This review in the NYT caught my eye just now:

Vacuousness and self-absorption, it appears, never go out of style. In
a new play with an unpublishable title, Michael Domitrovich introduces
five 20-somethings who are awash in both — irritating people who could
be from a Warhol posse or a Gatsby party but, alas, are present-day
East Village types. New century, same narcissism.

 It’s a play, with the odd and profane title, "Artfuc*ers".  Perhaps there is something redeeming about it, but I, for one, tire very quickly when confronted with depths of bourgeois angst.  This was always a problem I had with Woody Allen.  Who cares if he is neurotic and repressed? (though, in his case, the humor can carry you through).

    It seems the reviewer tired of this play as well:

Over all, though, the play has too many dishonest notes to feel
genuine…
And a dismaying
confessional collage late in the play, in which these insufferable
characters blame their parents for their faults and behaviors, makes
Mr. Domitrovich seem as if he’s too consciously writing for a
20-something audience, giving it what it wants to hear.

 So, I wish narcissism would go out of style.  Or, maybe better, I wonder if we could make an anti-narcissistic comedy out of passage 22 of the Tao Te Ching:

Give up self-reflection
and you’re soon enlightened.
Give up self-definition
and you’re soon apparent.
Give up self-promotion
and you’re soon proverbial.
Give up self-esteem
and you’re soon perennial.
Simply give up contention
and soon nothing in all beneath heaven contends with you.

 Maybe this is what Napoleon Dynamite was suggesting.  In the end, the Taoist gets the girl.

UPDATE: This seems to be a theme in the news today.  Here’s a story from the London Times:

…If Narcissism was a town, LA would
be twinned with it. If you threw a soyburger on Sunset Boulevard, you’d hit
a narcissist. Telling a jury that a psychiatrist in LA is a narcissist is
like breaking the news to them that the Earth is round…

   And then there’s this piece on today’s AP Wire, Study: College Students More Narcissistic:

Today’s college
students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their
predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five
psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal
relationships and American society.

"We need
to stop endlessly repeating ‘You’re special’ and having children repeat
that back," said the study’s lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San
Diego State University. "Kids are self-centered enough already."    

     Reminders all of that sad truism of modern life: it’s hard out there for a Taoist.

AND HERE’S ONE MORE, from the LA Times on the "narcissism report:"

Other trends in American culture, including permissive parenting,
increased materialism and the fascination with celebrities and reality
TV shows, may also heighten self-regard, said study coauthor W. Keith
Campbell, psychology professor at the University of Georgia. "It’s part
of a whole cultural system," he said.

     It’s bigger than all of us!