Writing at Quadrant, Dalrymple argues that neither France nor Britain today can claim a legitimately functioning government, making any serious reform or renewal almost impossible under current social and moral conditions.

In both countries, the political systems, despite their differences, are suited to a two-party system; but the population of both is now so balkanised, ideologically and even ethnically, that a mere two parties are no longer capable of expressing the outlooks of most of the population. The intellectual class, at least, gives the impression of being a concatenation of monomaniacs, that at most can form subversive alliances of convenience.

Read the rest here

At TakiMag, Dalrymple discusses how the language used to describe murder has shifted in ways that distort its moral reality, arguing that when murder is framed in euphemism or treated as social misfortune rather than moral evil, society loses a crucial sense of responsibility:

Looseness of language about murder is now so common that it is normal in Britain these days. Murders are frequently described, both by newspapers and judges, as cowardly, as if bravery in the commission of murder were an extenuation of it, or as if murderers had a moral duty to give their victims the chance to escape or fight back. The crime is murder, not cowardice, and a brave murderer—let us say one who stalks his victim in hazardous circumstances—is not better than a cowardly one.

Read the full essay here.

In this essay at The Spectator, Dalrymple argues that the rise of psychology as a popular discipline has shifted people from being active agents of their lives into passive objects of study: undermining responsibility, subjectivity, and human dignity.

A young Chinese girl approached me after I gave a talk at a conference and asked for my advice about what she should study… I was touched by her naive assumption that I would answer benevolently and in her best interests. It suggested that she had not yet encountered much of human malignity. “What are you interested in?” I asked.

“I was thinking of history and psychology,” she replied.

“Ah,” I said, “definitely not psychology…

In this piece at Law and Liberty, Dalrymple argues that while raising taxes beyond a certain point may appear economically irrational (even self-defeating), it becomes perfectly rational if the goal isn’t prosperity but something else: namely, social engineering and control.

The members of the government who believe in high taxation have the same reaction to a free society as Le Corbusier had to the street. It lacks rationality, an overall plan or goal, it is higgledy-piggledy, and above all, it is not only unjust but unfair. 

In this provocative essay at The European Conservative, Dalrymple explores our cultural climate in which ugliness is embraced as a badge of authenticity and where aesthetic decay becomes intertwined with moral degeneration, arguing that uglification is less a revolt against beauty than a capitulation to despair.

When we look at something beautiful that has come down to us from the past, we are now encouraged to view it not through the lens of aesthetic appreciation, but through that of supposedly historical understanding—which in our present intellectual climate is that of the backward projection of current grievances and detection of past injustices.

In this column, Dalrymple argues that our modern medical culture’s fixation on risk-management risks turning life into a protracted medical procedure rather than something that is simply lived.

The avoidance of risk is the avoidance of life, in the sense of lived life rather than of life expectancy.

For his latest monthly essay at New English Review, Dalrymple reflects on our uneasy relationship with animal life, beauty, mortality, and the limits of compassion, arguing that aesthetic judgment plays as large a role as ethical principle or utilitarian considerations in the preservation (or neglect) of life.

My notion of the sanctity of animal life has its limits and is as much aesthetic as ethical or philosophical, or rather it is more so. My concern that creatures should survive as species depends on one of two criteria: that they should be beautiful, or that they should be large and dramatic. Thus, I should be more upset by the disappearance from the face of the earth of the hippopotami than of some tiny mouse-like marsupial in the Australian outback.

Writing for Quadrant, Dalrymple examines the pressures of instantaneous punditry in the media, arguing that much of what passes for expert commentary today is performed by “forgers” and “impostors” whose employers prioritize speed over genuine insight:

A newspaper not universally known or appreciated for its attachment to the literal truth used often to call me in the middle of my medical avocations to ask whether I could write a thousand words by four o’clock on some subject or other, and if I protested that I couldn’t because I knew nothing of the subject it would grant me an extension of half an hour, presumably for research, that is to say until four-thirty.

Read the full essay here.

At TakiMag, Dalrymple reflects on the way that modern public discourse demands instant and definitive responses, suggesting that the insistence on a “final answer” stifles genuine thought and deeper reflection:

It seems that once a political subject is broached, people enter a labyrinth of ad hominem recriminations and speculation about the motives (always bad) of those with whom they disagree.

Read it here.