Dalrymple’s new piece for the New Criterion analyzes three intellectual controversies (two medical, one legal) that raged at the time of Dalrymple’s coming of age and which all reveal evidence for a growing “dissolution of accepted boundaries”. To summarize the piece with one short quote (which we usually try to avoid):

Limits should be recognized and obeyed not because they are found in nature, but because, unless actively oppressive, they have been laid down and are society’s.

In short, conventionality reflects consideration for others.

I found the three disputes interesting also for what they reveal about the state of Dalrymple’s intellect at what he describes as “early adulthood”, for most of us would never have known anything of these disputes at the time.

Read the piece at The New Criterion (subscription required)