Theodore Dalrymple - Our Culture, Whats Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses

NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER

Theodore Dalrymple

Monday Books

www.mondaybooks.com

Theodore Dalrymple, 2011

First published in the UK in 2009 by Monday Books

Some elements of this book were originallypublished in the USA by Ivan R Dee, Inc

The right of Theodore Dalrymple to beidentified as the Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordancewith the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by anymeans, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

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To the memory of my father (1909 - 1983) andmy mother (1920 - 2005).

Contents

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Author, doctor, psychiatrist and journalistTheodore Dalrymple was born in London in 1949 to a German mother and Russianfather. After qualifying as a doctor in 1974, he chose to travel and take histrade to the far flung shores of Zimbabwe, Tanzania, South Africa and the Gilbert Islands. When he returned to the United Kingdom he worked in the East End of Londonand then inner city Birmingham in a hospital and the nearby prison. His medicalwork has brought him into contact with drug addicts and alcoholics, careercriminals and sex offenders, the mentally disturbed and battered wives andtheir lives have inspired him to write. He has also appeared as an expertwitness in numerous murder trials.

Dalrymple has written widely and regularlyfor publications as diverse as The Spectator, TheNew Statesman, The Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Daily Telegraph,The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Times, andThe British Medical Journal , as well as many prestigious Americanmagazines and newspapers.

He also writes under his real name AnthonyDaniels. Now retired from medical work, he is still a prolific writer anddivides his time between the UK and France.

Praise for Theodore Dalrymple

'The harsh truths he tells are all the moreshocking because the media, in general, is unwilling to tell them'

Daily Telegraph

Dalrymples clarity of thought, precisionof expression and constant, terrible disappointment give his dispatches fromthe frontline a tone and a quality entirely their own their rarity makes yousit up and take notice

The Spectator

'He actually cares about the people at thebottom of the social heap while public sector jobsworths and slimy politiciansonly pretend to'

Daily Express

'He could not be further from the stereotypeof the 'little Englander' conservative he is arguably our greatest livingessayist'

Standpoint

Dalrymples is the crystal voice ofreason.

Literary Review

ALSO BYTHEODORE DALRYMPLE

SECOND OPINION

Last week, a patient arrived in theprison, a fit (though presumably not very skilful) young burglar.

Are you on any treatment? I asked him.

Yes, he said. DF 118, diazzies andamitrippiline.

An opiate analgesic, an addictivetranquilliser and an anti-depressant.

Why? I asked.

Backache, he replied.

Ah, a burglar with a backache. I said.

He smiled at me, and I smiled back. Then wehad a good chuckle together. I knew, he knew I knew, I knew he knew I knew, andhe knew I knew he knew I knew.

Nice one, Doctor, he said as he left theroom, in excellent spirits.

Drug addicts and desperate drunks, batteredwives and suicidal burglars, elderly Alzheimer's sufferers and teenage stabbingvictims all pass through Theodore Dalrymples surgery and he exposes, withhumour and incite, the unseen horror of modern life as never before.

In Second Opinion Theodore Dalrymplelays bare a secret, brutal world hidden to most of us.

THE POLICEMAN AND THE BROTHEL

A Victorian Murder

Deep in the bleak winter of 1846... Jersey is home to tens of thousands of rough-and-ready sailors, who spend their timedrinking, chasing loose women and gambling through the teeming and chaoticstreets.

On the mainland, the Metropolitan Policehas only just been born. On Jersey, the job of keeping order in the crowdeddockside tenements, raucous brothels and riotous public houses still falls toelected centeniers such as the respected and feared George Le Cronier.

There have already been two brutal murderson the island in the last couple of weeks. And now Le Cronier is on his way toarrest the madame of a notorious brothel...

The Policeman and the Brothel tells the true story of what came next one of the most gruesomeand notorious murders the island has seen.

IF SYMPTOMS PERSIST

A series of short, often very funny,vignettes about Dalrymples work as a doctor in an inner-city hospital and aBritish prison.

Axe-wielding maniacs, 'arthuritis' sufferersand apple crumble-cooking rapists... they're all here, along with avariciouslawyers, empire-building bureaucrats and the poor, huddled masses of the slumnear the hospital where Dalrymple works.

The Kindle version also includes storiesfrom his follow up book 'If Symptoms Still Persist.'

LIFE AT THE BOTTOM

In this timeless and beautifully-writtenassortment of essays, looking at crime, culture and the collapse of the Britishway of life from an unashamedly conservative perspective Dalrymple lays theblame squarely on the shoulders of the liberal intellectuals, who tend 'not tomean quite what they say, and express themselves more to flaunt the magnanimityof their intentions than to propagate truth.'

OUR CULTURE, WHATS LEFT OF IT

A searing and elegantly-composed indictimentof what he sees as the betrayal of the poor by an intellectual elite, led toDalrymple being called the new Orwell by American critics. Dalrymple writesabout subjects as diverse as the legalisation of drugs, the death of PrincessDiana and Marxism.

THEEXAMINED LIFE

'Why are you wearing that face mask?' askedone of the security guards.

'Germs, of course,' I said. 'Ubiquitous -they're everywhere.'

'They are for us, too,' he said, 'and we'renot wearing masks.'

This was exactly the same argument as thedoctor uses.

'What consolation was it to the victims ofthe Black Death that there were millions of other victims?' I said.

'The Black Death?' said the security guardto his colleague. 'What's he on about?'

The unnamed anti-hero is a man who takes toheart every tabloid newspaper health scare, guards himself against everyconceivable illness and worries endlessly about his mortality. He wearsprotective clothing to go shopping when he can't shop on-line and every inch ofunprotected skin is smeared in various creams and lotions. Unfortunately, hiscaution is his eventual undoing as this elegantly written and amusing novellareaches its climax.

The Examined Life lampoons our obsession with health, safety and peanuts.

ANYTHING GOES

Britain and theWest are mired in a culture of untruth, wilful blindness andideologically-motivated deceit, argues Theodore Dalrymple in this collection ofbrilliant and beautifully-written essays. This has had a variety of effects -some trivial, others less so. From political correctness among doctors to theruinous failures of the World Health Organisation, from riots in London to sexchanges for 12-year-olds, from the end of free speech to the strange fury ofevangelical atheists, and from the collapse of our bubble economy to thefailure of the criminal justice system, it all goes back to the death ofhonesty.