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Title: Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations by Christopher Lasch ISBN: 0-393-30738-7 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: May, 1991 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: More cultural elitism....
Comment: Dismissing this book because it is 'Freudian' is not an argument to dismiss it's thesis. It's an entire other argument, and not really valid, except among the academic elite, who along with the urban cosmopolitian elite are "part of the problem, not part of the solution' to paraphrase that old 60's slogan.
Read this book. It really has insights into the origins of the continuing culture war that divides the urban coastal elite from the mainstream of America. It does a lot to explain the origins of the "Red" versus the "Blue" divide in the Election 2000.
Rating: 4
Summary: Abusing Narcissism
Comment: 'The Culture of Narcissism - American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations' was published in the first year of the unhappy presidency of Jimmy Carter (1979). The latter endorsed the book publicly (in his famous 'national malaise' speech). The main thesis of the book is that the Americans have created a self-absorbed (though not self aware), greedy and frivolous society which depended on consumerism, demographic studies, opinion polls and Government to know and to define itself. What is the solution? Lasch proposed a 'return to basics': self-reliance, the family, nature, the community, and the Protestant work ethic. To those who adhere, he promised an elimination of their feelings of alienation and despair. There is no single Lasch. This chronicler of culture, did so mainly by chronicling his inner turmoil, conflicting ideas and ideologies, emotional upheavals, and intellectual vicissitudes. In this sense, of (courageous) self-documentation, Mr. Lasch epitomized Narcissism, was the quintessential Narcissist, the better positioned to criticize the phenomenon. Some 'scientific' disciplines (e.g., the history of culture and History in general) are closer to art than to the rigorous (a.k.a. 'exact' or 'natural' or 'physical' sciences). Lasch borrowed heavily from other, more established branches of knowledge without paying tribute to the original, strict meaning of concepts and terms. Such was the use that he made of 'Narcissism'. Lasch's greatest error was that he did not acknowledge that there is an abyss between narcissism and self love, being interested in oneself and being obsessively preoccupied with oneself. Lasch confuses the two. The price of progress is growing self-awareness and with it growing pains and the pains of growing up. It is not a loss of meaning and hope - it is just that pain has a tendency to push everything to the background. Those are constructive pains, signs of adjustment and adaptation, of evolution. America has no inflated, megalomaniac, grandiose ego. It never built an overseas empire, it is made of dozens of ethnic immigrant groups, it strives to learn, to emulate. Americans do not lack empathy - they are the foremost nation of volunteers and also professes the biggest number of (tax deductible) donation makers. Americans are not exploitative - they are hard workers, fair players, Adam Smith-ian egoists. They believe in Live and Let Live. They are individualists and they believe that the individual is the source of all authority and the universal yardstick and benchmark. This is a positive philosophy. Granted, it led to inequalities in the distribution of income and wealth. But then other ideologies had much worse outcomes. Luckily, they were defeated by the human spirit, the best manifestation of which is still democratic capitalism. Sam Vaknin, author of 'Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited'.
Rating: 3
Summary: Interesting
Comment: It is true that Lasch relied a lot on psychoanalysis in his intellectual barrage against the American culture, but his point of view is certianly worth considering. To start with, the book makes an attempt to be comprehensive which is not crime except that many of the issues he touched upon would require further elaboration within a much broader theoritical framework. He borrows extensively from Freud, criticises Fromm and squeezes Horeny in, thus sacrificing many other branches of social sciences to place psychoanalysis at the forefront. It is not a great book and one should not be lured by the big words, but it does have its interesting moments.
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Title: The Revolt of the Elites: And the Betrayal of Democracy by Christopher Lasch ISBN: 0393313719 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: January, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times by Christopher Lasch ISBN: 0393302636 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: November, 1985 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics by Christopher Lasch ISBN: 0393307956 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: September, 1991 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged by Christopher Lasch ISBN: 0393313034 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: May, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Women and the Common Life: Love, Marriage, and Feminism by Christopher Lasch, Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn ISBN: 0393316971 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: December, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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