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Christopher Lasch once more attacks, like Ezekiel and Jeremiah of the Old Testament, false gods and false prophets preaching salvation through a warmed-over Marxism and a warmed-up Freudianism. In Haven in a Heartless World he described the bankruptcy of liberalism and the moral structure of the American family, with special barbs for the so-called new Freudian revisionists in psychoanalysis, psychology and the social sciences. He exploits the present-day confusion in the midst of major social and technological change, making the most of the sentimental nostalgia for an idealized past. He answers this criticism in the preface to this book by insisting that loving memories of happier times in the past are necessary for our mental health. He is correct in stating that the past is “a political and psychological treasury” but his expertise is just as faulty as the experts he, himself, attacks for being allowed to define our needs for us. Again, we have a work chock full of quotable phrases reminiscent not only of the biblical books of the prophets but even more of Ecclesiastes (the Preacher): 1:2 — “For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”
In this second book of prophetic calling we are warned again of the wickedness of our capitalist, cómpetitive, individualistic society that denies its past and despairs for its future. Here he has finished with the behavioral scientists and tackles the awareness and consciousness-raising movements of the '60's and '70's with their tendency to oversimplify the complexities of the human dilemma with banal cliches borrowed from the literature of psychotherapy such as the advice to live for the moment, avoid depending on others and don't count too much on friends, lovers or spouses — much as the 15th-century poet, Francois Villon, advised so well in his day. He praises Kernberg (a true prophet) and attacks Fromm again (a false prophet) in postulating a great increase in narcissistic personality