Dr. D’s Diagnosis

Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass, by Theodore Dalrymple (Ivan R. Dee, 256 pp., $27.50)

GRIM news on the social front seems to be something people everywhere just have to accept as a fact of modern life. But in Britain—solid civilized old Britain, which gave the world fair play and the stiff upper lip—the news is worse than elsewhere. Until quite recently, the poor in Britain lived decent crime-free lives, but now the country is a world-beater in crime, illegitimacy, and illiteracy. The yob has replaced the gentleman as the national stereotype. Where to begin with the recital of everyday cruelty and violence? Last year, to give just one instance, nearly 700,000 mobile telephones were stolen by the young; in other words, half the teenage population has been robbing the other half. Adding insult to injury, blame has been attached not to the little thugs, but to the telephone companies—because they failed to equip their mobiles with some anti-theft device. In the overturning of all previous value judgments, a society is visibly decomposing in front of us.

Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass, by Theodore Dalrymple (Ivan R. Dee, 256 pp., $27.50)

GRIM news on the social front seems to be something people everywhere just have to accept as a fact of modern life. But in Britain—solid civilized old Britain, which gave the world fair play and the stiff upper lip—the news is worse than elsewhere. Until quite recently, the poor in Britain lived decent crime-free lives, but now the country is a world-beater in crime, illegitimacy, and illiteracy. The yob has replaced the gentleman as the national stereotype. Where to begin with the recital of everyday cruelty and violence? Last year, to give just one instance, nearly 700,000 mobile telephones were stolen by the young; in other words, half the teenage population has been robbing the other half. Adding insult to injury, blame has been attached not to the little thugs, but to the telephone companies—because they failed to equip their mobiles with some anti-theft device. In the overturning of all previous value judgments, a society is visibly decomposing in front of us.