lack of character; character, lack of –

By having no character at all (…) I mean that those people live, emotionally and intellectually speaking, from hand to mouth. They satisfy every need immediately, have little patience to learn, cannot easily endure frustration, and have no center within themselves, no sense of identity. They suffer from this and question themselves, their identity, and the meaning of life. Some psychologists have made a virtue out of this lack of identity. They say that these young people have a „Protean character,“ striving for everything, not bound by anything. But this is only a more poetic way of speaking about the lack of self (…). ― (1992j [1972]: What I Do Not Like in Contemporary Society, in: E. Fromm, On Being Human, New York (Continuum) 1994, p. 39.)