Very respectful and good interview. I stumbled on to Chris Lasch in the early 80's. He was a guiding light for me as to understanding American culture. The seeds of the current collapse we are witnessing are diagnosed by him back then. I had worked in psyche hospital and later became a union pipe-fitter, and organizer. You can imagine what impact he had for this OG. Vaya con Dios, my friends!
As a major Lasch fan, I would ask young lefties to read "The Agony of the Left" from 1970/71, where he shows why the first Red Scare around and after WWI (not WWII's Red Scare) really did in radical politics. He is also making the beginning of the argument about how liberals are not certain allies, and will end up siding with reactionary politicians rather than accept social democracy, let alone more workers owning more of the means of production. However, I am concerned Elisabeth Lasch is missing how to define her Dad in a way that gives credence to his brilliance overall. Daniel Bell's "three realms" analysis applies directly to Christopher Lasch. Bell's analysis is to look at a person's viewpoints regarding politics, economics, and culture. Applying this to Lasch: Lasch was a political liberal in terms of electoral politics. He was in favor of broad voting rights and had a strong belief in civil liberties. On economics, Lasch was a radical in that he understood the imperatives of socialism in a modern society, and was friendly to Marxian analyses. He believed labor unions were and remain largely but not always good vehicles for major positive change in the economic realm. On cultural issues, Lasch may be seen as cultural more conservative, but not nasty or hostile to people who were homosexual or women who demanded rights to work outside of homemaker or caring profession roles. Lasch's economic radicalism and political liberalism formed a protection against falling fully into right wing cultural rabbit holes. Again, Lasch is probably the most underrated historian of the mid to late 20th Century, and it is awesome to hear from Daniel Tutt that young people of the left are finding Lasch compelling and helpful.
Another Lasch fan here. (If it makes a difference, I am 24.) You hit it right on the head- it’s no surprise that one finds a fair deal of convergence between Bell and Lasch, as they held similar convictions and ran in similar intellectual circles, even as they debated rather publicly. It is a shame that Lasch’s work has been largely reduced to “illiberalism” in the years following his death. Even in his later works through the 80’s and 90‘s, the works that conservatives tend to gravitate towards, he had not drifted as far away from the left as has been suggested. Much of this is because he was bitingly critical of certain intellectual and/or political traditions and seldom publicly his own allegiances. A rereading of the first chapter of his 1991 The True and Only Heaven is informative- he talks of the purpose of critique, to help orient action with thought and align social theory with everyday existence. I see his late work as an attempt to frustrate the reductive frames of thought that were starting to dominate the academic and intellectual realm. Unfortunately, his work itself has been subjected to this act of reduction, more often on the right than he would have been comfortable with were he alive. Some of his best work was in demonstrating the underlying affinity between left and right in America; one wishes he were still alive to see how he would respond to the phenomena of “wokeness” (so-called) and the post-Trump right. Though I’m sure he would find this desire distasteful, hoping instead that following generations of thinkers and citizens would pick up the mantle he left behind and take up the craft of critique for ourselves.
just discovered this channel. Good nuanced disccusion here. I guess I'm one of those millenials who will soon find Lasch interesting, as another commenter was saying.
This is incredible, I’m glad to have stumbled upon it and want to hear more. Also, just a PSA, don’t swear at narcissists when they scam you out of money lol.
This was great but IDK who on the “left” is reading Lasch today. The working class today is what most people would call “right wing” and most of the people citing Lasch are nominally on the right. I think you are stuck in the days of New England Poppy Bush Republicans and that “right wing” is so…30 years ago. Most “leftists” today dismiss Christopher Lasch as a sexist bigot for suggesting things like the idea that women might not be better off forgoing motherhood in lieu of working 12 hours a day in a cubicle as a legal assistant.
