The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations

by Christopher Lasch

Book Overview

The book quickly became a bestseller. This edition includes a new afterword, "The Culture of Narcissism Revisited."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393307387
• ISBN13: 9780393307382
• Release Date: May 1991
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Our Orwell.

I think the death of Christopher Lasch was a loss for everyone in America as his was a voice of lucidity on topics which conceptually were beyond the range of our media's comprehension. This is Lasch's most famous book and one can certainly see why it would be given the profundity of the title. It's applicability to our culture is even greater in 2005 than it was in 1979. The text is a lengthy indict of our shallow, consumerist culture which places conformity as one of its paramount values. Perhaps only to Lasch was the transcendence of a therapeutic America evident back in the seventies given that this term has only reached widespread use over the course of the last few years. It's interesting to wonder what he would make of today's talk shows emitting their sap through our air waves along with current popular cliches like "I have to love myself before I can love someone else." After finishing the book, I could not help but wonder about the effect this release had on the political left as his indicts of liberalism are incredibly accurate and persuasive. Although, it was his criticisms of radicalism which will most stir the conservative heart. This one should be read, reread, and read again.

Perfectly accurate (yet so depressing) cultural analysis of contemporary America

This book explained so perfectly all my frustrations regarding today's US society. Having grown up in another culture, I initially thought it was just about my inability to adapt to the "American way". This book confirmed the gut feeling I had that it wasn't "just me"...it was really something terribly wrong with the culture per se. I could not understand why so many people in this culture have that vacuous look in their eyes, talk and act so vacuously, while everything having to do with their outside image...from houses, manicured suburbs to youthful looks and that contrived, bubbly personality...appear "oh, so perfect" at a first glance...yet so cold and unpleasent. Behind all the plasticky perfection there's narcissism. A horrible, horrible disease in my opinion.

A well-written, literate, persuasive cultural analysis...

I found this book very throught-provoking, in the boldness and bleakness of its basic thesis (that narcissism is really about fear [and is not simply about vanity]; and that America is a culture that suffers from [and promotes] fear [of nothingness, of "no exit"]). Due to this narcissistic fear, Lasch believes that Americans lack a purpose, an "end-point," and that this anomie, coupled with gross cultural overloads (the failure of the family, the intrusion of the state into the family, the substitution of state paternalism for individual self-initiative, the erosion of authority, the "therapeutic culture," and so forth) gives rise to "the spectacle" designed to distract America from the fear of being nothing and its inner rage (whew! that was a sentence!). It takes some effort to grasp Lasch's thesis, and I found some of the commentary dated (as one might expect from a book published in 1979), but the writing is very polished and thoughtfully provocative. All of the "problems" I encountered with the book were those of trying to understand, think through, "test" and consider Lasch's ideas--which, to me, are all marks a good book. I can find fault with specifics in Lasch's ideas, but overall, this was a persuasive, interesting, and compelling union of cultural and individual analysis, centered on the psychoanalytic concept of narcissism and America's unique history. Specific topics included: (a) "making it" in America; (b) pseudo self-awareness and the spectacle of politics and celebrity; (c) the degradation of sport; (d) the commoditization of education and its focus on "life adjustment;" (e) socialization of reproduction and the collapse of authority; (f) the flight from ("true") feeling embodied in a culture of promiscuity and sexual warfare (perhaps his least balanced chapter); (g) the "planned obsolescence" of older persons; and (h) the link between our bureaucratic culture and narcissistic dependence on it. The overall tone of the book reminded me of Joan Didion's novels and Yates' poem Slouching Toward Bethlehem--fear and anxiety about nothing within, nothing without, simply our neediness. Lasch's book also reminded me of another psychoanalytically informed cultural critique from the 1950s, Norman Brown's Love's Body.

Fantastic reading !

Lasch has touched a very sensistive social nerve in his book "The Culture Of Narcissism." He gives the reader the awareness of living in a society that has become increasingly self-absorbed, out of touch with its past and future, and totally focused on the moment where everyone is seeking decadence and immediate self-gratification. I strongly believe that the narcissism in our culture is the direct result of the combination of consumerism and individualism that are both advocated for by the corporate elite and the politicians. The end result is profits !!! Lasch's book is a powerful and accurate portrayal of an ailing society heading toward disaster.... I would highly recommend this book for every American that is interested in comprehending himself and his society. It will surely provide the reader with an educational experience and an electrifying reading!

Despite its Freudian defects, this book is brilliant.

Some critics called this book overheated, but I do not believe that Lasch's style was faulty. His arguments ring true and are very persuasive. His insights into American culture are impressive, and he demonstrated sound knowledge of all the social sciences. The book is extremely well-written, never redundant, and always entertaining. This is a definitive indictment of American society, and is still valid twenty years later.