Christopher Lasch Quotes

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Christopher Lasch

Profession : Historian

Birth : June 1, 1932

It is the logic of consumerism that undermines the values of loyalty and permanence and promotes a different set of values that is destructive of family life.

Christopher Lasch

The family wage has been eroded by the same developments that have promoted consumerism as a way of life.

Christopher Lasch

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

Christopher Lasch

The intellectual debility of contemporary conservatism is indicated by its silence on all important matters.

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

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.

Christopher Lasch

The news appeals to the same jaded appetite that makes a child tire of a toy as soon as it becomes familiar and demand a new one in its place.

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 left has lost the common touch.

Christopher Lasch

The conservative revival cannot be dismissed.

Christopher Lasch

Because it equates tradition with prejudice, the left finds itself increasingly unable to converse with ordinary people in their common language.

Christopher Lasch

The left no longer stands for common sense, as it did in the days of Tom Paine.

Christopher Lasch

In our society, daily experience teaches the individual to want and need a never-ending supply of new toys and drugs.

Christopher Lasch

In an individualistic culture, the narcissist is God's gift to the world. In a collectivist society, the narcissist is God's gift to the collective.

Christopher Lasch

The same historical development that turned the citizen into a client transformed the worker from a producer into a consumer.

Christopher Lasch

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

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

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.

Christopher Lasch