Just started “Culture of Narcissism”. I’m fascinated that a nearly 50 year old book can almost scarily pinpoint the current debacle of modern society. Just as Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope” seems to foreshadow the ever-degradation and simultaneous (ironically) adulation of middle class values, Lasch shows us “Instagram and Kardashian-land” long before it was a blip on the radar. Really brilliant.
I don't want to overstate, because time and experience can erode today's perception, but there may be only a few, select credible geniuses that I will come accross as thinkers in my lifetime and which are contemporaneous (relatively speaking) with our age. For me, Christopher Lasch is atop that list of people. Thank you for posting this.
One of the great thinkers of the 20th C. Would add CS Lewis, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Neil Postman, Francis Schaeffer, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, EF Schumacher, Germaine Greer, Thomas Szasz and Josef Ratzinger as my top ten essential thinkers to explain how and why we ended up like this
@@jf9736 I stand corrected. for some reason this obvious fact had not registered and I have read Culture of N! it seems to me that he knew more and perhaps understood more about the subject than many therapists do.. the social historical and culture implications of it as well as the personal. Therapists such as Heinz Kohut, the brilliant Stephen Johnson, Nathan Schwartz-Salant, Mario Jacoby, even Lowen, and many more, did not go as far in their work to address these wider implications of the problem. But they were mainly therapists. Thanks for pointing this out; it will prevent further fopars in my public addresses. R
@@richardswatton6702 it was an easy mistake to make-Lasch had the understanding of the subject that far exceeded that of trained therapists. And now he’s so prescient, yet again.
That's what I thought too when I read his book a few years ago. It was painful to read. But recognizing your moral deformities allows you to start fixing them ❤️
All praise, and all how he's a genius this or that. Nevertheless, there is no word of what these people have learnt from Christopher. He describes well the social media owners, intellectuals and the political elites in our times.
@@MargaritaMagdalena why do you have a mask in your profile picture? you are literally pledging allegiance to the enemy and their satanic agenda. what is wrong with you people
Indeed he was. If you read _The True and Only Heaven_ you'll definitely see where Lasch predicted the rise of today's race-obsessed politics, in his analysis of the forced busing fiasco in the 1970's.
Don't worry, I felt the same when I was reading his book years ago. It was painful. But recognizing your moral deformities allows you to start fixing them. I think I've become a better person thanks to Christopher Lasch 😃
Well, you are speaking of primary narcissism, what is spoken of here is secondary narcissism. Primary narcissism perverted and turned in on itself. If you care about the distinction, google secondary or pathological narcissism.
I understand it as Freudian metaphor for masculinity that is scared of its own vitality and life force because there is this mother (another metaphor for perhaps chaos and nature) lurking and trying to chop your balls so to speak. So that fear produces finding resort in oral sex (another metaphor) meaning no real penetration, a safe way. The balls is another metaphor for culture. Mother / father in a Lacanian sense father is the culture, the logos. Mother is the Pan - wild, dangerous thing. Basically we live our lives in abstraction far from the dangers of the nature satisfying our needs through commodification as our balls were chopped or we think they may be chopped. I dunno, just my 2 cents.
@@h.a.s.42 wow, it makes sense! Thanks for this point of view. I got interested in the book, because I really noticed some sort of narcissism in our western culture. Well, Lasch says that it always existed in some sort of way, but nowadays it is somehow extremely intensified by advertisement (I study Public Relations) and our social structure, including the family. It's impressive the way Lasch brings it to us, referring to Freud and other scholars. In some sort of way, I try not to think much about it (the sex situation), because I wanna live a happy life (lol), dont wanna problematize this either. Anyways, thanks for the reponse.
@@giovannicaporaso450 you are welcome. That's at least how I see it. What do you mean by saying collective narcissism in the culture is intensified because of family structure? I am interested in your pov. I know that narcissism on individual level is a psychological developmental issue caused by either a lot of trauma or spoiling kids so to speak (basically both mean lack of authentic love). Culturally, I have my own ideas but I am writing a book on it so I'm not going to share it here and will keep it for my thesis.
Perhaps your consistent dismissal of Freud would explain why you are unaware of his consistent relevance and undying value in contemporary literary studies, psychology, and philosophy.
@@ulquiorra4cries As a theory to denigrate or jump on like a trampoline (in the same way people learned from Chomsky's linguistic theories for how wrong they are). So there is value there. But Freud said in his own letters to friends that his psychoanalysis was a rhetorical weapon to use against his rivals. He used it to openly call people incestuous degenerates. In public, of course, he acted like it was real and legitimate.
@@gerbil5101 Sure I do. I just don't think Freud was right about them when he based them in things like childhood lust for parents. The idea of the unconscious aspect of the mind predates Freud. Freud put psychology on a negative path and the damage is still being felt today.
lasch has some good insights but his reactionary producerism and praise for the fascistic tendecies of middle class white america as "anti-capitalist" ruin him for me
What Lasch described was an abortive classical republican tradition that was ideologically irreconcilable with capitalism and subject to a suppressive intensity of critique on that basis. It doesn't make any sense from that PoV, any more than Liberal individualism makes sense from a classical republican point of view. But the psychological factors behind populism have caused it to re-emerge again and again - in the Populism of late 19thC America, in various stands of communitarian and anarchist thought, sublimated via Nationalism or Fascism etc. Thing is there's nothing intrinsically reprehensible about the mode of thought... It's its unsolvable differences with liberalism which again and again frustrate its evolution and prevent its development ideologically that mean that when it *does* break through it does so intemperately. I'd suggest reconsidering Lasch while bearing in mind that you're considering the history of an ideological competitor of both Capitalism and Marxism which, being sandwiched between the two and inherently localist in character, naturally was confined to limited, small-c conservative modes of thought. But different outcomes might have been imaginable had these localist impulses been able to compel Capitalism to justify itself in its terms instead of always the other way around.
Fascist or not, I’m not afraid of it. I _want_ that culture. My neurosis doesn’t come from it being unfulfilling; it comes from it being materially out of my reach!
@@ahahaha3505 how come republicans are always "painted" as the villains of capitalism, when more than 95% of corporate owners and CEOs are either liberal or straight up radical left(especially these days) ? the elites of today's america(corporations, institutions, entertainment etc.) are all sympathizers of left-wing politics..... so liberals like you will criticize capitalism, but everytime some of the most nefarious capitalists speaks positively towards YOUR political point of view, you very quickly forget about that he's your "enemy" :D:D that's why left-wing politics in today's america are nothing more than performative sport(social justice, climate, veganism etc.)..... these are all issues, where today liberals and democrats raise the alarm for change, but at the same time REFUSE to go through discomfort/sacrifice that is needed to "kick-start" the desirable change towards these goals
