Lasch

[naama_gat at hotmail.com]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Amy Z" <aiz24 at h...> wrote:
> Rita wrote:
> 
> >I think friendship probably starts with enjoying each other's 
company 
> >(which would be why
> >Christopher Lasch, in the only one of his books that I ever read 
(it was
> >LOATHSOME) condemned friendship as being a form of 'narcissism', as
> >opposed to hanging out with and helping relatives or neighbors whom
> >detest but hang out with and help out of duty -- talking about
> >'enjoyment' DOES make it sound like hedonism).
> 
> Oy vey.  Does Lasch think =everything= is narcissistic?  He's been 
on my 
> "must read" list for years now, but this snippet is a major turnoff.
> 
> No s*** friendship is about enjoyment.  Heck, let's jump right into 
the 
> hedonist pool and say that it's about pleasure.  I spend time with 
friends, 
> as opposed to spending time fixing my neighbor's screen door, 
because I like 
> them and take pleasure in their company.  "Pleasure=hedonism" 
and "things 
> done primarily for oneself=narcissism" both seem like very sloppy 
philosophy 
> to me, the kinds of statements that would have gotten me acres of 
marginal 
> comments from the prof (not complimentary ones) if I'd tried them 
out in a 
> paper for philosophy class.
> 
> Kant started all this trouble when he pointed out that doing 
something 
> meritorious that you don't personally enjoy is better than doing 
something 
> meritorious that you like doing anyway.  Lesser minds shouldn't get 
a hold 
> of ideas like that.
> 
> Amy Z
> feeling curmudgeonly, but not half so curmudgeonly as Lasch


Funny. It was a point I kept getting entangled with as a child (I was 
always rather philosophically minded). If a good deed gives pleasure 
to a good person and a bad deed gives pleasure to a bad person, 
what's the difference between being a good or a bad person? (since 
they both simply do what feels good to them).
As a mature, wise (yeah, right) person, I now know that that is 
preciesly the difference between good and bad people - good people 
feel good doing good, bad people don't. 
That Kantian accounting system you quote is the kind of thinking I 
really hate now. Instead of making people feel good about themselves 
it twists them into guilt ridden conscience pickers. Not surprising 
really that one century later we get Nietzsche.

Naama