Is It Culture or Just Being Young?

This is Diana. As I was reading through Dr. Nerio’s notes on Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism, the quote “We demand too much of life, too little of ourselves” stuck with me. Put in a very simple and obvious way, Lasch is saying that our culture is suffering from self-emptiness and disconnection from other people as well as earlier generations.

I relate this to these times, being a young adult, and I would have to identify with many of the things he states. “We are fast losing the sense of historical continuity, the sense of belonging to a succession of generations originating in the past and stretching into the future.” I really enjoyed that quote and read it over several times. I agree with this.

The other day, I was driving with my mother, and I asked her what being 20 years old was like in the 60’s. She was getting married, finishing her nursing degree and working at a hospital in Long Island. My dad was also finishing school and settling down with my mother. They bought a home and started having children right away. This story is similar to a bunch of my friends’ parents. It seems to me that the young adults a couple of decades ago acted much more mature and held much more responsibility than young adults now. I would never start settling down now, with a husband and children.

I think that college plays a big part in immaturity in young adults. This institution is meant to be the middle place where we are slowly learning how to survive on our own. I think that we are very coddled here; it’s not quite living with mom and dad but its not independent living just yet. Lasch writes about the culture of narcissism and says many things that I would have to agree with. I would agree with them because, yeah – that’s how college kids act! Well not all college students have an intense preoccupation with the self. However this is our time to focus on ourselves and really figure out what we want in life.

“Modern life is so thoroughly mediated by electronic images that we cannot help responding to others as it their actions – and our own – were being recorded and simultaneously transmitted to an unseen audience.” Twitter and Facebook fuel this with constant updates on what people are doing at all times. I think that this reinforces the “always connected” feeling that pressures us. I know some people who always say that they feel lost without their phone. Maybe this touches on the “theory of primary narcissism, which makes us see the pain of separation, which at birth, as the original source of the human malaise.” Technology can be a way that keeps everyone feeling the connection.

Although I find some things very convincing, it is still difficult to fully grasp the meaning of The Culture of Narcissism, by Christopher Lasch.