ABSTRACT
The Culture of Narcissism has a sub-title: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. This chapter draws on Freud and Freudian speculation, Christopher Lasch maintains the distinction made by Freud between primary and secondary narcissism. The popular music of the Sixties also played a galvanizing role in turning display and narcissism into a new and compelling art form. The chapter deals with the simple notion that narcissistic personality traits are necessarily negative in effect and ultimately destructive of human personality. There have been moments in post-war popular culture where the narcissistic processes outlined in Lasch's critique have become radicalized to subvert and invert this narcissistic effect. Charles S. Grob argues convincingly that there is an ingrained cultural resistance to the revelations of psychedelic experience. The cultures of narcissism are paradoxical and contradictory, shallow and excessive, fragmented and uniform, banal and terrifying.
