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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