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Who Knows Best?

Roger L. Simon on Moral Narcissism and "The Least Great Generation"
June 16, 2016

On the Wall Street Journal’s “Opinion Journal,” author Roger L. Simon and Mary Kissel discussed I Know Best, moral narcissism and its origins in “the least great generation.”

Moral narcissism, as defined in Simon’s book, is “What you believe, or claim to believe or say you believe, not what you do or how you act or what the results of your actions may bedefines you as a person and makes you ‘good.’” 

Mary Kissel asks: When did American society adopt this standard?

To which Simon responded:

I don’t know but it’s like oxygen now. I swear it’s in our air. However, when it happened, I’m not sure, but it sort of stems from my generation and I’m going to out myself on TV since you can find it on Wikipedia. I was born at the end of World War II and the people that were born at the end of World War II are the people that are usually referred to as Boomers, but are earlier than that: meaning John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Timothy Leary—who was born in 1920-believe it or not—they are what I call “the least great generation” in our book. So, if you’re asking where it all started, it sort of started with them—although, I’m sure there were cavemen who behaved in the same manner.

Watch the full interview:

Roger L. Simon on Opinion Journal
In this Article

I Know Best How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasn't Already

In 1979, Christopher Lasch published the epochal The Culture of Narcissism, warning of the normalizing of narcissism in our society. Lasch may have understated it. Thirty-five years later, in the Obama era—with its parade of endless, often inexplicable, scandals—we have a full-blown epidemic of what has recently been called Moral Narcissism.

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