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Review
Lucid, unsentimental, and profoundly honest...Dalrymple is one of the great essayists of our age.--Denis Dutton, Editor, "Arts & Letters Daily"
Product Description
This book is a searing account of life in the underclass and why it persists as it does, written by a British psychiatrist.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
161 of 173 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is a classic! It is beautifully written and engagingly argued. Dalrymple is a doctor in both a prison and a hospital in Birmingham, and he presents, with case after case after relentless case, the devastating evidence of what happens - especially to the poor - when individuals are separated from the immediate consequences of their actions, only to have those consequences bounce back later with even greater force. This is the effect of the no-blame, no-shame, value-free ideology propounded for more than a generation by our schools, media and criminal justice system. The effect is to trap the poor in poverty and illiteracy and fragmenting families - because they are told that nothing they do is their fault, but rather that of 'society' ... and in any case the state will always pick up the immediate task of mopping up. To subsidise fragmented families is to make them bearable and even desirable - so more families fragment. To ease up the pressure in schools on children to learn the basics is to make it easier for them to opt out of doing so - and so to ensure a generation of illiterates and innumerates who are trapped in poverty. To go easy on petty crime is to allow youthful aberrations to become settled patterns of behaviour, with consequences that ruin the lives of all of us, and especially of the poorest who cannot escape the criminalised environments in which they are forced to live. To call such laxity 'liberalism' is a travesty and an outrage, for it delivers the poorest and weakest into a tyranny.
Dalrymple himself has worked as a doctor in Tanzania and Nigeria, and has no illusions about the dreadful conditions obtaining in those countries. Yet he believes that, all things considered, the life of the British underclass is far worse, because so degraded and without dignity. His colleagues in Birmingham, doctors who have come to Britain from Third-World countries, agree. One Filipina doctor, knowing exactly whereof she speaks, expresses the view that life in a Manila slum is preferable to that of the nightmare which the British have made, and continue to make, for a large proportion of their population.
Dalrymple points out how we disguise the obvious from ourselves by slipping into passive verbs and bureaucrat-ese. Instead of 'I will do', we say that 'something needs to be done'. We duck responsibility for our actions - or inactions.
Even our illiberally-liberal elite, one might think, cannot refute the evidence, which Dalrymple presents here, of what their ideas mean for the poor in practice. So we can safely predict that Dalrymple's book will be studiously ignored by the organs of official culture or that, if they are forced to take notice, there will be cheap-shots against him personally. But this is a brilliant, brilliant book! Read it, and see clearly.
80 of 86 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a fine book in which Theodore Dalrymple advances some common sense ideas about why the so-called "underclass" are the way they are. His time as a doctor in an inner city hospital has given him ample time to observe certain inalienable truths about the patterns of behaviour that lead to the chaotic and miserable lives lived by many in Britain today.
He argues that through a combination of bad parenting and poor education people are no longer taught to think for themselves and therefore have no comprehension of the ideas of personal responsibility, cause and effect or that their actions will have consequences. Sadly, through his daily interactions with the "underclass" Dr Dalrymple shows that many of those with whom he interacts tend to think things just happen to them rather than that, as is frequently the case, they are authors of their own misfortunes.
A damning indictment of 40 years of liberal-left social engineering that has led to this appalling state of affairs and betrayed a whole generation. Truly depressing reading.
He argues that through a combination of bad parenting and poor education people are no longer taught to think for themselves and therefore have no comprehension of the ideas of personal responsibility, cause and effect or that their actions will have consequences. Sadly, through his daily interactions with the "underclass" Dr Dalrymple shows that many of those with whom he interacts tend to think things just happen to them rather than that, as is frequently the case, they are authors of their own misfortunes.
A damning indictment of 40 years of liberal-left social engineering that has led to this appalling state of affairs and betrayed a whole generation. Truly depressing reading.
55 of 60 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The author as a doctor is a witness to prisoners and patients in a deprived area. A brilliant book, which describes how the underclass has absorbed the dogma from the liberal elite; you are not responsible for your actions, it's all the fault of society. He explains the pathology of this in a forthright, entertaining and often humourous way (taking issue with the reviewer- the tattoo comments were an example of this humour, and only the dimmest of readers could possibly think this was a serious comment- he goes on to explain an observed link by the percentage of prison inmates who are tattoed). It's uncomfortable reading for the left-wingers who think that by simply giving away money as a reward for irresponsible, bad, violent or selfish behaviour (the Welfare State) solves problems. Rather, it has led to a significant proportion of people who cannot accept that their actions are caused by their deliberate choice. An example he cites: 'Doctor, can you give me something to stop burgling houses?' The criminal cannot comprehend that his preference to robbing others rather than work is because of his greed and idleness; rather it is an illness which needs treatment by prescription drugs. A real eye-opener of how low this country has sunk.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Gets you thinking
This book consists of a series of essays concerning the welfare dependency, low educational standards, criminal tendencies, etc, of the underclass in Britain. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Aidan G
Diagnosing the illness but not proposing a cure.
Nothing analy retentive here. Its about 40 years of fashionably open sphincters leaving the Western world covered in mountains of immovable sh.t. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Baraniecki Mark Stuart
Top class
I can't recommend this collection of essays highly enough. Dalrymple's insights are chilling, funny, and filled with truth. Some of the events described moved me almost to tears. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Tim Miles
The Path to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions
Essay by essay Mr Dalrymple exposes how the welfare state has created a childish egotistical underclass (think of the Jeremy Kyle show). Read more
Published 8 months ago by Merlin's Owl
Anecdote and Misrepresentation
I found the book well written and interesting enough for me to stick with it till the end, however I am not rating it based on the quality of the authors prose or on his... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Rob
Deluded
As a university graduate who went on to be a tradesman, I can say I have seen class society on various levels. Read more
Published 11 months ago by N. J. Hobbs
To care or not to care?
In this book, Dalrymple gives us many examples of the exposure he has had over the years to Britain's "underclass". Read more
Published 12 months ago by Jamie Robertson
convenient excuses
there seem to be some people who live in a world where external actions have no effect on society.for example, when neoliberalism eliminates jobs in britain,and sends them abroad... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Robert Wilson
Brilliant social essays
I loved this book. It lived up to my high expectations in every way - well written, gritty, intelligent and relentlessly honest. Read more
Published 17 months ago by John F. Keane
Politically incorrect. Bless him.
I'm still can't understand why an English doctor, turned author, writing about England (except where New Zealand gets a look it) writes in American. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Mrs. RM KLEPPMANN
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