The Culture of Narcissism

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The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations is a 1979 book by the cultural historian Christopher Lasch.

When The Culture of Narcissism was first published, it was commented that Lasch had identified what was happening to American society in the wake of the decline of the family over the last century. The book quickly became a bestseller and talking point, influencing President Carter's "crisis of confidence" speech in July 1979 [1]. Later editions includes a new afterword, "The Culture of Narcissism Revisited."

The book's central thesis is that post-war, late-capitalist America has, through modifications placed on the traditional family structure, given rise to a personality type consistent with clinical definitions of "pathological narcissism." Lasch locates symptoms of this personality disorder in the radical political movements of the 1960's (such as the Weather Underground), as well as in the spritual cults and movements (everything from EST to rolfing in his view) of the 1970's.

Perhaps the book owes much of its seventies-era popularity to its synthesis of somewhat conservative politics with a seemingly encyclopedic grasp of U.S. social and economic history, the (then) current world of arts and letters (alas, where further evidence of damaged personalities could be found), and the corpus of clinical research and theoretical insight into the narcissistic personality disorders. As the utopian visions of the sixties faded into the "personal growth" lifestyles of the seventies, the chaos and excess of the former began to imprint itself on the public mind: In this setting, perhaps what many needed was a voice like Lasch's--deeply learned (and therefore credible and sane) yet sternly, perhaps paternally, upbraiding.