Dalrymple has a new piece for InCharacter.org that gets to the heart of much of his writing about his experiences among the poor and the felonious. He argues for the pursuit of a self-respect “that requires an awareness of and sensitivity to the feelings of others”, rather than a self-esteem that is a mere demand for society’s approval.
Bernard Chapin: In terms of tone, your work is downright optimistic in regards to the effects of mass European Muslim migration. This makes it a contrarian view among conservatives. Mark Steyn’s best-seller, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, paints a far grimmer picture. Is it possible that all the concerns over a coming Islamic EU are overblown?Read the full interview here
Dr. Dalrymple: I am not downright optimistic, but more nuanced. I think the problem lies at least as much with us as with them. By our cowardice, often inadvertently, we support and encourage Islamism. There are many stories of Christmas decorations being taken down, no reference to Christmas being made in case they should offend, etc., when no demand from the Muslim population that these things should be done has actually been made. It is, if you like, an anticipatory cringe that encourages the extremists to push a little harder at what they think is a half-open door. A fine American example of the genre is Yale University Press’s recent book on the cartoon affair.
Ed Driscoll of Pajamas Media interviewed Theodore Dalrymple last Saturday on his PJM Political radio show on the Patriot channel of Sirius satellite radio. The 20-minute interview touched on the highlights of Dalrymple’s new book The New Vichy Syndrome. Dalrymple argues in the interview that Western liberal intellectuals have seized on the inevitable dark periods of history to undermine confidence in Western society; that the great artistic, moral and technical accomplishments of Western civilization have been rejected or ignored; and that while extreme Islam does represent a challenge to the West, it is mostly a function of simultaneous doubt among Muslims about the future of Islam and the spinelessness of the Western elite.
Listen here
Does anyone have a deeper knowledge of the history of British doctor-writers than our favorite British doctor-writer? Dalrymple’s weekly BMJ columns are brief outlines of the lives and work of his intellectual predecessors, many of them quite obscure. As such, these columns perhaps illustrate an abiding respect for an ancient and inconvenient moral: “Know Thyself”. His latest column discusses “Sir Charles Bell (1774-1844), of Bell’s palsy, Bell’s nerve, and the Bell-Magendie Law”. Subscription required.
Dalrymple writes more on the modern British Nomenklatura state, which he says “now has a life and power of its own. Its ostensible purposes – health, education, even defence – are the most feeble or transparent of pretexts; its real purpose is personal enrichment and institutional aggrandisement.”
These are dark days for American lovers of liberty. Our government, ostensibly the representatives of the most self-reliant large population of any country in the world, on Sunday ignored the will of an outraged electorate to do what governments like to do: usurp power from the citizenry. With a long list of new laws micromanaging individuals’ health care decisions now in place, people are angry and, more than anything I think, saddened. The disappointment is palpable, and there exists a fear that the legislation will in years to come change the national culture to one of entitlement and dependency, as well as push us farther along the road to national bankruptcy. Apres ca le deluge.
I started to post this link to Dalrymple’s new essay in City Journal with a lede like “Dalrymple offers a warning to Americans of the inevitable consequences of government-run health care”. But there have already been so many warnings that there seems to be no point.
Monday Books has announced that they are publishing a new Dalrymple book, “The Examined Life”, which is forthcoming on August 19th and which they describe as “a satire on the health-and-safety culture”. Go to the Monday Books site to read their hilarious-sounding description of Dalrymple’s anti-hero main character and to pre-order the book. And since they are throwing in a free copy of “So Little Done” with every order, the £7.99 price to UK buyers is a real bargain. Can’t wait to read this one!
On the way from Antigua to Escuintla, along an unmade road of surpassing beauty, I gave a lift to a schoolteacher on her way home. For something to say, I mentioned that I had interviewed General Rios Montt.
“A terrible man,” she said shaking her head vehemently.
“Why do you say so?” I asked.
“When he was president,” she said, “he ordered all the teachers in the department of Escuintla to attend a meeting with him in a cinema in the city. There were five hundred of us.” She was almost choking with rage at the recollection of it. “Do you know what he did?”
“No,” I said.
“He told one of the teachers to put out his cigarette.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
“Is that any way to speak to professionals?”
“No,” I said, feigning shock.
“Then he said that the teachers were not doing their work properly. He called us lazy. Is that any way to speak to professionals?”
If they are lazy, I thought.
“No,” I said. “It isn’t.”
There was a pause in the conversation as I drove over some ruts in the road. The teacher was still raging at the recollection of the humiliation.
“But some people say,” I resumed, “that when Rios Montt came to power things got much better. They say there was less killing.”
“Oh yes,” she said. “Before Rios Montt we used to see trucks go by with bodies when we stood by the road waiting for a lift. Then, after his coup – no more.”
I looked at her as I drove. It was a dangerous thing to do but I wanted to see whether she was serious. She was, and so I concluded that the episode with the cigarette weighed more with her than the disappearance of trucks laden with bodies. It was a curious scale of values, and one that helps explain the appearance of the trucks in the first place.
There is a wonderful passage in Martin Chuzzlewit in which Pecksniff introduces his two daughters to a third party.
“Charity and Mercy,” he says. “Not unholy names, I think?”
If he were living today, now that we have made so much progress, he would say:
“Equality and Diversity. Not unholy names, I think?
In the British Medical Journal, Dalrymple profiles Dr Doris Bell Collier Ball (1897-1987), physician, writer of murder stories, and founding member of the Crime Writers Association. (Subscription required)