The Culture of the Underclass | Theodore Dalrymple

Lecture presented by Theodore Dalrymple at the third annual conference of the Property and Freedom Society held in May 2008 at the Hotel Karia Princess in Bodrum, Turkey. http://propertyandfreedom.org

© 2008 The Property and Freedom Society. Video shot and edited by Sean Gabb and uploaded onto Youtube by LibertyInOurTime with the written permission of Sean Gabb and Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

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Anthony (A.M.) Daniels, who generally uses the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, is a British writer and retired prison doctor and psychiatrist. He worked in places including a number of Sub-Saharan African countries and the east end of London. Before his retirement in 2005, he worked in City Hospital, Birmingham and Winson Green Prison in inner-city Birmingham, England.

Daniels is a contributing editor to City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, where he is the Dietrich Weismann Fellow. In addition to City Journal, his work frequently appears in The British Medical Journal, The Times, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, The Salisbury Review, and Axess magasin. He is the author of a number of books, including Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass, Our Culture, What's Left of It, and Spoilt Rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality.

In his writing, Daniels frequently argues that the liberal and progressive views prevalent within Western intellectual circles minimise the responsibility of individuals for their own actions and undermine traditional mores, contributing to the formation within rich countries of an underclass afflicted by endemic violence, criminality, sexually transmitted diseases, welfare dependency, and drug abuse. Much of Dalrymple's writing is based on his experience of working with criminals and the mentally ill.

Although he is occasionally accused of being a pessimist and a misanthrope, his defenders praise his persistently conservative philosophy, which they describe as being anti-ideological, sceptical, rational and empiricist. In 2010, Daniel Hannan wrote that Dalrymple's work "takes pessimism about human nature to a new level. Yet its tone is never patronising, shrill or hectoring. Once you get past the initial shock of reading about battered wives, petty crooks and junkies from a non-Left perspective, you find humanity and pathos". In 2011, Dalrymple received the 2011 Freedom Prize from the Flemish think-tank Libera!. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Skeptical Doctor (Unofficial website dedicated to the works of Dalrymple)
http://blog.skepticaldoctor.com

Related links:
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/dalrymple.htm
http://www.city-journal.org/author_index.php?author=47
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=1636&sec_id=1636

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[6musky]

@westchesterny

What are you on about, don't patronise me you twerp.

[westchesterny]

@6musky he's bright b/c he worked in a slum, lol. or b/c he was a mainstream psychiatrist, lol. read up on the revolving door between the DSM (diagnostic statistical manual) the university indoctrination systems, and the pharm companies. What a racket. REad "Against Therapy" by Jeffrey Maisson. Start to educate yourself, instead of following "experts." you have a brain, (maybe) you might as well learn to try to use it.

[6musky]

@tostopshortofbarking

He was a doctor in urban slum areas for years and a prison psychiatrist, so I'd hardly say he's 'ignorant'.

[Vot63]

@johnas1011 The underclass adopt the worldview that best satisfies their immediate interests. If they are told by educated people that they are victims, and that they have a right to expect the state to support and entertain them, without any onus on themselves to give anything back, a large percentage of them will adopt that philosophy in justification for their immorality and fecklessness.Most middle-class people are not radical liberals, but most liberal intellectuals are middle-class.

[johnas1011]

@johnas1011 contd: Or do they represent a bizarre sub culture of their own. I would argue the latter since the views of the intelligentsia do not represent the view of most normal middle class people.

[johnas1011]

@Vot63 The views the underclass choose to adopt are their own responsibility. To blame another class is needlessly patronising to the underclass.

Also I don't believe the middle class did create the world view of rights without responsibilities since the middle class generally pay most of the taxes and create most of the business that provide the economic bedrock of modern civilisation. Middle class values inform our laws. Are the intelligentsia really representative of the middle class? contd

[Vot63]

@johnas1011 Well, what I mean is that the underclass adopt a world view which is centered around a concept of rights without responsibilities, but that this world view has been created by the (middle-class) intelligentsia. The principle victims of underclass trash are working class. When, for example, I say that pedophiles should be tortured and then killed, wankers from the intelligentsia howl with rage and cry barbarism.

[johnas1011]

@Vot63 Hey! Why so hostile bro. They really are the best class EVAH! Prove me wrong ya rude douchebag.

[Vot63]

@johnas1011 You had to come all the way to Youtube to prove that you are an imbecilic vulgarian?

[johnas1011]

@Vot63 the middle class is AWESOME! Best class evah!