British Degeneracy on Parade

City Journal ^ | August 10, 2011 | Theodore Dalrymple

[yetidog]

The ferocious criminality exhibited by an uncomfortably large section of the English population during the current riots has not surprised me in the least. I have been writing about it, in its slightly less acute manifestations, for the past 20 years. To have spotted it required no great perspicacity on my part; rather, it took a peculiar cowardly blindness, one regularly displayed by the British intelligentsia and political class, not to see it and not to realize its significance. There is nothing that an intellectual less likes to change than his mind, or a politician his policy.

[yetidog]

Coming to a town near you.

[swain_forkbeard]

Yes, it seems an eloquent description of what the oligarchical collectivists would have us become.

[mosaicwolf]

Solution - G4

[crusader71]

Clearly this cannot be the same nation that beat the Germans in two world wars, is it?

Winston would have had these hoodlums mowed down within a day, and not with rubber bullets either. Maybe the English empire should call in some UN peacekeeping troops.

[TimSkalaBim]

Punk rock cannibal-rioters would complete the scene.

[hosepipe]

Britain is SOOOO screwed...
They have been aborting their next generation for so long AND importing near easters for so long... its a wonder Britain is functioning at all...

Same is true of Germany and France..
America has been aborting their next generation for a good long while now..
AND the same importing Mexicans and other south americans..
Its a wonder Washington D.C. is working at all..

OH! WAIT... maybe its not working.. NEVermInd...

[RobinOfKingston]

Clearly this cannot be the same nation that beat the Germans in two world wars, is it?

Socialism took hold immediately after WW2. The most malevolent expression of it was National Health Care. A little over 60 years for the cancer to get to this point.

[livius]

Hmmm...I think I saw some of those in Manchester.

Actually, the thing that impressed me was the wide variety of thugs that England has produced. Truly multicultural...

[NavyCanDo]

• For a week now my 9-year old son has been going to bed, assisting on falling asleep to my tapes of old time radio shows of Edgars Bergen Charlie McCarthy.

• London is burning

• My Retirement savings and his college funds are evaporating as the stock market dives.

This is 2011 right? or 1940?

[NeoCaveman]

This is 2011 right? or 1940?

I've been thinking 1931.

[Pessimist]

I read his “Life at ther Bottom” last year, and it was excellent.

It’s basically a recounting of various stories accumulated over his years as a physician. Remarkable in it’s clarity and familiarity.

IIRC, That’s a pen name he writes under. And no wonder.

[livius]

Even if he [the thug brought up by the welfare state] were to recognize [the amount of money spent on him], he would not be grateful, for dependency does not promote gratitude.

What Dalrymple says here is true in the US as well. Our black population has probably had more public money spent on it than any single group ever in the entire history of the US, and we are getting exactly what one should expect: resentment and demands for more.

But as the welfare state has spread out its net of dependency, catching people ranging from members of the skilled trades (dependent on government make-work jobs and protection) to university students (living off of grants and "loans" that they do not intend to pay back), we have built a large, seething, sullen group of dependent people for whom whatever is done will never be enough.

[truthguy]

What Dalrymple says here is true in the US as well. Our black population has probably had more public money spent on it than any single group ever in the entire history of the US, and we are getting exactly what one should expect: resentment and demands for more.

But as the welfare state has spread out its net of dependency, catching people ranging from members of the skilled trades (dependent on government make-work jobs and protection) to university students (living off of grants and "loans" that they do not intend to pay back), we have built a large, seething, sullen group of dependent people for whom whatever is done will never be enough.

My late father predicted this back in the early 1970's. And he said just about the time it would happen. Although he had no formal education beyond high school, he seemed to be highly skilled at spotting trends both in the economy and on the social scene. He predicted that one day that the welfare class would grow too large for the productive part of the population to support. He said this would come from both immigration and birth rates. He also said people would develop a sense of entitlement and would become violent if you ever tried to take away their "goodies". This is because of the sick reasoning of the type of person who relies on welfare and believes others should provide for them. He was so right about this that it is scary. But in some ways, I'm glad he didn't need to see it.

But my question would be, why did he (and millions of others) see this clearly and so many over-educated Ivy League type professors miss the mark completely. Might it be that he lived in the real world? Why are these people (American Intellectual Class) always wrong? They seem to get nothing right despite having all the "proper" credentials.

[TimSkalaBim]

The one thing the American Intellectual Class never does is learn. They think they figured it out decades ago, and no amount of evidence to the contrary ever leaves the slightest impression upon them.

[CPO retired]

A. Many of the Ivy-league educated people are dependent themselves. They also feed at the trough that is filled by the efforts of working people.

B. Many have useless degrees, so “teaching” is the only place they can find a job.

C. It’s a good place to hide insecurity in one’s own capacity to support family and self. I know of (and know) professional students and teachers hiding behind two or three PhDs.

D. Many have a deep (albeit unconscious) sense of guilt, which they try to relieve through their politics and ideology.

[yetidog]

I gave “Life at the Bottom” to my social worker daughter when she graduated from college a few years ago. She is now a hard azz social worker.

[BikerJoe]

The one thing the American Intellectual Class never does is learn.

...WTH did we start with all these "classes"? I remember when we were remarkable for being a relatively egalitarian society.

Besides, we have an "Intellectual" class that can't think, and a "Ruling" class that can't "rule".

[ez]

If you remember “Animal Farm” and recognize the feral youth burning down London as the Doberman pups, you might also see the Ivy League types angling to be the pigs and live in the house while the rest of us live outside.

[PLMerite]

...radio shows of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.

A radio ventriloquist. The ultimate example of trust and blind faith.

[TimSkalaBim]

You’re right, we don’t in the U.S.A. have classes, at least in the sense the Europeans had an aristocracy and a peasant and a worker class. I think we’re using it here in a descriptive sense. A self-descriptive sense, because a lot of snot-nosed progressives are only too happy to proclaim their superiority.