The Hopeful Dystopian
On the enduring appeal of Christopher Lasch — on both the Left and Right.
Social critic Christopher Lasch leans on a desk at the head of the classroom. He taught history for many years at the University of Rochester, but his writing — especially that on the “culture of narcissism” — has reached far beyond the ivory tower. (Photo by Commonweal Magazine)
Why do we keep coming back to Christopher Lasch? There are political reasons why commentators on both the Left and the Right find it useful to return to his books and renew his criticisms of American society, or else simply filch them at their own convenience. Certainly, there is plenty in Lasch to raid, but his lasting appeal is due, I think, to a deeper quality in his writing.
Lasch’s polemical works of social criticism have a dramatic quality of plunging us into (and back into) crises we didn’t know we were experiencing but immediately recognize. His is a vision not of heroes and villains, nor of friends and enemies, but of a system that has, through accumulating unintended consequences, atomized the citizenry, undermined the idea of “the common life,” and rendered the world instead “a war of all against all.” Given that the first priority of anyone who finds themselves in such a world will be survival, Lasch’s works have the same appeal as classics of dystopian literature.
Take this passage, from Lasch’s 1984 book The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times:
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