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

Cultural history

The term cultural history refers both to an academic discipline and to its subject matter.Cultural history, as a discipline, at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural...

 Christopher Lasch

Christopher Lasch

Christopher Lasch was a well-known American historian, moralist, and social critic....

 (1932–1994) exploring the roots and ramifications of the normalizing of pathological narcissism in 20th century American culture using psychological, cultural, artistic and historical synthesis.

Overview

The book proposes that post-war, late-capitalist America, through the effects of "organized kindness" on the traditional family structure, has produced a personality-type

Personality type

Personality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of individuals. Personality types are sometimes distinguished from personality traits, with the latter embodying a smaller grouping of behavioral tendencies. Types are sometimes said to involve qualitative differences...

 consistent with clinical definitions of "pathological narcissism". This pathology is not akin to everyday narcissism

Narcissism

Narcissism is a term with a wide range of meanings, depending on whether it is used to describe a central concept of psychoanalytic theory, a mental illness, a social or cultural problem, or simply a personality trait...

 — a hedonistic egoism — but rather a very weak sense of self requiring constant external validation. For Lasch, "pathology represents a heightened version of normality." Lasch locates symptoms of this personality-disorder in the radical political movements of the 1960s (such as the Weather Underground), as well as in the spiritual

Spirituality

Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...

 cult

Cult

The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...

s and movements of the 1970s, from est

Erhard Seminars Training

Erhard Seminars Training, an organization founded by Werner H. Erhard, offered a two-weekend course known officially as "The est Standard Training"...

 to Rolfing

Rolfing

Rolfing is a therapy system created by The Rolf Institute of Structural Integration and is a system whereby the alleged manipulation of the fasciae by specific methods is theorized to yield therapeutic benefit....

. Behaviors such as streaking

Streaking

Streaking is the act of running nude through a public place.-History:On 5 July 1799, a Friday evening at 7 o'clock, a naked man was arrested at the Mansion House, London, and sent to the Poultry Compter...

, theatrical illusion in contemporary drama, and a fascination with oral sex

Oral sex

Oral sex is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a sex partner by the use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat. Cunnilingus refers to oral sex performed on females while fellatio refer to oral sex performed on males. Anilingus refers to oral stimulation of a person's anus...

 are evidence of long-term personality disintegration.

The book builds its thesis from Lasch's idiosyncratic political views and encyclopedic grasp of U.S. social

Social history

Social history, often called the new social history, is a branch of History that includes history of ordinary people and their strategies of coping with life. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments...

 and economic history

Economic history

Economic history is the study of economies or economic phenomena in the past. Analysis in economic history is undertaken using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and by applying economic theory to historical situations and institutions...

, the then-current world of arts and letters, and clinical research and psychological theories on narcissistic personality disorder

Narcissistic personality disorder

Narcissistic personality disorder is a personality disorder in which the individual is described as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity...

s. As the utopia

Utopia

Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...

n visions of the sixties faded into the "personal growth

Personal development

Personal development includes activities that improve awareness and identity, develop talents and potential, build human capital and facilitates employability, enhance quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations...

" lifestyles of the seventies, the chaos and excess of the former began to imprint itself on the public mind.

Reaction

An early response to The Culture of Narcissism commented that Lasch had identified the outcomes in American society of the decline of the family

Family

In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...

 over the previous century. The book quickly became a bestseller

Bestseller

A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...

 and a talking point, being further propelled to success after Lasch notably visited Camp David

Camp David

Camp David is the country retreat of the President of the United States and his guests. It is located in low wooded hills about 60 mi north-northwest of Washington, D.C., on the property of Catoctin Mountain Park in unincorporated Frederick County, Maryland, near Thurmont, at an elevation of...

 to advise President Carter

Jimmy Carter

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

 for his "crisis of confidence" speech of 15 July 1979. Later editions include a new afterword, "The Culture of Narcissism Revisited".

The book has been commonly misused by liberals and conservatives alike, citing it for their own ideological agendas. Author Louis Menand

Louis Menand

Louis Menand is an American writer and academic, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Metaphysical Club , an intellectual and cultural history of late 19th and early 20th century America....

 wrote:

Lasch was not saying that things were better in the 1950s, as conservatives offended by countercultural permissiveness probably took him to be saying. He was not saying that things were better in the 1960s, as former activists disgusted by the 'me-ism' of the seventies are likely to have imagined. He was diagnosing a condition that he believed had originated in the nineteenth century.

Lasch attempted to correct many of these misapprehensions with The Minimal Self in 1984.

Sample Editions

• New York: Norton, 1979. ISBN 0393011771
• New York: Warner Books, 1980. ISBN 0446974951
• New York: Norton; Revised edition (May 1991). ISBN 978-0393307382