Lasch-Quinn talks to spiked about her new book, Ars Vitae

December 11, 2020

spiked

Lasch Quinn Ars Vitae Why write a book that appears to be calling for greater self-focus, for the cultivation of more "inwardness," when we appear to have a surfeit of damaging self-centered introspection as it is? Because, Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn says, today’s self-obsession entails "a false kind of inwardness. It’s a sham, It’s not the real thing." And this, reviewer Tim Black says, is what makes "Ars Vitae: The Fate of Inwardness and the Return of the Ancient Arts of Living" such vital reading. "It provides both a thorough-going critique of the therapeutic, self-obsessed ethos so dominant today, and a way beyond it, through the potential development of those inner, moral resources on which true selfhood and a moral community rest," he says. Read his full review, "Beyond the therapeutic," published in spiked. 12/11/20