Dalrymple reacts to press coverage of the recent death of the Dutch footballer, Johan Cruyff:

The hyperbole no doubt truly reflects the regime of bread and circuses under which we live. In one of at least three articles (other than an obituary) published about him, a Guardian writer said that Cruyff’s football was ‘from another [and presumably better] planet.’ The headline of one the articles read ‘Cruyff, the father of the modern game who also shaped Dutch culture.’ The question that was not asked was what kind of cullutre it could be that could be shaped by a mere footballer.

Dalrymple at Salisbury Review

If a recent program on British television is representative, some children already think they should be:

Little Charlotte’s head had already been filled with ideology about health and something called well-being. One could easily imagine her denouncing her parents to the health police for having given her a chocolate biscuit. The other child with her, called Henrietta, also 10, said that she thought that she ought to be told what to do by the government if it saved the NHS money.

Soviet indoctrination of children, anyone?

Much of the newspaper commentary in Europe after the attack on Brussels has referred to the “shared values” under attack by the terrorists. But what are they?

As far as I can see, the value that most prevails in Brussels, thanks to the European parliament, the European Commission, and other so-called institutions, is that of the free lunch. I have met European politicians there who clearly haven’t paid for so much as a single course of a meal for forty years or more, and who develop as a consequence that gray, slablike or tombstone countenance that members of the Soviet Politburo used to have. I have nothing against free lunches myself—indeed I have enjoyed many—but I have never made them the acme of my ambition, nor did it ever occur to me that, in seeking and eating them, I was defending, furthering, or expressing “our values.”

Read the whole piece here

A new study shows the efficacy of three possible approaches, but there are drawbacks:

Does the experiment show that doctors are educable or bribable, or both? Unfortunately, since the three elements of the intervention (education, computer warnings or reminders, and money) were delivered at the same time, it is impossible to know which had the main effect. However, whichever it was, the effect lasted for at least 48 weeks after the financial incentive was withdrawn.

Dalrymple at PJMedia

Dalrymple takes issue with the following statement in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on “the supposed duty… of people to commit suicide”:

Questions about social justice and equality (whether, for example, especially vulnerable populations such as women or the poor might be more likely to act on such a duty) are also raised.

Read the rest here

Dalrymple on a new study on child allergies:

…the protection against allergy conferred by the early consumption of peanuts lasted for at least 12 months after consumption had ceased. The difference might have been even greater had consumption continued into the sixth year of life. Avoidance is thus the wrong policy.

Surely future historians will wonder why people dressed as they do nowadays:

What their appearance signified to me was one of two things, or both: the complete collapse of self-respect, at least in the aspect of physical appearance, or a total lack of imagination as to the impression they made on others – or both.

Dalrymple at Salisbury Review

Having allowed the development of ghettos filled with immigrants hostile to the national culture, and in fact, having encouraged its citizens to devalue their own civilizational legacy, what can the leaders of Belgium do now about a place like Molenbeek?

The [taxi] driver had no doubts: you force the residents to live elsewhere. Conceptually easy. In practice, difficult. The European Court of Human Rights recently ruled against Germany, which sought to do exactly that.

Dalrymple on Molenbeek

The escutcheon of Harvard Law School derives from a design produced by a man whose father owned slave plantations three hundred years ago. Obviously, this is an intolerable situation that requires the complete eradication of such a symbol, and naturally a few Harvard students are on the case. At the Library of Law and Liberty, Dalrymple examines the psychology behind such so-called activism, which requires conveniently little action. Take this kid for instance.

He was not intent upon conveying information, much less an argument. He intended to communicate the militant purity of his heart and soul. The world is rotten, he was saying—but I am not. I am pure. If the rottenness continues, it won’t be because of me.

Awareness of his own virtue shone from the student’s face. He positively glowed with it, virtue for him consisting of the public expression of the correct sentiments. Virtue required no discipline, no sacrifice other than of a little time and energy, instantly rewarded by the exhibition of his own goodness.

The painlessness of virtue as the expression of correct sentiment is, of course, its chief attraction. Who would not wish to achieve goodness merely by means of a few gestures, verbal or otherwise? In that way, you can avoid genuine self-examination altogether. After all, of what importance is your conduct in the little circle around you compared with such enormous wrongs as structural racism?

This piece is a must-read.