The New Vichy Syndrome: Why European Intellectuals Surrender to Barbarism

by Theodore Dalrymple

Book Overview

Western Europe is in a strangely neurotic condition of being smug and terrified at the same time. On the one hand, Europeans believe they have at last created an ideal social and political system in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594033722
• ISBN13: 9781594033728
• Release Date: March 2010
• Publisher: Encounter Books
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Somewhat surprising, but the usual excellence

I was surprised, while reading the beginning of this book, to find a very low-key, friendly critique of Mark Steyn's alarmism in "America Alone." Dalrymple points out that projections are not predictions: what looks like a demographic catastrophe in Europe is by no means a foregone conclusion. The remainder of the book is filled with excellent points. Dalrymple sees no obvious way to pull Europe out of its self-centered funk, and has no clue as to how anyone can fix Britain's descent into barbarism. His gloomy view of the EU matches my own, and the Greek debt crisis will bear careful watching. The underlying question is "Can the Euro survive?" --- or, more to the point, "Should the Euro survive?" Surprisingly, the book ends by calling the reader's attention to the Culture Wars in America, suggesting that this might be the Battle Royal of the 21st century. I think I agree. I think that Dalrymple and I would be in total agreement: comparing the England of the 1950's with the England of 2010 is almost mind-exploding. As far as I know, that good old England of hearty breakfasts, a pint of bitter, and afternoon tea is... GONE...replaced by drunken binges and sexual orgies on the weekend. This is compelling reading!

Incredibly scintillating read!

Dalrymple never ceases to amaze me with how sharp he presents his own opinions without flinching from critique and how erudite he is with his justifications of them. This is definitely a must-read for anybody interested in European sociopolitics and social psychology. Dalrymple remains honest throughout the text and offers much theoretical basis for his arguments. Coupled with his practical day-to-day life observations as a doctor and an active intellectual in Europe's diverse pool of intellectuals, this book makes for a powerful eye-opener (if you're new to the topic) and a thought-provoking study (if you've been acquainted to these arguments before).

A Must Read

One of the best books I've read in a long time. Dalrymple is, as a cover review reads, "erudite, witty, unfashionably blunt, and above all, wise." "Unfashionably blunt" is an understatement as he offers diagnosis for much of what is "wrong" in Europe, when the downward spiral started (with lots of examples), the result, and a modest warning for America in the last chapter. New Vichy is a short 155 pages, but is profound, alarming, and instructive. If you like Dalrymple's work, this addition won't disappoint.

Benda for the 21st century

I heard echoes of voices long gone; echoes of Jean Cau in "Pourquoi la France", written after de Gaulle's demise, crusty Catholic French nationalist, substitute West for France and 2010 for 1975: En 1975 et en France, il y a des urgences. Et me voici, plonge dans mon epoque, dans mon pays et dans leur quotidien. Si donc la meilleure part de moi-meme chante une hymne sourde, une autre part vit l'aujourd'hui detestable ou se debat et s'enfonce mon pays. Et mon Europe. Et mon Occident.Et s'il est bien de proposer une morale, il faut aussi proposer un combat et un terrain a celui-ci. La morale, je l'ai dite et chantee. Le combat, il est celui d'Occident. Reste le terrain ou peuvent etre creusees les tranchees de refuge et d'aussaut. Alors, l'ai beau mediter, j'ai beau aller et venir, j'ai beau sonder perspectives et horizons, je ne vois qu'une tranchee capable en meme temps de nous abriter et de nous vomir vers l'aussaut et le salut. Dans l'urgence de nos jours, en attendant plus vaste esperance d'eployee, notre tranche s'appelle la France et notre premier bouclier s'appellent le nationalisme, Plus tard, nous verrons. En attendant, dans la melee, ici, un nationalisme francais est le premier salut" Dalrymple, a man who knows something about trenchant writing and perspicacity, offers a cri de coeur (understated British, of course, unlike Benda or Cau) of the intellectual malaise of Europe today (and of the effete and far inferior simulacras in the US, notabene). One of the central points of the book of that cultures die without re-affirmation of their central narratives. Unlike previous reviewers, I thought the book was taut and to the point, if one judged it by the points he wanted to make. I did also enjoy the psychological analysis, too short alas, of the relationship between Muslim (male) immigrant culture, embedded Western culture and dissonant coping approaches, the etiology of male domination, and the impossible and life threatening bind these Muslim women find themselves in. I finished the book which I read on the steps of LA's Supreme Court and thought about what Rand noted, half a century ago: The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority; it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind; it is the appeaser's intellectual abdication that invites them to take over. When the ablest men turn into cowards, the average men turn into brutes. What is going one right now, in the feuilletons of leading papers, the halls of academia, the European Parliament, the UN is the greatest betrayal of the Western Enlightenment ideals since the 1930s; so grotesque, so shameful, that I tear when I think about it. Solzhenitsyn said in his Noble acceptance speech (he got the prize in 1970, held the speech in 1974). The speech is somewhat rambling, the prose slighly turgid, but the gem is in the middle. He echoes one of his characters in the "First Circle". I read it when I was 18 and never forgot it: The first step of a simple courageous man