Quotes from Christopher Lasch

Se o exercício desse direito (o direito de dispor de seus próprios corpos, como as feministas diriam hoje), na utopia de Sade, resumia-se ao dever de tornar-se instrumento do prazer de outrem, não era tanto porque Sade odiasse as mulheres, mas porque odiava a humanidade. Ele percebeu, mais claramente do que as feministas, que todas as liberdades sob o capitalismo, no final, resumem-se na mesma coisa, na mesma obrigação universal de sentir e de dar prazer.

Today the treatment of such themes is more explicit than ever; moreover, advertising encourages men as well as women to see the creation of the self as the highest form of creativity.

In a simpler time, advertising merely called attention to the product and extolled its advantages. Now it manufactures a product of its own: the consumer, perpetually unsatisfied, restless, anxious, and bored. Advertising serves not so much to advertise products as to promote consumption as a way of life. It 'educates' the masses into an unappeasable appetite not only for goods but for new experiences and personal fulfillment.

Moynihan aponta que, ... Os profissionais, ..., têm um interesse investido no descontentamento, pois as pessoas descontentes voltam-se para os serviços profissionais em busca de alívio. Contudo, o mesmo princípio forma a base de todo o capitalismo moderno, o qual tenta continuamente criar novas demandas e novos descontentamentos, que só podem ser amenizados pelo consumo de mercadorias.

A publicidade moderna procura promover não tanto a auto-indulgência, mas a autodúvida. Ela procura criar necessidades, não satisfazê-las, gerar novas ansiedades, em vez de atenuar antigas.

A ideologia do crescimento pessoal, superficialmente otimista, irradia um profundo desespero e resignação. É a fé dos que não têm fé.

Capitalism has severed the ties of personal dependence only to revive dependence under cover of bureaucratic rationality.

We long for the suspension of self-consciousness, of the pseudo-analytic attitude that has become second nature; but neither art nor religion, historically the great emancipators from the prison of the self, retain the power to discourage disbelief. In a society based so largely on illusions and appearances, the ultimate illusions, art and religion, have no future.

Heroism was disruptive, in Carlyle's view. Its value lay precisely in its unsettling effect on habits and routine. It divided men and women more often than it brought them together.

Even the radicalism of the sixties served, for many of those who embraced it for personal rather than political reasons, not as a substitute religion but as a form of therapy. Radical politics filled empty lives, provided a sense of meaning and purpose.

To blame the irrational features of modern politics on narcissism, the ideology of intimacy, or the "culture of personality" not only exaggerates the role of ideology in historical development but underestimates the irrationality of politics in earlier epochs.

The world does not exist merely to satisfy our own desires; it is a world in which we can find pleasure and meaning, once we understand that others too have a right to these goods.

The Therapeutic Sensibility The contemporary climate is therapeutic, not religious. People today hunger not for personal salvation, let alone for the restoration of an earlier golden age, but for the feeling, the momentary illusion, of personal well-being, health, and psychic security.

Conservatives have no understanding of modern capitalism. They have a distorted understanding of the traditional values they claim to defend.

Every age develops its own peculiar forms of pathology, which express in exaggerated form its underlying character structure.

Environmentalism opposes reckless innovation and makes conservation the central order of business.

A child's appetite for new toys appeal to the desire for ownership and appropriation: the appeal of toys comes to lie not in their use but in their status as possessions.

The family is a haven in a heartless world.

It is no longer an unwritten law of American capitalism that industry will attempt to maintain wages at a level that allows a single wage to support a family.

The left sees nothing but bigotry and superstition in the popular defense of the family or in popular attitudes regarding abortion, crime, busing, and the school curriculum.

A growing awareness of the depth of popular attachment to the family has led some liberals to concede that family is not just a buzzword for reaction.

The last three decades have seen the collapse of the family wage system.

Most women are pragmatists who have allowed extremists on the left and right to manipulate the family issue for their own purposes.

The left has lost touch with popular opinion, thereby making it possible for the right to present itself as the party of common sense.