Theodore Dalrymple
The new essay is up at City Journal
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_4_otbie-british_character.html
on England, the law, civilization, public drunkenness and finally the superiority of the USA.
2 Responses to 'Theodore Dalrymple'
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
a very interesting article. I can’t comment on the change in public behavior in England or even in Australia.
But I have seen photographs of spectators at cricket matches during the depression. The men were all wearing jackets and ties and hats or caps. Certainly different from present day crowds.
jd
1 Dec 08 at 7:10 pm
I usually read Dalrymple on this site. The latest article is interesting, although more on a past topic than this one.
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/29254/sec_id/29254
I often agree with Dalrymple, although some of the articles on the link Jane gave simply depressed me.
Societies always change, and people always argue that the young were more polite, hardworking, etc., in the past. I think the change is real – it’s noticeable here, in less extreme versions. As I’ve heard time and time again, the days when children were not only expected to behave in public, but all adults were expected to scold children who didn’t behave, are long gone. Nowadays, such officious adults would probably be cursed out and maybe threatened with lawsuits.
In some ways I’m glad of a more informal society – I don’t need to dress up to travel or go to a concert (activities I’m far more likely to participate in than a cricket match!). And I think a lot, but not all, fears of street crime are encouraged by the way every news broadcast reports crime, with the emphasis on the rarest and most violent forms. But even with the recent reduction in the crime rate, there are places that are unacceptably and criminally violent, often due to the effect of the drug trade, and the majority of people who live in such area, who are law-abiding, suffer the results.
cperkins
2 Dec 08 at 9:10 am