A Culture of Brats

This is Jamie Ferri.

          I found myself a little depressed after reading Nerio’s Notes on The Culture of Narcissism, by Christopher Lasch.  I understand the meaning of Narcissism more so than prior to reading these notes.  However, the word still has hints of selfishness as far as i can make sense of it.  There is almost too much truth to Lasch's work.  His words are describing every friend I have ever known, and myself.  It is pretty pathetic.  I feel this way about everyday situations.  I’m constantly saying to myself, wow my friends are awful, they really only care about themselves.  Here’s a small personal example that may or may not seem like the worst thing anyone could ever do, but it really ticked me off: 


        I had just gotten back from an 8:00am-4:00pm day at my internship.  Exhausted, I changed out of work clothes into something comfortable.  My tummy was a-rumblin’ (as it usually is), and I decided to go meet with my friends who had left to eat dinner about 15 minutes before I got back to my room.  I received an invite via text after I asked what they were all doing.  I hurried to get to Wagner’s fine dining facility (hah) and found them walking out.  One excuse after another flew from my “friends’” mouths.  Two people had to get ready to go out to the city two hours from then, and the others had to “uh, be somewhere”.  I walked away, annoyed, and ate alone.  How incredibly selfish were they?  No one could even sit with me for 5 minutes to maybe discuss the day?   I didn’t need someone to feed me or even, god-forbid, sit with me for the entire meal, but just to keep me company for a little bit of time.  Even friends are always only fulfilling their personal needs.  No one is selfless.  At least the story has a good ending; I drowned my sorrows in delicious tomato soup, a rare delicacy of Wagner’s Hawks Nest.

*After reading my narrative, was anyone wondering if I’m the one with the issue?  Am I too dependent on others that I couldn’t just eat alone?  Hmm…

            “We demand too much of life, too little of ourselves” (248).  People find it hard to take responsibility for their actions.  I read this as: everyone blames their life on the cards they’ve been handed instead of the route they chose to take.  Some people rely too much on religion and fate.  Instead of hoping, people should be taking action to get what they want.  This could also go along with “living for the moment” and forgetting the sense of “belonging to a succession of generations”. There is a sense of no future, but living for “immediate needs”.  The idea of self-improvement only goes as far as what will make the individual feel better on a small and personal level.

            I really agreed with the portrayal of life as a mirror. “People want to be envied rather than respected…”(59).  This generation is all about consumption.  This particular line is true among young people because they always want to be envied.  Everyone knows that jealousy is the most sincere form of flattery.  Especially on a college campus, nobody respects someone for having a nice bag or car unless they know that individual has been a doctor and worked his or her way throughout medical school, and even then people might sneer out of envy.  People are obsessed with looking good by the expression of material goods and outward appearance.  This reminds me of George Ritzer’s Cathedrals of Consumption because it shows how people’s lives revolve around buying and showing off what they have to the world.