If you’ve ever had the curious pleasure of reading a Sally Rooney novel, you may guess what you’re in for with Intermezzo. There will be endless intimate descriptions of the psychology and behaviour of her characters; sex scenes full of …
The ghost who haunts the MAGA revolt
Over the past half-decade, few intellectuals have undergone a renaissance like Christopher Lasch — and few renaissances have been quite as startlingly heterodox. After the 2016 election, Lasch’s posthumous 1994 book Revolt of the Elites was cited as a key …
Christopher Lasch’s forgotten utopia
When discussion turns to Christopher Lasch and his diagnosis of Western narcissism, his later work is often neglected. And this is a shame, for it is here that he offers an antidote: a physical community designed to combat the malaise …
How we created a self-hating generation
I submit: the traditional concept of “building character” is out the window.
Once upon a time, a fully realised person was something one became. Entailing education, observation, experimentation, and sometimes humiliation, “coming of age” was hard work. When the project …
The end of the culture of narcissism
How did political conversation, especially online, become so crazy? Blame fossil fuels.
When Christopher Lasch wrote The Culture of Narcissism in 1979, well into the post-war wealth boom that turbocharged the industrial era, he argued that narcissistic tendencies develop partially …