Theodore Dalrymple: Life at the Bottom

The Worldview that Makes the Underclass

Ivan R. Dee, 2003 (2001)     Amazon.com

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Here is a searing account of life in the underclass and why it persists as it does, written by a British psychiatrist who treats the poor in a slum hospital and a prison in England. Dr. Dalrymple’s key insight in Life at the Bottom is that long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims. His book draws upon scores of eye-opening, true-life vignettes that are by turns hilariously funny, chillingly horrifying, and all too revealing – sometimes all at once. And he writes in prose that transcends journalism and achieves the quality of literature.

Reviews:

“This devastating account and analysis of underclass life – and the elite ideas which support it – is a classic for our times. It is as fundamental for understanding the world we live in as the three R’s.”  Thomas Sowell

“I am a great admirer of Theodore Dalrymple’s essays, which seem to me among the most truthful – and therefore also among the most morally courageous and intellectually rigorous – descriptions anyone has given us of ‘life at the bottom’.”  Norman Podhoretz

“Dalrymple’s vivid writing and often heartbreaking stories rise above his deeply felt social analysis.” Publishers Weekly

“Brilliant social analysis…a master chronicle of life at the bottom.”  Hilton Kramer

“Lucid, unsentimental, and profoundly honest…Dalrymple is one of the great essayists of our age.”  Denis Dutton, Editor, Arts & Letters Daily

“It is a truism that ideas have consequences, but a truism is rarely illustrated as implacably as in this book.”  George F. Will

“Theodore Dalrymple is the best doctor-writer since William Carlos Williams.”  Peggy Noonan

“Mr. Daniels’s best essays cast a spell almost from the opening line.”  New York Sun

“A landmark experience is reading Life at the Bottom…”  Detroit Free Press

“Once in a long while a writer comes along with a vision so powerful that it shakes you. Theodore Dalrymple is that kind of writer.”  Bruce Ramsey, Liberty Press

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JOB’s Comment:

The worldview that makes the underclass (and many other things) can be described in many ways. I am inclined to think it is best described – and analytically and historically understood – in terms of what the Swedish philosopher Folke Leander called the “lower romanticism”. I have discussed this concept in several posts in the Philosophy category (or, more precisely, in its sub-categories).