On The Lasch

Subject: On The Lasch Sat Jan 08, 2022 2:32 am

Why Christopher Lasch is one of the most important and prophetic writers for our polarised time

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This week I read a book published in 1996, which seemed so relevant to this historical moment I ended up with over 30 pages of notes.

The book is The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy, by American historian Christopher Lasch. I’m not alone in seeing its prescience — both Ross Douthat of the New York Times and Ed West of Unherd highlighted it as a key text to understand the era of Trump and Brexit.

Lasch died in 1994, and the book was published posthumously thanks to the work of his daughter, historian Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn. In it, they warned of the growing chasm between the liberal elite of university-educated knowledge-workers, and the more traditional working class.

These two groups are increasingly unable to talk to or understand each other, and this plays out in a chauvinist populism on one side, and on the other a pseudo-radical but actually elitist liberalism obsessed with anti-racism and personal growth.

What is disappearing, say the Laschs, is the idea of a common democracy with shared values, ideals, and places to come together.

More: .https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/on-the-lasch-7ba5df3621ee

On The Lasch

On The Lasch

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