ABSTRACT
Lasch observed a society in the throes of its own mutation, its citizens spurning community or any other kind of collectivity in preference for an unyielding self-regard. People, argued Lasch, became preoccupied with themselves: they admired themselves, pampered themselves, attended to themselves. Like Narcissus who fell in love with his own reflection, people became emotionally and intellectually fixated with their own images. This almost obsessive self-centeredness translated into a demand for physical perfection, an avoidance of substances that were potentially harmful, and a fascination for any new product that promised youth. This final point was important, for the devotees were the products of mid-war and postwar years and were on the cusp of middle age as the 1980s approached.
