Life at the bottom, by Theodore Dalrymple

A compilation of essays by Theodore Dalrymple that describes the life and worldview of Britain's "Underclass", and why they have become so prominent.

Before you read this review, I must apologise for the length of time it has taken me to publish it. A perfect storm of procrastination, the arrival of my Father from overseas for a month-long visit, and uncertainty about the quality of this essay very much delayed me.

The events that have been unfolding throughout Britain recently, in particular the riots within Southport, have been highlighting something that many people have known for a very long time and have talked about for a long time. There is something wrong with Britain.

No one can say anymore that everything is all right with that little island, and that everyone who complains about it is just a doomer, or a shrieking-violet, or a curmudgeon. But there is still uncertainty about what exactly is wrong with British society, with so many good and tempting contenders for Culprit status, complicated further by the likeliness that more than one of them is to blame. And along with these many contenders there are also many “Angles” that can be taken in viewing and understanding each of them.

Years ago, browsing the Kindle store, I came across a book that describes and explains a few of these “contenders” in a way that entertained, enlightened and disturbed me, for not only could I recognise some similarities to what was happening in Britain in my home country, it revealed aspects of the world we live in that don’t get much attention, not only because they are hidden from awareness most of the time but because many go out of their way to keep it so on account of it being unfashionable to mention them.

The Book in question was a compilation of articles written by a former Doctor called Theodore Dalrymple, and before I describe the book it is necessary the describe the man who wrote it, since I think the context of his life is helpful in understanding and appreciating his work.

Theodore Dalrymple is in fact the penname of Anthony Malcolm Daniels, a psychiatrist and physician who worked with people both in and out of prison, and both within Britain and in lands far beyond it, mostly Africa. In particular he often worked with the lower class, the poor, and of course the criminal. This deep and long acquaintance with them gave him an understanding of poverty that few possess, and in particular gave him an understanding of the social and psychological forces that cause much of the less savory behaviours people often associate with the poor, such as Domestic violence and drug-abuse. Furthermore, on account of working both in and out of “The West”, he was able to compare the differences in attitude and behaviour between poor people in Britain, and their equivalents in non-western lands.¹ It is this experience that gives his observations, and his judgements, a power and authority that is hard to casually deny.

It is probably for this reason that despite writing hundreds of articles for many of Britain’s top magazines such as The spectator, along with foreign ones such as American conservative and The Epoch times, he is not well known to most people in the West, for the simple reason that many people would rather not read or hear what he has to say about some of their most precious beliefs about society, especially people further up the class-pyramid than the ones Dr Dalrymple had to help as best as he could after a surviving a heroin overdose or a violent car-jacking.

Throughout the 21 essays that make up this compilation, Theodore describes both intelligently and entertainingly his various interactions with what he calls “The Underclass”, his term for what Americans would usually refer to as “White Trash” and Australians as “Bogans”, “Eshays” or “Deros”. These are people of rather dysfunctional mentality and anti-social behaviour, either under-employed, on welfare and/or sustained by crime, very often drug-users, tattooed, crass, vulgar, abused or abusive, and wearers of clothing that is Punk, Gangster or Junky in style, etc. He regales us with stories of varying levels of comedy and tragedy involving the Underclass, such as the men “Addicted” to car theft, the children who can barely read or say when WWI and WWII happened, and the women incapable of avoiding relationships with men known to be abusive. And complementing this, he also talks of the baffling interactions he has with the middle class, the PMC, who are utterly ignorant of what life is like for most people and are incapable of running the bureaucracies they control with commonsense. Purely for these various anecdotes, one could read Dalrymple with interest, but it is his theorising and perception of the reasons behind what he experiences that gives his essays their power.

One of his central ideas, which is his main theory for why the Underclass came into existence and act as they do, is that many ideas about the self and society that were invented by middle class intellectuals in the 20th century such as Free love, Freudian psychology or the tyranny of family life, trickled down the social hierarchy and were apprehended in a simplified and crude way by many lower class people, who interpreted these ideas in such a way as to lose belief or faith in personal responsibility, society or the value of British tradition and high culture, and thus proceeded to act on these ideas in ways that were sometimes innocent and other times self-servingly two-faced, but either way degrading and self-defeating in their consequences². A good example he provides are the numerous cases of criminals who insist that the reason that they steal is due to some psychological issue or neurological fault that Doctors are obligated to fix, failing which they are not responsible for their actions when they steal again. While some are seemingly honest in this belief, others use it knowingly as an excuse. Much of the social decay of Britain and probably the West can be explained this way, according to Dalrymple, and much of his essays are just elaborating on this theme in his wry and anecdotal way.

His other major theme is the willful blindness of the middle-class, particularly those considered “PMC”, towards things that contradict their ideology or are the negative consequences of the various ideas they advocate, such as the education reforms that have persistently worsened the school learning experience, and the clear way that their usual approach to crime encourages it. As Dalrymple quite engagingly describes, attempts to direct their attention to their failures usually results in them ignoring you, handwaving the issue, blank looks of confusion, or moralising lectures. He also theorises and gives anecdotes about the rather paradoxical phenomena of what he calls “Uncouth Chic”, the imitating of lower-class behaviour and style by middle- and upper-class people.³ To put it very simply, he believes it to be a consequence of the “Cultural relativism” they often expound on, combined with the contempt for the “Bourgeoise” that was popularised by Marxism.⁴

I think it goes without saying that Theodore Dalrymple is a Conservative, but not in the way most people think of as “conservative”. He is not some “stick in the mud” reactionary, a Racist, a Sexist, a Trump-supporter, a creationist, etc. He is an example of that classic British archetype of the Conservative intellectual who remains open-minded and tolerant, yet still sticks with the traditions he was brought up with. He believes in the separation of Church and State, that Immigrants can enrich their Host nations so long as they are integrated properly, that people should live their lives in peace without unnecessary social or government interference, and that the restrictive and cruel attitude towards women in the past should be abhorred but not at the expense of ignoring the significant differences between them and men. In a way he would find a lot of sympathy with the more “Centre-right”, “Alt-right” or “Classic liberal” writers on substack, and I am sure that a lot of substack writers would find much of interest in his many works⁵, and yet he seems so very rarely mentioned at all in any of the substacks I have come across so far, despite his relevance to many of their favoured subjects such as the cultural decline of the West. It may be due to him only being active in certain magazines such as “TakiMag” but that doesn’t entirely cut it for me. I think it is possible that it he is ignored because some of his observations are just as uncomfortable to people on the right as they are to people on the left, despite the latter getting most of his flack.

One specific reason I could think of for explaining why he is ignored by Right-wing writers on Substack are his observations that severely contradict much of the racism that the Right are fond of, such as the fact that it is the Indian immigrants who often have better educational and career outcomes instead of British Whites, since they still value education in a way the British don’t, or at least until their children begin to gradually absorb the attitudes and customs of the pervasive White underclass culture. He also mentions their superior ability to buy and cook food at home despite not necessarily having much money, compared to the British Underclass who despite so much State-funded help and endless information on how to cook sustain themselves entirely on Takeaway food and alcohol. All of this highlights that it is Culture and not Race that is important in determining someone’s “Superiority”. But despite giving quite a few shocking anecdotes of Immigrants behaving badly⁶ he still paints them as people whose errors are cultural in origin, not some genetically derived trait. But this explanation doesn’t really satisfy me much as there are many conservative writers on Substack who aren’t enamored by the racist ideas most Right-wingers are fond of, and so would not view this as a deal-breaker, but rather a recommendation.

Whatever the reason for him being largely ignored, I hope that my review will perhaps increase awareness of this rather informative writer and encourage people to try and incorporate his insights into their own work.

1. He notes quite a few times that despite living in far worse material conditions, the Poor of third world countries rarely suffer from the psychological or cultural degradation that is common amongst the Poor of Britain, particularly the “Underclass”. He also gives a rather interesting account of what happens when doctors and nurses from India and the Philippines come to work in the same hospital as him. Initially they are amazed and impressed by the quality of medical attention that even the poorest receive and consider it proof of The West’s superiority. But gradually they become confused and disillusioned by the distinct lack of gratitude they receive from their patients, who are often only in hospital for reasons that arise largely from stupidity and lack of self-control. They eventually revise their enthusiasm for the West.

2. I find it interesting that this idea of his seems similar to the notion found in many religions, that there are certain spiritual teachings which were taught to the masses, who then promptly misunderstood and abused these teachings to the point of corrupting both the original teachings and themselves. However, unlike the ones from this well-worn trope, the ideas Dr Dalrymple criticises are not spiritual teachings that offer enlightenment to the worthy, but novel suggestions and theories invented by middle class men and women that had flaws and dangers that only started becoming apparent when they were put into practice both by themselves and latter on by everyone else.

3. One example that I will share here is Dr Dalrymple’s revelation that many of the Football Hooligans who travel across Europe to blight Football games with violence and crudity are in fact middle-class. His most notable anecdote was from attending a game in Rome in which hundreds of British tourists verbally abused and appeared to give the Fascist salute towards the Italian team. He asked around and discovered that among this British crowd there was a computer programmer who worked for city-council, and an Auctioneer from Sotheby. When asked why that chose to act in such a crude manner, they simply said it was a way of venting frustration and having fun.

4. It occurs to me that some interesting ideas could be had by comparing Dalrymple’s “Uncouth Chic” with Dudley’s essay “Millennial Snot”

5. Apart from numerous essays, he has written short stories and a handful of travel books recounting his trips through Africa and the many Communist or formerly communist countries of the world.

6. He gives a few accounts of forced marriages and honor beatings perpetrated by Indian and Pakistani immigrants. He observes that often immigrants will hold onto their customs far more stubbornly than their friends back in their original country, in order to feel centered in an unfamiliar world.