The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations

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W. W. Norton & Company, 1991 M05 17 - 282 páginas
"[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.
 

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Contenido

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
IX The Shattered Faith in the Regeneration of Life
207
X Paternalism Without Father
218
The Culture of Narcissism Revisited
237
Notes
251
Index
275
Back Cover
284
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Acerca del autor (1991)

Christopher Lasch (1932–1994), professor of history at the University of Rochester, wrote, among many other works, The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics and the best-selling Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy.

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