The Self

Lasch sees narcissism as psychopathology, the “chief complaint” of those undergoing psychiatric treatment and, more broadly, as an identity that involves living for the moment and repudiating one's own past. The narcissist engages in a restless search for instantaneous intimacy, titillation, and sensation, and seeks to avoid, or is incapable of, long-term relations. Narcissistic society is characterized by increases in lawlessness, violence and capricious behavior, by obsessions with celebrity, a repudiation of skill, intelligence, form, and critical thought, the erosion of standards of public education, the fall of traditional religion and the rise of the occult and cults, the degradation of work, the disintegration of family life, political passivity and quietism, and the loss of that inner discipline required for genuine public commitment

Aesthetics · Criminology · Identity (music · Lawlessness · Narcissism · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology · Social Psychology