Paul Campos: A culture of narcissism

We can only imagine what Lasch, who died a decade ago, would make of American life today. Things such as reality television, obsessive celebrity worship and a general merger of news and entertainment have conspired to make the cocaine-addled 1970s look positively demure by comparison.

A perverse barometer of these sorts of trends is provided by the ongoing transformation of Michael Jackson's face. When Lasch published his book, Jackson was in the midst of making "Off the Wall," a pop music gem that remains his best record.

In the years since, Jackson has gradually slid from his status as the world's most popular entertainer into what he is today: The ultimate celebrity freak show, whose mug shot taken at the time of his arrest on child molestation charges reveals the sickening consequences of who-knows-how-many plastic surgeries and other cosmetic procedures.

It's too easy to dismiss Jackson as a one of a kind freak, just as it's too easy to assume he's guilty as charged. Jackson is certainly guilty of extreme weirdness -- and it will be up to his lawyers to convince a jury that his bizarre and reckless behavior doesn't necessarily mean he's a child molester.

Yet Michael Jackson's face is merely the most extreme manifestation of the effects of a culture dedicated to getting people to obsess on their appearance, and to treat any form of deviation from an absurdly narrow definition of "beauty" as a profound personal crisis.

What are the billions of dollars Americans spend annually on cosmetics, workout equipment, Botox, Propecia, Viagra, and dozens of varieties of plastic surgery but a vain -- in every sense -- attempt to bribe the gods of genetics and aging? It's true that for a couple of thousand years now moralists have been imploring women not to paint their faces, with little success to date. It's also true that a bit of vanity about one's appearance can be a good thing: A public culture dominated by dour Puritans or heedless slobs is nothing to celebrate.

But a culture dominated by a fear of growing old, or even middle-aged, finds its ultimate expression in the appalling spectacle that is Michael Jackson. Jackson appears to have fully internalized our culture's message that, to be truly desirable, one ought to look like a slim 20-year-old white woman. While pursuing that ideal he has destroyed a once-handsome face (it's rumored that the tip of his nose has fallen off as a consequence of so many surgeries) and squandered his once-impressive musical talent.

Jackson is both a beneficiary and a victim of the celebrity culture that now profits from his latest scandal. The narcissism nurtured by the life of a child star, who was exploited by a sadistic father and a voracious record company, has bloomed into the grotesque disaster that seems certain to dominate the infotainment culture in the foreseeable future, pushing aside such weighty matters as Scott Peterson's legal troubles and Paris Hilton's film career.

In other words, in the months to come, Michael Jackson's face is going to be pushed into all of our faces, again and again. As unpleasant as that operation will be, there is something appropriate about it. Jackson's face is a kind of mirror, in which the culture of narcissism can glimpse its own ghastly reflection.

The self-styled King of Pop is a symbol of that culture's deepest desires. Like Peter Pan (or Humbert Humbert) all Michael Jackson ever wanted was not to grow up.

Paul Campos is a law professor at the University of Colorado and can be reached at Paul.Campos@Colorado.edu.