Every time I hear the phrase "you deserve" in an ad, I nearly throw up.

Ditto.

That's one reason why I never liked U2's song "I Still Haven't Found I'm Looking For." Everyone thought it was so profound -- I just thought it was dumb. Like the kids say these days, "As if!"

That meme is horrible.
When did we abandon the idea that parents have a duty to the well-being of their children even at the cost of their own?

This may seem a little odd...but I am just so grateful that God saved a wretch like me that it really fires my joy. If -in my clearer moments- I do think in terms of what I deserve -it makes me even happier with what I do have.

It's one reason that social conservative ideas always seem to be in retreat. They always involve some aspect of duty, restraint, and so forth, and the whole psychological climate is opposed to those. I've finally started reading The Triumph of the Therapeutic, and boy does he nail it.

One aspect of it is both funny and very exasperating: advertising that tells you that buying the product will mark you as a bold, independent, rebellious spirit.

Mac @8:57 I once read an advice column in which a woman sought help because her husband wanted a divorce and she didn't. The columnist's response was, "You wouldn't want him to stay with you just out of duty, would you?"
Even my teenage daughter said, "Of course I would! Isn't that what duty is for? To make you do the right thing when you don't feel like it?" Of course, that presupposes that the right thing to do can in principle be distinguished from the thing you want to do.

Doing my duty is my authentic self.

The question of life's unfairness can lead to some pretty dark places.

Robert, that was my thought, too. It seem that what the proponents of being authentic are referring to is the id.

"It's one reason that social conservative ideas always seem to be in retreat. They always involve some aspect of duty, restraint, and so forth, and the whole psychological climate is opposed to those."

Lasch nailed it, as you say, and so does Berry when he talks about how in modernity the decks are always stacked against the virtues because they're not measurable by modernity's standards.

This is one reason why I like Mark Helprin so much. I just finished a re-reading of A Soldier of the Great War, and it's clear that Helprin is on the side of the "old" virtues, and that in regards to modernity's impatience with them he is having none of it. This is probably why his books are not as popular among "liberal" critics as they should be. A novel that does the things that A Soldier... does would likely be considered a modern classic, but I think its problem is that its moral universe is simply too "old fashioned" in the view of the contemporary literati.

Louise: it is. :-)

It occurred to me that as many times as I've seen the word "id" and gotten a rough sense of what it seems to mean, I've never actually read a definition of it, much less Freud himself. This is interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego_and_super-ego#Id

This whole discussion about the "id" makes me think of that incident a few years ago when Mel Gibson got plastered and was videorecorded spewing a hateful, antisemitic rant. People kept commenting, "That's the real Mel Gibson," even though his reason (ego and superego?) had been suppressed by the alcohol. He later claimed (whether rightly or not) that he was NOT antisemitic and that the "comments" he made on the video didn't represent his true beliefs. Given his upbringing, it is not surprising that such sentiments were lurking in the dark places of his unconscious, but if he had as a rational being sought to overcome the influence of his upbringing and had decided that he wanted to affirm something different and contrary, why is that not the "authentic" Mel Gibson?

I think the definition of a mature human being is one who seeks to overcome (with divine assistance) the influence of the negative aspects of nature and nurture on one's thinking and actions and replace them with virtuous habits of thought and action. I think the more free you are (the less a slave to the passions), the more authentically "you" you are.

One of the reasons I don't drink is because I don't want the garbage that I know is lurking in there to come vomiting out. Pun intended.

I'm not suggesting one just suppress such negative forces in one's psyche. They, of course, need to be identified, acknowledged, and healed (through natural and supernatural means).

This makes me think of Jules Feiffer's Hostileman cartoons. Hostileman is the superhero alter ego of meek nerd Bernard. Somebody like him definitely lurks in me, although he has no superpowers. Headlines like this make me want to unleash him:

"ESPN Broadcasters Hold Moment of Silence to Protest Florida’s Parental-Rights Bill on LGBT Ed"

This would be irritating enough from any network. But ESPN?!?

What happens when these kids--the ones whose lives were upended explicitly in favour of adults deserving happiness--grow up? Maybe they think, "At last I'm old enough to deserve happiness!" and make their own children suffer in turn. Maybe they don't have kids, because clearly kids are an obstacle to happiness. Maybe they refuse to inflict the pain they endured on a new generation.

I'm so glad you mentioned Broadchurch, because I was trying to remember its name. It's next on my list to watch.