Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass

by Theodore Dalrymple

Book Overview

A searing account of life in the underclass and why it persists as it does, written by a British psychiatrist.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1566635055
• ISBN13: 9781566635059
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Ivan R. Dee Publisher
• Length: 284 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Top-notch social commentary

Sometimes quotes do a book the greatest justice, and since Dalrymple is a far better writer than I am, I'll give you a few excerpts. "The combination of relativism and antipathy to traditional culture has played a large part in creating the underclass, thus turning Britain from a class to a caste society. ... Henceforth what they had and what they did was as good as anything, because all cultures and all cultural artifacts are equal. Aspiration was therefore pointless: and thus they have been immobilized in their poverty -- material, mental, and spiritual -- as completely as the damned in Dante's Inferno. Having in large part created this underclass, the British intelligentsia, guilty about its own allegedly undemocratic antecedents, feels obliged to flatter it by imitation and has persuaded the rest of the middle class to do likewise." "The designs of [professional tattooists] are elaborate and often executed with exquisite skill, though I am reminded of an old medical dictum that if a thing is not worth doing -- radical mastectomy, for instance -- it is not worth doing well." "Very few of the sixteen-year-olds whom I meet as patients can read and write with facility; they do not even regard my question as to whether they can read and write as in the least surprising or insulting. ... One can tell merely by the way these youths handle a pen or a book that they are unfamiliar with these instruments." "I cannot recall meeting a sixteen-year-old white from the public housing estates that are near my hospital who could multiply nine times seven (I do not exaggerate). Even three by seven often defeats them. One boy of seventeen told me, 'We didn't get that far.'" "Even in behavior, the new orthodoxy for all classes is that, since nothing is better and nothing is worse, the worse is better because it is more demotic." Even quotes can't really do the book justice; you really need the full context to appreciate the depth of Dalrymple's thought and insight. If you only have $12 left in your bank account, spend it on this book.

Finally the truth

Some books you either love or you hate. This is one of those books. I myself thought it was one of the greatest I've read all year. 'Life at the Bottom' touches on a variety of topics, and it is to Dalrymple's credit that such a coherent, clear-eyed critique emerged. Something is rotten in the state of modern times. You know it; I know it. At the bottom of all this is a desire to be excused from any restraint and responsibility. Dalrymple cites from his personal experiences of what well-meaning social theories have wrought on those it meant to help. The results are plainly hideous, but at the same time are glossed over behind talk of sensitivity, diversity and tolerance. Each essay is meandering but interesting - there is no filler. The incoherence of multiculturalism is highlighted in 'Reader, she married him-Alas'. The darker side of freedom is portrayed in 'Freedom to Choose'. My personal favorite was 'Tough Love', which shows the fruits of the sexual revolution in mature bloom. The results seem a mixed blessing at best, and not only because of the unwanted children, the abortions and the broken homes. We demand sexual freedom for ourselves but fidelity from others. A recipe for jealousy if ever there was one, and it is noteworthy that jealousy is the most frequent trigger for violence between the sexes. This incoherence is a large cause for the ever-growing surrealism in our society. In the end, this book shows that our attitudes author our destiny. Dalrymple says what is considered heresy in many circles - that the poor are there because of life choices. But having spent my childhood among the poor, there are many things in Dalrymple's Britain I immediately recognize. A lack of responsibility, a sense of entitlement, and a vague anger toward any example that would otherwise force them to ask: "why did he make it and not me?" Sadly, they rarely look at the most likely culprit for their failures: themselves. Everyone else is to blame, not me. One must wonder when Dalrymple's essays cease to be anecdotes and start to show the deeper flaws of our progressive ideals. As I read 'Life on the Bottom', I kept hearing myself think: Finally the truth. We've fought the battle for human rights; the battle for human obligation lies ahead.

A morality tale unlike any other

I got this book after listening to Mr. Dalrymple interviewed by Dennis Prager, a radio host based in Los Angeles. I was raised in a lowerclass family which fell from the middle class when my dad would not stop drinking and spending money on "toys" for himself rather than things like the rent and the electric bill. We moved from cheap apartment complex to cheap apartment complex. Like many of the individuals described in Life at the Bottom, my own father found blame for his "misfortunes" in everyone and everything but himself and his lack of selfcontrol when it came to alcohol, money, and his temper. I have watched friends raised in middle class homes end up on welfare or living hand-to-mouth because they have not one or two, but three or more children with three or more men (who, of course, pay no support and never marry the women), and their low-level office jobs cannot possibly pay for the needs of a family of 4. Yet without exception the women blame "men" as the foundation of their problems, not their own promiscuity or their apparent lack of knowledge concerning the rudiments of birth control. It was with these experiences in mind that I read Life at the Bottom. Mr Dalrymple shows in essay after essay how the choices the underclass in Britain make determines their destiny. There are countless parallels to American life - the rampant gambling that goes on in casinos and in bingo parlors (and those who cannot stop then blame the casino for their problem!); the spending of needed cash on lottery tickets; the horrible standard of education that graduates illiterate young adults who can barely add in their heads; the ignorance of science, history and math that students display; women who go from one violent man to another, making baby after baby with them and then saying they "love him" and cannot leave him. The stories are pathetic and frustrating because the "victims" are their own hindrance. They live in some sort of parallel universe where they have no more control over their emotions or actions than a squirrel or a worm, and blame their problems on the government, the bureaucracy, their parents, the pubs, the casinos, their teachers... everyone carries the victim's sin on their own shoulders, because the underclass itself is not responsible for anything. One story that has stayed with me was one in which Mr. Dalrymple says the patients he sees often refer to their violent, brutish, immoral behavior as "not really me," as though inside the skin of a drunken, gang-banging wife-beater beats the heart of a noble knight that is too deeply imbedded to be truly exercised. Some reviewers have noted that the author does a lot of complaining, yet has no answers. That is the point of the book, isn't it? There is no one outside of these people who can change them. More government agencies? More welfare money? More policemen? What? The entire theme of the book is the relinquishing of personal responsibility by the underclass so that they can live and di

Grim Witness

_Life at the Bottom_ is divided into two sections, entitled "Grim Reality" and "Grimmer Theory", each consisting of a number of essays which were originally published in City Journal. There's not a huge qualitative difference between the two sections -- the essays in "Grimmer Theory" have perhaps a more explicit theoretical content, but they're still anecdote-laced and far from mere analysis.Dalrymple is a physician in a hospital and nearby prison in urban Great Britain. Each essay explores how various patients of his wreck their own lives with stupid and self-destructive behavior. A recurring theme of the essays, made more explicit in the "Grimmer Theory" essays and in the introduction, is that these people (the "underclass" of the book's title) destroy themselves by adopting and living on the principles of elite intellectuals. Sexual freedom, the unsanctity of family, the specialness of victims, the victim status of criminals, moral relativism, nihilism, and similar ideas cut great bloody swathes in the lives of those that try to live by them. This is Dick Weaver's _Ideas Have Consequences_, volume II.Dalrymple is a good, clear writer who displays compassion for his patients but no willingness to whitewash their abysmally stupid decisions. _Life at the Bottom_ is occasionally a depressing read, but is very illuminating and worth reading.

Uncomfortable facts - but face reality!

The review from Publisher's Weekly makes many points, but begins with a fallacy: Dalrymple's repeated claim is precisely that these people are NOT 'trapped in destructive behaviors and environments' but that most of them, while they may well feel trapped, are there as a consequence of their own choices. His examples and insights are particularly useful for Americans who naturally associate these behaviors with our own experience, where they correlate with race. Dalrymple makes it clear that they do correlate with culture (e.g. different populations from India now residing in Britain have very different crime and drop-out rates,though they all look 'Indian' and so should all have the same experience of racism or non-inclusion). The book is a collection of shorter pieces and could have used some editing of content (to reduce repetition) and of style (the vocabulary editing for the U.S. reader is inconsistent), but the cumulative evidence of Dalrymple's experience cannot be waved away. As he points out early on, if a person's fate in life is pre-determined by his social and physical environment, then we should all still be living in caves... Certainly in a modern and liberal society, citizens have the right to pursue their own lives and their own visions (and versions) of 'happiness.' But whether the rest of us should subsidize the layabouts is another question. Publisher's Weekly is quite wrong in saying that he 'offers few conrete or theoretical solutions.' Dalrymple is crystal clear on that: take responsibility for your own life; the greater community will help in an emergency, but will not provide a home and a meal ticket for years. This book is worthwhile reading for everyone.