With an unsentimental eye, Christopher Lasch examines the new narcissism, product of the dotage of bourgeois society.

The narcissistic personality of our time, liberated from the superstitions of the past, embraces new cults, only to discover that emancipation from ancient taboos brings neither sexual nor spiritual peace. In their emotional shallowness, their fear of intimacy, their hypochondria, their pseudo-self-insight, their promiscuous pansexuality, their dread of old age and death, the new narcissists bear the stamp of a culture that has lost interest in the future.

Their outlook on life--as revealed in the new consciousness movements and therapeutic culture; in pseudo-confessional autobiography and fiction; in the replacement of Horatio Alger by the Happy Hooker as the symbol of success; in the theater of the absurd and the absurdist theater of everyday life; in the degradation of sport; in the collapse of authority; in the escalating war between men and women--is the world view of the resigned.

American society in the Seventies retreats from politics, but its only hope, Lasch argues, lies in reform of public life. He calls for new politics, new discipline, new love to replace narcissistic self-absorption. Laschs reputation as a controversial social critic of courage and insight will be enhanced by this provocative, troubling, fascinating book.