Narcissism or Informalization?: Christopher Lasch, Norbert Elias and Social Diagnosis  

Oleh:

Kilminster, Richard

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Theory, Culture & Society vol. 25 no. 3 (May 2008), page 131-152.
Topik: ego-functions ¦ ego-psychology ¦ functional democratization ¦ guilt ¦ reformalization ¦ shame ¦ super-ego functions ¦ Third Nature
Fulltext: 131.pdf (346.92KB)

Isi artikel

Christopher Lasch’s influential ‘culture of narcissism’ thesis is shown to be an empirically unproven, conservative over-reaction to the ‘permissive society’ of the 1960s and 1970s. It is suggested that the theory of informalization developed by Elias, Wouters and Waldhoff provides a more complete and convincing analysis of that phenomenon and similar cultural developments. The shortcomings of Lasch’s use of Freud, Klein and the clinical psychoanalytical literature are demonstrated. The history of the psychoanalytic concept of narcissism is traced in order to reveal how Lasch elides and exploits the everyday and technical meanings of the term. It is argued that today we are witnessing not a fatal narrowing of the super-ego (Lasch’s fear) but rather its further differentiation and rebalancing with egofunctions. For the ‘Third Nature’ (Wouters) people of our time, guilt becomes less important than shame in shaping our conduct. The article concludes that Lasch was not propounding a sociological theory as such, but was simply engaged in a complex exercise in moral and political persuasion.

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