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Worth Remembering - Christopher Lasch b. 1932 d. 1994

 

                      Christopher Lasch - "The Culture of Narcissism"  - 1979

 

                 


        Lasch's central point was that the West, and especially the US, is tending

toward becoming a mass of narcissists. Not a society, nor a nation,

 but just a large group of alienated individuals lacking the

socialization required to become really human.

 

    Becoming a proper human requires seeing oneself as part of a whole

or several wholes. One is, at the present, a part of society, a

nation, a family, and other groups. One is also, in a timeline, the

successor to his ancestors and past Americans, and the ancestor and

predecessor to those yet to come. Lasch saw this socialization process as being destroyed by a number

of forces. Schools, mass media, and "peer groups" had taken over the

function of rearing children. ( The point is deeper than television.

MTV is simply a televised peer group, teenagers rising

teenagers . . . to be narcissists and thus good consumers).

 

    The problem is that key components of personal development should be

occurring, but are not. As noted above, an infant starts by seeing

itself as omnipotent; it is the universe, and the parents and other

mere components of itself. Then it discovers its separation, and

that the parents, well, can be frustrating as well as wish-

fulfilling: they have superhuman powers but don't always do what

you want, and sometimes even stop you!

 

    The path from there to a functional adult involves reducing the

parental image to realistic size and achieving independence.

Parental discipline plays a key role: it makes the parents appear

human and separate. There is also the community, which eases the

child into independence.

 

Absent that emotional transition, the child remains, well, a

petulant brat, with a void within, a fear of real attachment and

loyalty, a lack of empathy for others, an unquenchable drive for

adulation, and a childish rage toward authority figures who do not

grant its will, and right now!

 

    The nature of work takes the father (and today the mother) out of

much of childrearing, which falls to schools and daycare. (One way

narcissism is created is via an upbringing rich in material goods

and instant gratification, but with little emotional attachment

given by the parents.)

 

    The "reign of childrearing experts" renders the care the parents do

give rather neurotic and timid, and deprives it of control and

discipline. Parents become terrified that any failure to give in to

the child, any reason for the child to be frustrated with them, will

somehow ruin the child -- when in fact such frustration is a vital

part of maturation and socialization, of learning that the world

doesn't owe you, that life is more than making demands, that

sometimes we all fail, yet life goes on. Their fear of ruining the

the child thus ruins the child.

 

    After the economy became able to supply all the necessities of life,

as it did decades ago, expansion was only possible by creating new

needs. Since these, unlike necessities, are not obvious, advertising

had to fuel demand, and create needs that were not experienced

before the public was told it needed them. A part of this creation

Of needs lay in making narcissist traits a way of life. Appearances

Mattered, not reality. Everyone must strive to be better than

Others, with better measured not as personal worth but as a more

Stylish car, overpriced clothes with the right label, a better home

Entertainment center, a more stylish school for the kids.

 

    As the young increasingly came into money (usually not earned, and

hence less valued), they became a major part of this market. Part of

the narcissist/advertising appeal to them involved creating a

culture of youth. Teenagers were no longer to be on a somewhat

awkward stage between the child and the adult but to become a

status in and of themselves, full of entitlements which simply had

to be met, and now. In short, training ground for narcissism. The

teen was not to be prepared to become an adult but to be kept a

permanent juvenile, the best of consumers.

 

    (Lasch pointed out that during the 1960s, at a point when all these

tendencies were gaining in force, a major concern among social

critics was that there was too much "conformity!")

 

    Lasch and his successors have seen evidences of a strong and

continuing pattern:

 

    1. Increasing materialism, which can never be satisfied (i.e., never

give lasting happiness): the new narcissist "demands immediate

gratification and lives in a state of restless, perpetually

unsatisfied desire."

 

    2. The fears and hypochondria characteristic of neurosis. (Fear may

sell, as Moore notes, but to Lasch there is a deeper problem here.

It is hard to imagine previous generations being much excited by the

M&M red dye scare, the Brie cheese scare, terror of asbestos in the

soil, etc.). "The new narcissist is haunted not by guilt but by

anxiety."

 

    3. Increasing self-absorption -- self-help texts, daytime TV, etc..

And the self-help texts, when they "speak of the need for 'meaning'

and 'love,' they define love and meaning simply as the fulfillment of

the patient's emotional requirements. It hardly occurs to them --

nor is there any reason why it should, given the nature of the

therapeutic exercise -- to encourage the subject to subordinate his

needs and interests to those of others, to someone or some cause or

tradition outside himself."

 

    4. The cult of the celebrity. These are defined ... as being

celebrated, not by being heroic or otherwise having self-worth. "The

media ... intensify narcissist dreams of fame and glory, encouraging

the common man to identify himself with the stars and to hate

the 'herd,' and make it more and more difficult for him to accept

the comparative banality of everyday existence."

 

    5. With it, the cult of the pose. Reality is not vital: acting out a

pose is.

 

    6. Disintegration of the family, and indeed of all group loyalties.

The world is seen as dog-eat-dog. Loyalty is replaced by continual

envy. The sadistic humiliator of others is seen as a winner. Bowling

plays to this theme. Many of those watching it (judging from

internet postings) leave in a happy reflection that they are

superior to everyone they saw filmed.

 

    8. Loss of self and, with it, integrity and values. Appearance in

the eyes of others becomes the only value. Credibility and image are

real, but truth and inner integrity are not. "Self-esteem," taught

from without, replaces a concept of self-worth. Whatever one feels

at the moment is not a point of view, but the only reality.

 

    9. Although Lasch died before the advent of "gangsta" celebrities,

he made an observation of value: "The collapse of personal life

originates, not in the spiritual torments of affluence, but in the

war of all against all, which is now spreading from the lower class,

where it has raged without interruption, to the rest of society."

Sociopaths share many traits with narcissists--self-absorption, lack

of values, a feeling of superiority to their prey, the perception of

the world as dog-eat-dog. Gangstas are simply the sociopath "noble

savages" of the narcissists.

 

    10. A culture, which rejects personal responsibility (the self,

integrity): if a person is overweight, they should sue McDonalds for

having let them eat what they chose to.

 

    11. Lasch predicted that the culture of narcissism would be

characterized by making a fetish of youth and holding a disdain for

the responsibilities that come with adulthood. He did not live to

see the rise of the perpetually infantile adult. As Prof. Frank

Furedi points out, "The infantilization of contemporary society is

driven by passions that are quite specific to our times. The

understandable desire not to look old has been replaced by the self-

conscious cultivation of immaturity."

 

 

 

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