The Hewitt Blog

For several years the wanton display of religious symbols has been making me crazy, and lately I’ve been obsessing about it. On a recent cross-country trip, hundreds of Indiana cars with “In God We Trust” emblazoned on their license plates left me in their 80 mph dust. Shortly before last Christmas a federal judge enjoined South Carolina from producing a license plate, which the state legislature had authorized, that carried an image of the Christian cross and the words “I Believe.” The memory of Sarah Palin and her prayin’ and being prayed over remains all too fresh in my mind. And I can still vividly recall the neo-rebel country singer Marty Stuart’s costume on a televised “Grand Ole Opry” show a few years ago. No modest crucifix around the neck for him, the kind you might see peeking out of the cleavage of many a female singer. He sported a jet-black Nudie suit with large, raised black crosses embroidered on the chest, back, and arms. It was the sartorial equivalent of the 190 foo...

For the last thirty years narcissism (e.g. Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism, 1978; Jean Twenge, The Narcissism Epidemic, 2009) has been an off and on staple of American cultural criticism. The publication of books on the topic is followed by a flurry of attention, at first promoted by publishers and then spreading virally through the media. In “Broadsheet” ( Salon, July 27, 2009) Judy Berman contributes to the trend with a discussion of “The culture of (female) narcissism.” Drawing on Twenge’s book and on an article by the Guardian’s Jane Bunting (“The narcissism of consumer society has left women unhappier than ever,” The Guardian, July 26, 2009), she explicates an apparent link between increasing narcissism and growing unhappiness among women. Narcissists have unrealistic, unattainable goals and expectations of themselves, and can therefore hardly fail to be unhappy. Berman asks a question she admittedly can’t answer: if women’s self-expectations are growing increasin...