The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations"[This book] argues that the relationship between well-being and ethical life has been overlooked. The more specific argument of the book is that ethical life requires political engagement, and the emergence of a society committed to critical thinking. It is argued that these conditions allow for our ordination and confirmation as ethical subjects. While well-being can be experienced in different ways, it is claimed that, after experience of ethical life, a more sustainable form of it is revealed to us, a form which we would be drawn to preserve, a form which can be constituted as an object of hope. While the book draws on philosophical themes, its main focus is political. This is because its primary objective is to identify and to examine what needs to be done in order to realise ethical life. Its main focus in this respect is the identification and examination of the barriers which need to be overcome if ethical life is to be realised. It is acknowledged that this will not be an easy task. Indeed, it may be an impossible task. However, despite these barriers, and despite the dark days we are living through, the book is a call to hope rather than a surrender to despair. This book will be of interest to students of politics, psychology, cultural studies, philosophy and sociology, as well as anyone else interested in exploring new ideas about how the make the world a better place"--Provided by publisher. |
Contents
I The Awareness Movement and the Social Invasion of the Self | 3 |
II The Narcissistic Personality of Our Time | 31 |
From Horatio Alger to the Happy Hooker | 52 |
Theatrics of Politics and Everyday Existence | 71 |
V The Degradation of Sport | 100 |
VI Schooling and the New Illiteracy | 125 |
VII The Socialization of Reproduction and the Collapse of Authority | 154 |
Sociopsychology of the Sex War | 187 |
Other editions - View all
The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations Christopher Lasch No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
according achieve American athletics attempt authority become bureaucracy capacity capitalist century child childrearing collapse competition contemporary corporate created criticism cult culture Culture of Narcissism defense demands dependence Donald Barthelme ego ideal elite emotional ethic everyday experience fantasies fear feelings feminism Frederick Exley Heinz Kohut human ideal ideology illusion images individual industrial inner intellectual Jerry Rubin Joyce Maynard Knopf Kohut liberal live Martha Wolfenstein mass mass media Melanie Klein ment merely modern moral mother movement narcissism narcissistic old age organized parents patient patterns play political Press problem professional psychiatric psychiatrists psychic Psychoanalytic psychological radical Randolph Bourne reality reformers relations rise schizophrenia seeks sense sexual sion social society Spock success superego Susan Sontag therapeutic therapy tion Tom Wolfe tradition unconscious undermines women writes York