Lasch: For Today or For Tomorrow?

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Jennifer:

As I was reading through Nerio’s notes on Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism, the words continued to sound so familiar. It was as if they were already ingrained in my mind. After further contemplation, I realized they closely mirrored the words of my parents. Lasch states, “To live for the moment is the prevailing passion- to live for yourself, not for your predecessors or posterity. We are fast losing the sense of historical continuity” (p. 5). As young adults, my sisters and I are constantly lectured about what we are going to accomplish in order to one day create good lives for our children, to provide them with a good start, a solid foundation. We are consistently questioned about our lack of interest in doing so.

What they fail to do is stop and think. What are they also telling us? What other ideas are they putting in our heads? Well, to be quite honest, they regularly tell us the youth of today has no future. They tell us that the economy will be far gone by the time we reach their ages. They leave us without hope. A bit hypocritical, wouldn’t you say? Lasch seems to also refer to this idea when he states, ”A society that fears it has no future is not likely to give much attention to the needs of the next generation” (p. 50).  Now, who could argue with that reasoning?