Reading one of the liberal newspapers in Britain, Dalrymple is struck by the writers’ tendency to latch on to simple ideas, such as: “Productivity puzzle solved: just give the lowest-paid a big rise.” Well, it’s a little more complicated than that, says Dalrymple.
The Skeptical Doctor
Dedicated to the work of Theodore Dalrymple
I recall back in 1996 a nineteen year old girl, bit of a blonde bimbo… Or at least when it suited her i.e most of the time like when she described how she was once (or maybe she did it on a fairly regular basis, can’t recall) on a train without a ticket, when she gets asked to show her ticket ‘I just act stupid’… anyway, I recall her rolling out the ‘just give the low paid a pay rise’ formula.
I basically insisted that it won’t work because most people don’t know how, or rather refuse, to live well.
One of my first conversations with her she explained the injustice of how certain African tribes women have their necks stretched by those metal neck rings as a deterrent to infidelity. If they cheat on their ‘husband’ the rings are removed and their necks break.
Of course this just doesn’t bear thinking about… I don’t actually know if it’s true but I gave the benefit of the doubt and expressed my revulsion. Beyond that I kind of lectured her. I basically said of all the horrible things that go on in the world, or Africa more specifically, trust you to isolate that one for special attention. I made it clear that I thought it said far more about her own wrong-headed westernised view of sexual freedom.
It’s a sexual freedom that’s giving rise to all manner of social ills, for instance
“But why did the productivity of the lowest paid in the two companies cited rise? Perhaps it was because they were able to buy better food and therefore they were more energetic, or for some other such reason.”
Well, when Ferdinand, in The Tempest, falls under the spell of… well Prospero/Ariel, but particularly the innocent charm of the young Miranda, but Prospero fearful that “Too light winning, make the prize light”, assigns Ferdinand to some fairly hard labour stacking firewood, Miranda openly feels pity for him but he brushes it off. So “energetic” is he on her admiration, he thinks nothing of it.
Sadly a great many of the Miranda’s of today have much more in common with the girl mentioned above… she was awful, leftism/cultural marxism were so natural to her, and actually she wasn’t even that bad compared to many. Man’s greatest incentive is dividing her time between the nightclub, sl*twalk and the corporate boyfriend.