostility and rage. Lasch calls this the 鈥淐ult of Friendliness.鈥� A poignant excerpt:
In one of the families studied by Coles, [Privileged Ones: The Well-Off and the Rich in America (1978) Robert Coles.] which exemplifies to perfection this emerging managerial pattern of rootlessness and anomie, the father, an executive in a New England electronics company, drinks too much and wonders at times 鈥渋f it鈥檚 all worth it鈥攖he struggle he鈥檚 had to get to the top.鈥� The mother drinks in secret and apologizes to her children for 鈥渘ot being a better mother.鈥� Their daughter, raised by a succession of maids, is growing up with ill-defined anxieties and resentments, with little guilt but much anxiety. She has become a problem child. Twice she has run away from home. Now she sees a psychiatrist and no longer feels 鈥減eculiar鈥� about it, since most of her friends go to psychiatrists too. The family is about to move again. [Today, the escape via alcohol may have declined, but only to be replaced by marijuana and prescription drugs.]
That was almost 40 years ago. With a little tweaking for progress (my word) nothing has changed but has gotten worse. With the election of 2016 鈥� Donald Trump, the super-narcissist billionaire, beating the establishment鈥檚, the Deep State choice Hillary Clinton, who had defeated the Progressive鈥檚 choice, the Socialist Bernie Sanders 鈥� this latent rage now had a target, and with almost volcanic force erupted onto the public stage that is now the theater of America. In many ways, the election of Trump was like the terrorist attack of September 11th, 2001, in that it brought people together against a common enemy and for a while, it remains to be seen for how long, self obsession has been sublimated for collective hate, and the common cause of taking down Trump.
Donald Trump, and his consigliore, Steve Bannon, have called attention to the 鈥渁dministrative state鈥� 鈥� and their wanting to 鈥渄econstruct鈥� it. What Bannon describes is that which Lasch details in this book forty years ago鈥斺€淭he Managerial and Professional Elite as Ruling Class鈥�; but, again, it鈥檚 gotten worse. The 鈥渘arcissistic entitlement鈥� is off the charts, as is the 鈥済randiose illusions and inner emptiness.鈥� The 鈥減rofessionalization鈥� (replacing the natural/instinctual authority of the mother and father with experts) of authority has led to a substitution of 鈥渋mages of reality for reality itself. 鈥� It has undermined the family while attempting to rescue the family. 鈥� These things have been done, on the whole, with good intentions. (pg. 375) Lasch suggests we鈥檝e replaced one manifestation of neurosis with another, one more in tune with the modern, and now post-modern, world.
So what did Lasch (he鈥檚 dead) propose as remedy? He didn鈥檛 know it, but what Trump and Bannon are offering. First Lasch. He wants, 鈥淎 reassertion of 鈥榗ommon sense.鈥欌€� And also, 鈥榗ommunities of competence鈥� [(He calls that 鈥渓ocalism, self-help, and community action.鈥�) sounds like Bannon鈥檚 鈥渆conomic nationalism鈥� and 鈥渟tate鈥檚 rights.鈥漖 Only then will the productive capacities of modern capitalism, together with the scientific knowledge that now serves it, come to serve the interest of humanity.鈥� (pg. 396)
Which sounds exactly like what Trump鈥檚 been saying he鈥檒l deliver if given a chance 鈥� a return to common sense and competence as governing basics. Or, meaningful work done right, a disintermediation of the managerial and professional elite that has come between people and self-actualization.
Trump, the super-narcissist, paradoxically, embodies what Lasch wants for the 鈥渉uman race鈥� 鈥� a return to traditional Utilitarian values. Trump emphasizes family, work, and territory, as being essential to a vibrant, healthy life for all people 鈥� strong families, borders and boundaries, based upon the wisdom of the ages, to 鈥淢ake America Great Again.鈥�
March 12, 2017
It鈥檚 impossible to pick out portions of this book to quote because there are just too many; but I鈥檒l attempt to summarize the big idea. Lasch鈥檚 analysis is based on Freudian theory, and historical events. Because of the Industrial Revolution, he posits, and the subsequent absence of the father in the home as an authoritarian disciplinarian 鈥� general authority shifted from the home to the corporation and the state, which undermined a healthy sense of self and groundedness for all members of the family, and people in general, a life that was balanced and made sense. Slowly over time (it was not a revolution, but an evolution); the 鈥淢anagerial and Professional Elite鈥�; so-called 鈥渆xperts鈥� replaced the father and mother as The Authority. Consequently, all members of the family became unmoored and set adrift 鈥� the natural response was a move toward narcissism, where nothing mattered but the here and now and the self. And the self鈥檚 instant gratification. The anchor of tradition, the past, and the expectation and hope that things would get better, the future, were lost. The tradition of family and the tribe, being central to existence, were replaced by one鈥檚 own feelings being front and center. Work lost its connection to life, due to the industrialization of production, concurrent with the explosion of the advertising industry 鈥� which combined 鈥� shifted people from prideful, respectful skilled workers, to consumers/clients/patients 鈥� the message being that if you possessed certain objects, commodities, and with the help of expert advice and counsel, the emptiness inside, a natural general angst that comes from living in a hostile world, would be relieved. But, as Lasch points out, 鈥淚nstead, the new professionals themselves invented many of the needs they claim to satisfy.鈥� (pg. 385) This is blatantly evident today, especially with regard to the mass media and the helping professionals, who deem their services, and themselves, indispensable. Pervasive is the culture of 鈥渘arcissistic entitlement.鈥� (Example: Obamacare and the current fight over its 鈥渞epeal and replace.鈥� In addition, there is a pervasive idea that higher education, as well as 鈥渉ealth care鈥� is a human right and ought to be provided for every and anyone who wants it. This is the epitome of primary narcissism鈥攁 baby鈥檚, wherein they demand that all their needs and desires be met because they experience the world only from one perspective鈥攖heir own, with no regard how it might impact the Other.)
Lasch attacks almost every Institution or Field as being culpable: art, education, work, housework/homemaking, child rearing, health care, social services, literature, politics, entertainment, comedy, sport, the courts, the family, psychology, sex (Although he does leave alone the military and religion, for the most part. Oddly, the Military Industrial Complex isn鈥檛 mentioned, nor the threat of nuclear annihilation, which I think played a part. Also not mentioned is the financial industry, banking, the stock market, and the increasing use of the credit card and debt, perhaps because that industry was just getting started as a ubiquitous part of American life.); and points out it wasn鈥檛 a conspiracy, or planned or designed 鈥� it just happened. The culture shifted from one of the Utilitarian Ethic 鈥� self-reliance and self-actualization, to one of dependence upon experts, and the 鈥淭herapeutic Ethic.鈥� It no longer mattered what you did but how you felt. People forgot (my word) how to be and who they were; and grew into empty, narcissistic, robotic-like machines, pretending to care about others, but underneath harboring hostility and rage. Lasch calls this the 鈥淐ult of Friendliness.鈥� A poignant excerpt:
In one of the families studied by Coles, [Privileged Ones: The Well-Off and the Rich in America (1978) Robert Coles.] which exemplifies to perfection this emerging managerial pattern of rootlessness and anomie, the father, an executive in a New England electronics company, drinks too much and wonders at times 鈥渋f it鈥檚 all worth it鈥攖he struggle he鈥檚 had to get to the top.鈥� The mother drinks in secret and apologizes to her children for 鈥渘ot being a better mother.鈥� Their daughter, raised by a succession of maids, is growing up with ill-defined anxieties and resentments, with little guilt but much anxiety. She has become a problem child. Twice she has run away from home. Now she sees a psychiatrist and no longer feels 鈥減eculiar鈥� about it, since most of her friends go to psychiatrists too. The family is about to move again. [Today, the escape via alcohol may have declined, but only to be replaced by marijuana and prescription drugs.]
That was almost 40 years ago. With a little tweaking for progress (my word) nothing has changed but has gotten worse. With the election of 2016 鈥� Donald Trump, the super-narcissist billionaire, beating the establishment鈥檚, the Deep State choice Hillary Clinton, who had defeated the Progressive鈥檚 choice, the Socialist Bernie Sanders 鈥� this latent rage now had a target, and with almost volcanic force erupted onto the public stage that is now the theater of America. In many ways, the election of Trump was like the terrorist attack of September 11th, 2001, in that it brought people together against a common enemy and for a while, it remains to be seen for how long, self obsession has been sublimated for collective hate, and the common cause of taking down Trump.
Donald Trump, and his consigliore, Steve Bannon, have called attention to the 鈥渁dministrative state鈥� 鈥� and their wanting to 鈥渄econstruct鈥� it. What Bannon describes is that which Lasch details in this book forty years ago鈥斺€淭he Managerial and Professional Elite as Ruling Class鈥�; but, again, it鈥檚 gotten worse. The 鈥渘arcissistic entitlement鈥� is off the charts, as is the 鈥済randiose illusions and inner emptiness.鈥� The 鈥減rofessionalization鈥� (replacing the natural/instinctual authority of the mother and father with experts) of authority has led to a substitution of 鈥渋mages of reality for reality itself. 鈥� It has undermined the family while attempting to rescue the family. 鈥� These things have been done, on the whole, with good intentions. (pg. 375) Lasch suggests we鈥檝e replaced one manifestation of neurosis with another, one more in tune with the modern, and now post-modern, world.
So what did Lasch (he鈥檚 dead) propose as remedy? He didn鈥檛 know it, but what Trump and Bannon are offering. First Lasch. He wants, 鈥淎 reassertion of 鈥榗ommon sense.鈥欌€� And also, 鈥榗ommunities of competence鈥� [(He calls that 鈥渓ocalism, self-help, and community action.鈥�) sounds like Bannon鈥檚 鈥渆conomic nationalism鈥� and 鈥渟tate鈥檚 rights.鈥漖 Only then will the productive capacities of modern capitalism, together with the scientific knowledge that now serves it, come to serve the interest of humanity.鈥� (pg. 396)
Which sounds exactly like what Trump鈥檚 been saying he鈥檒l deliver if given a chance 鈥� a return to common sense and competence as governing basics. Or, meaningful work done right, a disintermediation of the managerial and professional elite that has come between people and self-actualization.
Trump, the super-narcissist, paradoxically, embodies what Lasch wants for the 鈥渉uman race鈥� 鈥� a return to traditional Utilitarian values. Trump emphasizes family, work, and territory, as being essential to a vibrant, healthy life for all people 鈥� strong families, borders and boundaries, based upon the wisdom of the ages, to 鈥淢ake America Great Again.鈥�
March 12, 2017
August 6, 2014
"We demand too much of life, too little of ourselves."
I absolutely loved this book. It's not an easy read; Lasch presupposes the reader will have some familiarity with philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, and economics. Apart from boring me a bit with Freudian stuff, it's a fascinating book.
There's no easily recognizable political spin here. One minute, it's, "OMG ultra-conservative," and the next minute, "OMG Marxist." Lasch isn't promoting any particular established agenda. He fully describes the shades of grey that are part of everything--paternalism, sexual liberation, women's rights, etc. If you're a card-carrying member of an intellectual "ism," this book will irritate you by pointing out flaws in your viewpoint. If you are more open-minded, and see both good and bad in popular theories, you'll like this book. It's not a book that will be enjoyed by those who are obstinately dogmatic and fearful of anything that might challenge their firmly entrenched opinions.
"The romantic cult of sincerity and authenticity tore away the masks that people once had worn in public and eroded the boundary between public and private life. As the public world came to be seen as a mirror of the self, people lost the capacity for detachment and hence for playful encounter, which presupposes a certain distance from the self. In our own time, according to Sennett, relations in public, conceived as a form of self-revelation, have become deadly serious. Conversation takes on the quality of confession."
"Escape through irony and critical self-awareness is in any case itself an illusion; at best it provides only momentary relief. Distancing soon becomes a routine in its own right."
"Strictly considered, however, modern advertising seeks to promote not so much self-indulgence as self-doubt. It seeks to create needs, not to fulfill them; to generate new anxieties instead of allaying old ones."
"In the hierarchies of work and power, as in the family, the decline of authority does not lead to the collapse of social constraints. It merely deprives those constraints of a rational basis."
"The best defenses against the terrors of existence are the homely comforts of love, work, and family life, which connect us to a world that is independent of our wishes yet responsive to our needs. It is through love and work, as Freud noted 鈥� that we exchange crippling emotional conflict for ordinary unhappiness."
I absolutely loved this book. It's not an easy read; Lasch presupposes the reader will have some familiarity with philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, and economics. Apart from boring me a bit with Freudian stuff, it's a fascinating book.
There's no easily recognizable political spin here. One minute, it's, "OMG ultra-conservative," and the next minute, "OMG Marxist." Lasch isn't promoting any particular established agenda. He fully describes the shades of grey that are part of everything--paternalism, sexual liberation, women's rights, etc. If you're a card-carrying member of an intellectual "ism," this book will irritate you by pointing out flaws in your viewpoint. If you are more open-minded, and see both good and bad in popular theories, you'll like this book. It's not a book that will be enjoyed by those who are obstinately dogmatic and fearful of anything that might challenge their firmly entrenched opinions.
"The romantic cult of sincerity and authenticity tore away the masks that people once had worn in public and eroded the boundary between public and private life. As the public world came to be seen as a mirror of the self, people lost the capacity for detachment and hence for playful encounter, which presupposes a certain distance from the self. In our own time, according to Sennett, relations in public, conceived as a form of self-revelation, have become deadly serious. Conversation takes on the quality of confession."
"Escape through irony and critical self-awareness is in any case itself an illusion; at best it provides only momentary relief. Distancing soon becomes a routine in its own right."
"Strictly considered, however, modern advertising seeks to promote not so much self-indulgence as self-doubt. It seeks to create needs, not to fulfill them; to generate new anxieties instead of allaying old ones."
"In the hierarchies of work and power, as in the family, the decline of authority does not lead to the collapse of social constraints. It merely deprives those constraints of a rational basis."
"The best defenses against the terrors of existence are the homely comforts of love, work, and family life, which connect us to a world that is independent of our wishes yet responsive to our needs. It is through love and work, as Freud noted 鈥� that we exchange crippling emotional conflict for ordinary unhappiness."
December 11, 2015
Christopher Lasch unleashes a brisk polemic against the proliferation of narcissism in American culture. Lasch examines how pathological narcissism has affected labour, sport, sex and especially the family (no wonder he was so admired by conservative Christians; although not a believer himself, his analysis of the foibles of liberal permissiveness are exceptional). Although virtually all the individuals Lasch mentions and engages with have passed from the limelight, the tendencies and ideologies they held to are still alive. Lasch died before the Internet Age but it would be interesting to see what his critiques would have been about the World Wide Web - what is more narcissistic than selfies and likes (but plz like this review!!!!!!!!). This is a popular work and while good, I think it often drifts into generalization and as another reviewer remarked, much too indebted to Freudian theory.
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