In 1976, Tom Wolfe published, “The Me Decade and the Third Great Awakening,” in New York Magazine. I find Wolfe’s style painful to read (there are 103 exclamation points in this article) but his cultural analysis was impressive. He detected a religious impulse behind many of the cultural movements of the sixties and seventies.

He labeled the seventies “the Me Decade” because he saw “considerable narcissism” as the cultural constant behind a variety of emerging movements: sexual liberation, church renewal programs, Scientology, and various psychological therapies. A newly divinized deity had arrived in the pantheon of gods: “Me.”

Wolfe ends the article by noting that common people were now doing “something that only aristocrats (and intellectuals and artists) were supposed to do—they discovered and started doting on Me!” Of all America’s religious awakenings, Wolfe says, this one “has the mightiest holiest roll of all, the beat that goes … Me … Me … Me … Me …”

Wolfe’s phrase, “the Me Decade” was quickly taken up by journalists and intellectuals and soon broadened into the “the Me Generation.” In 2013, Time Magazine labeled millennials as “the Me Me Generation.” But narcissism cannot be limited to a decade or a generation. A recent poll found that 84 percent of Americans said that “enjoying yourself is the highest goal of life.” If those findings are accurate, we are a “Me Society.”

Jean Twenge, of San Diego State, teamed up with Keith Campbell of the University of Georgia to write, “The Narcissism Epidemic” in 2010. At the time, they found that narcissistic personality traits have, since the 1980s, been rising as quickly as obesity and that the rate of increase was accelerating.

The CDC regards obesity, which is ranked as the top threat to personal wellbeing in the United States, as a risk factor for hypertension, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, osteoarthritis, and sleep apnea. Twenge and Campbell believe that the dramatic rise in narcissistic traits also pose a threat to American’s wellbeing.

America’s focus on self-admiration, they claim, has set off a cultural flight from reality. “We have phony rich people (with interest-only mortgages and piles of debt), phony beauty (with plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures), phony athletes (with performance-enhancing drugs), phony celebrities (via reality TV and YouTube), phony genius students (with grade inflation), a phony national economy,” which is now approaching 32 trillion dollars in debt.

When reality reasserts itself, as it is bound to do, and phoniness is revealed for what it is, what happens then? But perhaps that is already occurring. Suicide rates have increased each decade since the 1950s. Between 1950 and 2018, the suicide rate for older teens has increased just under 400 percent. Almost 5 percent of the adult population experiences depressive episodes and 11 percent of physician office visits deal with depression.

Relationships are also challenging in a Me Society. From the time I was born until the time I went to college, divorce rates more than doubled. The number of Americans who never marry has risen by 14 percent in less than twenty years. The Survey Center on American Life reports that since 1990, the number of men with at least six close friends has decreased by half. The number of men who say they have no friends has risen by a factor of five.

A couple of things must happen if we are to move from a “Me Society” to an “Us Community.” We must stop allowing the broader culture to define success for us. More does not equal success, as Jesus plainly taught. The 85-year-long Harvard Study of Adult Development has come to the same conclusion: Happiness is found in healthy, intimate relationships.

Because the “me first” mindset is rooted in insecurity, we will only be able to move out of it if we feel secure. A vibrant and assured faith is critical at this point. If we know, in St. Paul’s words, that “God is for us” and “will graciously give us” everything we need, we can entrust ourselves to his care and cultivate those healthy, intimate relationships.

But it is impossible to live this life alone. We need others who will join us. We need community.