Childhood’s End

http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_3_otbie-british_children.html ^ | Theodore Dalrymple

[ventanax5]

A system of perverse incentives in a culture of undiscriminating materialism, where the main freedom is freedom from legal, financial, ethical, or social consequences, makes childhood in Britain a torment both for many of those who live it and those who observe it. Yet the British government will do anything but address the problem, or that part of the problem that is its duty to address: the state-encouraged breakdown of the family. If one were a Marxist, one might see in this refusal the self-interest of the state-employee class: social problems, after all, are their raison d’être.

[Chickensoup]

I was an Anglophile. I loved the Miss Read books and the kinds of strengths exhibited by the British in all sorts of circumstances.

These days watching how the British White subject comport themselves I can begin to understand the distaste the Muslims have for them.

[KantianBurke]

If people look to the govt to “solve” such taxing moral problems that SHOULD be handled by parents, they’re in for a big surprise and disappointment.

[PGR88]

So Mary Poppins wasn’t just fiction - it was a complete farce?

[Das Outsider]

Are you familiar with Dalrymple? I think I’ve asked you this before.

[billmor]

What a sad situation...How could the British democracy let it’s standards slip so low that life is so meaningless for children and adults alike?...The British government has removed God from society and replaced God with welfare and worship of money; replaced patience with instant gratification; abandoned the long view for today’s fleeting glimpses of nothingness, and as a result are seeing a generation of godless, unschooled, vulgar and uninspired people grow up..What will become of their children?..Let’s hope this never happens in the USA...

[Das Outsider]

...The British government has removed God from society and replaced God with welfare and worship of money; replaced patience with instant gratification; abandoned the long view for today’s fleeting glimpses of nothingness, and as a result are seeing a generation of godless, unschooled, vulgar and uninspired people grow up..What will become of their children?..Let’s hope this never happens in the USA...

Replace "British" with "American" and you have your answer.

[Chickensoup]

If you ever peruse the Miss Read books you can see the seeds sown for this downfall of culture. You will recognize the States in it. We are heading there a bit slower because we have a more heterogeneous mix.

[Chickensoup]

Are you familiar with Dalrymple? I think I’ve asked you this before.

I am and he has a great column today at cityjournal and it is posted her on FR

[Billthedrill]

A Dalrymple BTT. The real difficulty is that the social reformers now in power are free to declare their own reality, in which all that is needed to guarantee a positive social outcome is the redistribution of wealth sufficient to support their clients in the manner to which they are accustomed. In a society with sufficient surplus the steady declining returns from this sort of utopian nonsense can be deferred until there is no more surplus. Then it becomes somebody else’s problem. Nice work if you can get it.

[okie01]

Are you familiar with Dalrymple?

Dalrymple might be the most insightful and observant social commentator of our time.

[Das Outsider]

I am and he has a great column today at cityjournal and it is posted her on FR.

I was thinking more of Dalrymple's "Our Culture" and his contributions to The American Conservative.

[Das Outsider]

Dalrymple might be the most insightful and observant social commentator of our time.

Have you read his "Romancing Opiates?"

[okie01]

I don’t believe I have.

[Chickensoup]

His book on the Underclass was quite good about this subject. Romancing the opiates also gives a good glimpse.

[GOPJ]

This nonjudgmentalism surely helps explain why British youth are among the Western world’s leaders in such indicators of social pathology as teenage pregnancy, violence, criminality, underage drinking, and consumption of illicit drugs. The Brits need welfare reform - big time.

[Das Outsider]

I don’t believe I have.

As an M.D. and psychiatrist, Dalrymple--better known as Anthony Daniels in an earlier life--, wrote on psychopharmacology, the so-called addiction bureaucracy, and the inability of APA types to effectively deal with opiate addiction.

[Steely Tom]

The spine and spirit of Europe was killed off in the two great wars of the 20th century. They committed meritocide on their own society. You can’t kill tens of millions of your best young people and expect no consequences.

The weaklings that were left made sport of destroying what was left. They voted themselves fat pensions and then had to import aliens from inferior cultures to pay off the debt. They sold off their future, now their future is tomorrow morning.

[Das Outsider]

His book on the Underclass was quite good about this subject. Romancing the opiates also gives a good glimpse.

I'd agree on both points. I'll give him this: the old man can write, and he has enough of a background to provide some interesting insight.

[Pelham]

I’ve seen a few of his essays over the years. IIRC he’s a British physician and Dalrymple is his pen name.