CHRISTOPHER LASCH
19
spoken academic bureaucrats. In the popular mind these specialists
are indistinguishable from the white-coated men of science who take
to television in order to extol the advantages of certain brands of
aspirin . All experts appear to the public more or less as doctors, and
this perception, however distorted, contains a certain truth. Social
"scientists" betray no more emotion about society than doctors feel
toward the human body; their profession has grown up side by side
with the "helping professions" and the mental health industry; and
their pronouncements, delivered with an air of detachment in lan–
guage technical and obscure, hold the same interest for the general
public as the pronouncements of physicians-the mild interest that
adheres to any statements that seem to promise better health and a
sense of well-being.
When the external world loses its savor , the self retreats to a
preoccupation with its own immediate interests, its unfulfilled de–
sires, the state of its health . Psychological regression expresses itself
intellectually in the perception that values are purely subjective.
"Good" is what is good for me . On this view, ethical statements
merely rationalize self-interest , and since individual interests di–
verge , everyone has "the right to his own opinion ." "One man's
opinion is as good as that of another. " The devaluation of values
precludes any rational discussion of values.
Chacun a son gout;
no one
can argue about tastes, preferences , or opinions. Thought mirrors the
fragmentation ofsociety . Atomized individualism finally reduces the
individual to pure subjectivity and thus negates individualism by
carrying it to its logical conclusion: the war of all against all.
Incapable of reasoned discourse , the modern Narcissus-the con–
sumer par excellence-can articulate only his own wants . Public
discourse comes to an end, and private conversation degenerates into
an unintelligible babble , a never-ending assertion ofwishes demand–
ing fulfillment.
Note:
An unpublished paper by Renate Bridenrhal of Brooklyn College, "Towards a Theory of
Women's Hisrory, " has helped me roclarify my thoughtson the socialization of reproduction .
I shou ld also like
to
acknowledge my indebtedness ro Sruarr Ewen ,
Captains ofCOI/(iollSlless
(New York, 1976); Philip Rieff,
The Triumph ofthe Therapeutic
(New York , 1968); Russell
Jacoby,
Social Amnesia
(Boston, 197 5); and Mi chael Beldoch , 'The Therapeutic as Narcis–
sist ,"
Salmagllncii.
no. 20 (1 972).
