The era of empty essay on contemporary individualism, is a very fine painting of the "postmodern" individual (pomo) of the neo-liberal society. The "bobo" Western therefore fully find in these pages published in 1983, three years after "culture of narcissism" Christopher Lasch which it refers extensively and almost ten years before "the end of history" Francis Fukuyama. At that time, the postmodern human type seems to extend irresistibly to the world as long as the legal base and consumerist neo-capitalist necessary for its existence has time to precede it. The criticism of the author is balanced: the futile, versatile side, hedonistic, inconstant, skeptical, cozy, lazy, timid, narcissistic, conservative -for if not more- the postmodern individual is the price to pay to get out the tragic history, religious fanaticism, the deadly ideologies sources of all wars. The social model attached to it may be "the best of all worlds," or at least "the empire of the lesser evil."
Lipovetsky The problem is probably, in my opinion, have entered a local reality (Western) and temporary and for making it -as Fukuyama- the peaceful future of humanity. The period following 2001 saw revealed a bleak horizon notwithstanding the end of the Cold War, the US empire engages in excessive militarism serving generalized perpetual wars, a global economic crisis born within it promises shutdown growth fantasies and unlimited consumption for Western middle classes. Our future may well spend "world best" Huxley than the "1984" Orwell and that world will be very difficult for the survival of small postmodern bourgeois, devoid of any integral safety net.