What Were We So Afraid Of?

Agreed. A decade obsessed with stuff like hair "fresheners" could be described as narcissistic. In 1978 social historian Christopher Lasch wrote about the self-absorption sweeping America in an acclaimed book entitled The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminished Expectations. It's been reissued, and I highly recommend it.

Lasch went beyond simply complaining about how self-centered we Americans had become. Nor did he chalk it up to mere egotism or selfishness. To him, what was driving all of this obsession with appearances, self-help, and instant gratification was fear. But fear of what? Fear of a nuclear holocaust? We'd been living with that for decades. Fear of each other? You're getting warmer. Crime seemed to be rising despite all the strategies tried to control it; millions fled the cities and racial and class tensions ran deep, although they rarely boiled over into large-scale disturbances. The bitterness was more on an individual and small-group level.

What we feared most, Lasch believed, was not Russia, or China, or the people on the other side of the Expressway. It was a great emptiness within ourselves. And the notion that there is nothing really inside of you (however that may be defined) is so terrifying that it drives you to a preoccupation with the superficial. The old norms had disappeared, but nothing really replaced them. What was there to live or fight for? So, folks turned to what they thought they could control. You can't put an end to war or poverty; people weren't all going to live in harmony. But you could make yourself look fantastic.

A certain fatalism came with this attitude, granted. Hell, you were just "stayin' alive." But I think that some folks rather enjoyed their alienation, since it made an easy excuse not to ask many deep questions or devote themselves to anything besides themselves.

Lasch did not offer any easy answers to the problem of cultural narcissism, which is to his credit. We had enough self-appointed Experts offering quick fixes back then. What he did not seem to count on was how many Americans would seek solutions in a naive, nostalgic attempt to return to our "true" values through the Reagan Revolution.