- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Gibson Square Books Ltd (19 Aug 2010)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1906142610
- ISBN-13: 978-1906142612
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.8 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 206,508 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
'Excellent' Toby Young, Daily Telegraph
Product Description
In this perceptive and witty book, Theodore Dalrymple unmasks the hidden sentimentality that is suffocating public life. Under the multiple guises of raising children well, caring for the underprivileged, assisting the less able and doing good generally, we are achieving quite the opposite for the single purpose of feeling good about ourselves. Dalrymple takes the reader on both an entertaining and at times shocking journey through social, political, popular and literary issues as diverse as child tantrums, aggression, educational reform, honour killings, sexual abuse, Che Guevara, Eric Segal, Romeo and Juliet, the McCanns, public emotions and the role of suffering, and shows the perverse results when we abandon logic in favour of the cult of feeling. Drawing on his long experience of working with thousands of criminals and the mentally disturbed, Dalrymple proves that we can only hope to make a difference... if we start with thinking well.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
44 of 47 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is Dalrymple's criticism of the effects of overt public displays of emotion.It shows how sentimentality has become a substitute for thinking & also coercive which has a damaging impact on society. How you feel about an issue being more important that being erudite about it. While Dalrymple does not expect us to behave as stoics, he notes how public sentimentality can become coercive i.e Princess Diana's death and how this coercion can result in threats of violence if people do not conform. He notes how fortitude, once regarded as a virtue now is a sign of callousness. Dalrymple goes through different events in the book e.g Madeline McCann disapearance & disects the media & the publics reaction to these events. Dalrymple regards a lot of these displays of emotion as more for the selfish benefit of the person who displays them - being emotional showing that you are a caring/ sharing person. He believes that sentimentality is the midwife to violence. Lack of control over our emotions can be used as an excuse for violence. This book is well worth a read & causes you to be skeptical if you are not already of sentimentality in public.Its also a decent price for a good book
61 of 66 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The marketing director who is responsible for the misbegotten title and ghastly cover picture of this book has much to answer for. Both title and cover have nothing to do with the book's content. The lettering of the title is a typographer's nightmare, each letter individually printed on a card and "pasted" like a ransom note. There were many copyediting errors in the printing that I received in June, though these may (or may not) have been since corrected - the book was withdrawn and later reposted on Amazon with a July pub date. That said, I have found much insight in Dalrymple's essays on the excess sentimentality in British culture - and I can attest in American as well. He uses the word sentimentality when I think of the phenomenon as a public display of one's compassion. He nails it when he identifies the sentimentality as outward posturing. (In my experience, while everyone must give lip service to sentimental righthink, this is usually a figleaf strictly for public consumption.) Dalrymple's examples are always interesting, from victimology to aid to Africa. In the U.S. the current word is "caring", with the implicit charge that if you do not endorse "caring" social policies, you are outside the moral pale, exiled from the warm golden sphere of kind, right-thinking people. Argument by intimidation. This book has given me much to think about. There is a great moral message in Dalrymple. He is well read, and he has a rare gift for clear analysis. Essentially his talent is for taking what were cardinal virtues in an earlier century that have been abandoned for their opposite, and stripping away the accretion of falsehood and cant to reveal a clear rationale for returning to the earlier ethos.
37 of 40 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is an excellent book on a very important subject. Most people are unaware of the all-pervasive nature of sentimentality in the modern world -- because it is so all-pervasive. It is also insidious and dangerous and allied to many kinds of evil, as Dalrymple demonstrates.
It is difficult to define sentimentality. One could say it is insistence that one's feelings must be beautiful, and that this matters above all else. So, compassion for a large number of people one knows nothing about -- 'the poor' , say-- is very beautiful, and gives one a warm glow of self-satisfaction. The fact that these feelings have no use for 'the poor', and are indeed only of use for making me feel good about myself, is irrelevant to the sentimentalist. It is not the truth of his thoughts that matter, but the beauty of his feelings. Sentimentalists tend to be utterly ruthless and unscrupulous. They are as dishonest and manipulative with others as they are with their own all-important feelings.
That is only a starting point, of course. There is so much to say on the subject.
One very interesting question, which I wish Dalrymple had said more about, is the historical context. Is there much more sentimentality than there was, say, in Shakespeare's time (an author entirely untinged with sentimentality) and if so why? One reason is the decline in Christianity. Dalrymple is not a believer but the doctrine of Original Sin certainly kept one is a state of healthy distrust of one's feelings, although of course that could turn into unhealthy self-flagellation. Second, the rise of the mass media, and films and pop videos which convey ultra-simple emotional instant gratificaton. Third, the rise of overall wealth and comfort certainly has something to do with it.
Certainly, in my travels to third world countries, I did not spot huge levels of sentimentality amongst poor and religious people.
Dalrymple's savage treatment of modern Britain will make many people -- myself included -- ashamed to belong to such a degraded country. Let us only hope the tendency towards emotional honesty and integrity that he represents regains some ground.
It is difficult to define sentimentality. One could say it is insistence that one's feelings must be beautiful, and that this matters above all else. So, compassion for a large number of people one knows nothing about -- 'the poor' , say-- is very beautiful, and gives one a warm glow of self-satisfaction. The fact that these feelings have no use for 'the poor', and are indeed only of use for making me feel good about myself, is irrelevant to the sentimentalist. It is not the truth of his thoughts that matter, but the beauty of his feelings. Sentimentalists tend to be utterly ruthless and unscrupulous. They are as dishonest and manipulative with others as they are with their own all-important feelings.
That is only a starting point, of course. There is so much to say on the subject.
One very interesting question, which I wish Dalrymple had said more about, is the historical context. Is there much more sentimentality than there was, say, in Shakespeare's time (an author entirely untinged with sentimentality) and if so why? One reason is the decline in Christianity. Dalrymple is not a believer but the doctrine of Original Sin certainly kept one is a state of healthy distrust of one's feelings, although of course that could turn into unhealthy self-flagellation. Second, the rise of the mass media, and films and pop videos which convey ultra-simple emotional instant gratificaton. Third, the rise of overall wealth and comfort certainly has something to do with it.
Certainly, in my travels to third world countries, I did not spot huge levels of sentimentality amongst poor and religious people.
Dalrymple's savage treatment of modern Britain will make many people -- myself included -- ashamed to belong to such a degraded country. Let us only hope the tendency towards emotional honesty and integrity that he represents regains some ground.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Thought Provoking
In a society that supposedly prides itself on egalitarian and democratic principles, it is a pity that Mr Dalrymple's views do not get much of an airing. Read more
Published 1 month ago by pilatesforlife
Insightful, Intelligent, Incisive...
And great fun to read... Dalrumple forces us to think. His view of Britain's cultural ills shall be experienced as no less than a paradigm shift for many readers, but one which... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Benjamin Rossen
But will they read it?
The problem with books such as this one, is that the people who really need to read it, never actually will. Read more
Published 6 months ago by K. Moss
More of a rant than an argument
Even if you have sympathy for some of the ideas expressed in the book, as I do, it is difficult to get past the pompous style and hectoring tone of the author. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Annette Pacey
Cult reading...
I'm new to the Dalrympian universe so I do not pretend to have a handle on the man's oeuvre, or an opinion on his previous works, but this definitely got my cerebral juices going. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Scott
Brilliant book if your prepared to listen
Were you uneasy at the mass hysteria and adoration of Princess Diana after she died? Do you feel an unease at pop stars telling you to 'make poverty history? Read more
Published 16 months ago by Mr. M. T. Davies
Cult of Sentimentality
I read a review on this book in the Guardian Newspaper. Being someone who is becoming a grumpy middle-aged man - it seemed quite interesting. Read more
Published 20 months ago by H
PC unfriendly.
Once again Dalrymple dispels the foetid stench of political correctness like a breath of fresh air. Dalrymple's misanthropy is a plea for human dignity in these most degraded of... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Invisible Man
Not one of the doctor's best
I've read nearly everything Dr Dalymple has written and I have to say that this is not among his best work. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Tayles
Astute and Brilliant
Fans of the good doctor will not be disappointed by this book. He explores the concept of the all-pervasive sentimentality that characterizes much of modern life. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Pandora
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