The Culture of Narcissism

What Hacker News says

1. stuxnet79Apr 2025
   Indeed, Lasch was a prescient thinker and reading through Culture of Narcissism I am impressed at how accurate his predictions were. Chapter 3 in particular is almost painful to read.
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2. syl_sauMay 2022
   You'd probably enjoy reading Christopher Lasch's "The Culture of Narcissism". It makes all sort of great points about yesterday's hippies' and pop culture personalities' ability to recycle their (frankly) egomaniacal tendencies, and analyzes what gave rise to those in the first place (material abundance, mass media, "youth culture", etc.).
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3. dsjimiJul 2020
   The Culture of Narcissism by Lasch or Democracy in America by de Tocqueville might be of interest to you.
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4. scottlocklinFeb 2020
   You seem like a fairly well adjusted fellow, if you've caught yourself being a jerk and want to make positive changes. Maybe you're more of a minor league egotist rather than an actual DSM narcissist. If you like keeping fit, it's difficult to be that kind of a jerk if someone's beating the shit out of you on a regular basis in a dojo. Sports in general are good for people living a life of the mind (aka HN nerds); it chips away at common character defects that come from being a disembodied brain waddling around. You'll expose yourself to people from all walks of life who will give you immediate feedback if you display bad character, and it will get you moving around and make you humble.

   If you enjoy history and literature, maybe Plutarch's parallel lives of Alcibiades and Coriolanus; or Christopher Lasch's "Culture of Narcissism" could provide some perspective. And as someone said below, Dale Carnegie's book on winning friends and influencing people, 100 years later, is a really useful, life changing book.

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5. coldteaMar 2019
   Well, for something US-made and more appealing to the less-continental reading tastes, Christopher Lasch is perhaps mandatory on this subject:

   The Culture of Narcissism

   The Revolt of the Elites

   Haven in a Heartless World

   The Minimal Self

   and so on.

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6. keyboredMay 2026
   > Nevertheless, our group-average findings, if replicated by others, would hold clear policy implications. Federal efforts to promote work at pre-retirement ages would not only reduce reliance on SSDI and enhance retirement security, but would also promote healthy aging through delaying cognitive decline.

   Fuck you.

   Christopher Lasch wrote that our “culture of narcissism” detests aging. Unsurprisingly we, the narcissists, are horrified when we ourselves become old. Because there is hardly anything left for us.

   You can subtract pure biology, i.e. normal bodily degradation. But you can also subtract respect, esteem, wisdom (because who cares what grandpa has to say?), family (see care homes), and socializing.[1] You’re not an “asset” (to use familiar language[2]) to anyone. Just a burden.

   What becomes the solution to any of that? No, no. We don’t need solutions to old people problems. We need solutions to them being burdens.

   So how to make them less of a drag on our collective selves: encourage them to work at their shitty jobs for longer.

   [1] See the old man who meets you again after six months and talks way too much about what he’s up to. Does he have any other outlets?

   [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47873477

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