Quotes by

Christopher Lasch

It is a tribute to the peculiar horror of contemporary life that it makes the worst features of earlier times — the stupefaction of the masses, the obsessed and driven lives of the bourgeoisie — seem attractive by comparison. – Christopher Lasch

A society that has made nostalgia a marketable commodity on the cultural exchange quickly repudiates the suggestion that life in the past was in any important way better than life today. – Christopher Lasch

In an individualistic culture, the narcissist is Gods gift to the world. In a collectivist society, the narcissist is Gods gift to the collective. – Christopher Lasch

The proper reply to right wing religiosity is not to insist that politics and religion dont mix. This is the stock response of the left. – Christopher Lasch

The left has come to regard common sense – the traditional wisdom and folkways of the community – as an obstacle to progress and enlightenment. – Christopher Lasch

Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success. – Christopher Lasch

Propaganda in the ordinary sense of the term plays a less important part in a consumer society, where people greet all official pronouncements with suspicion. – Christopher Lasch

The model of ownership, in a society organized round mass consumption, is addiction. – Christopher Lasch

Drugs are merely the most obvious form of addiction in our society. Drug addiction is one of the things that undermines traditional values. – Christopher Lasch

Ostensibly rigorous and realistic, contemporary conservatism is an ideology of denial. Its symbol is a smile button. – Christopher Lasch

Adherents of the new religious right reject the separation of politics and religion, but they bring no spiritual insights to politics. – Christopher Lasch

Because politics rests on an irreducible measure of coercion, it can never become a perfect realm of perfect love and justice. – Christopher Lasch

Conservatives sense a link between television and drugs, but they do not grasp the nature of this connection. – Christopher Lasch

Most of these alternative arrangements, so-called, arise out of the ruins of marriages, not as an improvement of old fashioned marriage. – Christopher Lasch

Knowledge is what we get when an observer, preferably a scientifically trained observer, provides us with a copy of reality that we can all recognize. – Christopher Lasch

The hope of a new politics does not lie in formulating a left-wing reply to the right-it lies in rejecting conventional political categories. – Christopher Lasch

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. – Christopher Lasch

Liberals subscribe to the new flexible, pluralistic definition of the family their defense of families carries no conviction. – Christopher Lasch

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

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