THEODORE DALRYMPLE: SOME SKEPTICAL THOUGHTS

I am sure that there can be few readers of this blog who have not enjoyed at least some of the columns by British prison doctor Anthony Daniels (a.k.a. "Theodore Dalrymple"). I myself read right through every one I encounter. His latest column, however, reveals that he is retiring from his job and suggests that he is looking for a different perspective on life. What he has mainly documented so far is the disastrous state of the British underclass. From his experiences as a prison doctor, he pictures an entire social milieu that is basically feral, devoid of hope and devoid of most of the best things in life. Read his latest column and you will know what I mean.

He attributes the sad state of the people among whom he has been working to two things: The welfare State that deprives people of any sense of individual responsibility and the politically correct Leftist doctrines that have told people that anything goes and that any misfortunes that they suffer are the fault of others. His proposed remedy, therefore, appears to be a winding back of the welfare state and a restoration of traditional, conservative values. With the first remedy I wholeheartedly agree but with the second I think he is pissing into the wind. There is no way that anybody can revive social values that have been replaced by values that come more easily to people. Only the influence of religion can go some way towards doing that for certain individual people and there will always be many who are deaf to the appeals of religion -- particularly in traditionally irreligious Britain.

What I think Dalrymple overlooks is that the vast majority of people in Britain continue to live decent and productive lives despite the politically correct amorality and denial of standards that is constantly being preached at them by their government and by their elites generally. How come, then, that not everybody is equally affected by the collapse of the moral and social standards that make a civilization possible? To answer that, I am afraid I am going to have to mention the elephant in the bedroom: Intelligence. The self-destructive behaviour that Dalrymple documents is in most cases quite simply foolish and if not obviously foolish shows at least a severe lack of forethought -- which is itself a sign of low intelligence. The women whom Dalrymple describes exemplify what I mean. He describes women who apparently get their legs up at the drop of a hat -- with no forethought about what that might lead to. And as a result they have multiple children to multiple partners and receive abuse rather than support from the fathers concerned. But how many intelligent women behave like that? Not many or at least not often. To this day most women are very selective about their sexual partners or at least make sure that casual sexual encounters have no lasting consequences. And does any bourgeois woman decide to bear the children of a man without great confidence in his longterm committment to her? Very few. So it seems to me that Dalrymple is blaming on culture what is really the outcome of lack of intelligence.

So until some new Einstein discovers a way of boosting intelligence in those who lack it, it seems to me that most of what Dalrymple describes will continue no matter what happens in the society at large.

I might add that I myself am of thoroughly working class origins and that I have also had plenty of experience with the stratum of society that Dalrymple describes. I was for a couple of years proprietor of a large boarding house in a very unprestigious suburb (Ipswich) where a substantial part of my customers came to me straight out of prison or via referrals from welfare agencies. And I certainly saw the drunken fights, the thievery and the abuse of women that Dalrymple describes. Perhaps because of my own working class origins, however, I knew how to deal with my customers and got on perfectly well with almost everyone -- even receiving civility from them when I was kicking them out for getting behind with their rent. Even though I physically bundled people out the door on a number of occasions, nobody ever laid a finger on me. So there is in fact a quite powerful culture at work even among the lowest of the low -- if you know how to work it and use its shibboleths.

And I must say that my own rise from a poor background to a state of affluence was virtually effortless. Intelligence is a key that unlocks almost every door and without it almost all doors might as well remain shut -- as the fate of most lottery winners attests.

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ELSEWHERE

The death of the Left: "The hysterical reaction of the Western Left to the reelection of President George W. Bush is not just a primal scream from politicians and intellectuals deprived of political power. The violent language, numerous acts of violence, and demonization of Bush and his electorate - the same as that directed against Tony Blair in Britain, Jose Maria Aznar in Spain, and Silvio Berlusconi in Italy - portend a more fundamental event: the death rattle of the traditional Left, both as a dominant political force and as an intellectual vision. For the most part, the Left only wins elections nowadays when their candidates run on their opponents' platform (Clinton and Blair) or when panic overwhelms the political process (Zapatero and Schroeder).... There is no more dramatic proof of the death of the Left than the passage of its central vision - global democratic revolution - into the hands of those who call themselves conservatives"

More tolerance the way forward for Democrats: "If Democrats want to get back in the "values" game and change the perception of their party as being full of secularists intent on removing any reference to G-d from culture and even the history of America, they can start in the government schools. That's where reverent or favorable mentions of G-d are often prohibited, but using His name as a curse word is protected by the same First Amendment that supposedly prohibits the favorable mention of His name. Democrats have an ideal case that they could make their own in the San Francisco suburb of Cupertino, where a fifth-grade public school teacher has filed a discrimination lawsuit against his school. The teacher, Steven Williams, says he has been prohibited by the school principal, Patricia Vidmar, from teaching the Declaration of Independence and other founding documents of the United States because they often refer to G-d . Democrats could make political hay for their party and do a good deed for public school students by opposing the extension of political correctness to history books and historical documents. Attempts to expunge references to G-d , past or present, are not limited to one California school. In Maryland, there is a dispute concerning what may and may not be properly taught in that state's public schools. The Washington Times carried a Capital News Service (CNS) story Nov. 23 that reported that when teachers instruct about the 17th-century origins of Thanksgiving, they can only say the Pilgrims thanked the Indians and cannot say they also thanked G-d for their safe journey and for the bounty set before them."

Supernatural selection "Look, I'm not saying we should turn the average biology class into a lesson on theology. It doesn't need to become a class about religion. There's plenty enough to learn about religion that it deserves a class all its own. The neat thing about intelligent design is it merely suggests something often thought to be the opposite of what's taught in the science classroom; then it attempts to back it up through scientific fact. I think that's pretty cool. If we're going to teach about the origins of life in public school -- indeed, if we're going to have such a thing as public school to begin with -- we ought to be teaching every kind of theory. All of 'em. Simple and intricate alike. And if we have to name names, let's name names. The truth will sort itself out."

Ed Mick is back online with a theory about why the Left have made such a big fuss over the "values" voting in the recent Presidential election.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions

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