Even if it’s possible to objectively compare the performance of different hospitals, and it may not be, the current approach does not work.

One thing that bears noting about Dalrymple’s writing is his consistent (and in my view, increasing) willingness to criticize, and perhaps even to laugh at, himself. In a new piece at Taki’s Magazine, for example, he writes about his bias in opposition to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine:

Anxious to preserve my worldview, I read the paper (much of whose science I did not really grasp) with a view to sniffing out error, as an Inquisitor sniffed out heresy. And, not surprisingly, I soon found what I was looking for.

The authors of the paper propose that obesity is strongly genetic in nature, and even after recognizing his own bias, Dalrymple rejects the authors’ conclusions:

The paper thus holds out the age-old false hope that we can become good, sensible, or (in this case) temperate by purely technical means that require nothing of us as moral beings endowed with agency except compliance with treatment and obedience to technicians. Appetite itself will come under the control of geneticists, who will relieve us of the necessity to exercise self-control.

Read it here

It is no doubt a sign of Shakespeare’s genius that he could create a character like John Falstaff, who is universally loved not in spite of but because of his serious and serial flaws. At City Journal, Dalrymple examines Falstaff’s character and explains his appeal. One example:

Prince of perpetual gaiety Falstaff may be, but prince of perpetual untruth he is also (the two aspects are intimately connected, as if truth inevitably leads to sorrow). Lies come naturally to his lips, and when found out, he immediately thinks of a plausible explanation for them. Though he shows genius in this, it is of all the forms of human genius the most widely distributed, for even the most unimaginative man can usually find an ingenious excuse for himself.

Dalrymple writes at the Library of Law and Liberty on differences in fiscal and economic attitudes between France and Germany, two very different countries coexisting uneasily in a supposedly united Europe:

The French have a faith in their state which is in part justified. Its benefits are obvious every day; its stultifying effects are less evident except to the smaller proportion of the population that attempts something new.

The Germans, by contrast, have, or want to have, faith in their currency. The folk memory of inflations is still strong in Germany and with reason. Inflation is their bugbear and fiscal rectitude therefore their policy, irrespective of who is in power. The rebuilding of the country and the achievement of monetary stability is their source of national pride. Financial rectitude is visible in their private lives as well: the Germans use credit cards far less than the French, let alone the British.

Read the rest here

The prospect of Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister scares Dalrymple. For one thing, he’s an all-too-sincere social justice warrior.

…there is not a bien pensant cause in sight to which he does not wholeheartedly subscribe with the uncritical belief of an apostle, and for which he would be unprepared to go to the stake; and I think that he is a man of such probity that he would let the heavens fall so long as his version of social justice was done.

Read the rest at the Salisbury Review

Is all human behavior driven by selfishness? Many writers and philosophers have made that claim. But, writing at his blog at Psychology Today, Dalrymple says this idea is so simple as to be useless:

…this assertion, which is commonly made by those who pride themselves on their hard-bitten realism, is either empirically empty or blatantly false. It can be made true by definition, so that there could be no behaviour in contradiction to it. For example, if someone sacrifices his own life to save anther, it could be said that he preferred to do so rather than live with himself if he failed to do so. But this means that no evidence could ever refute the hypothesis.

Read the rest here

Considering a recent study shows that, in specific circumstances, treatment is not helpful, what good would such knowledge do? Dalrymple can think of only one benefit:

Of course, if we fell into the [lower] risk group, we might feel slightly better, for, regrettably, it is a comfort to us to know that others are worse off than we.

Read the piece at PJMedia

This piece at Taki’s Magazine is among the most thorough and concise that Dalrymple has written on art and architecture and the modern embrace of ugliness. He argues that it flows from a concern about inequality:

So long as there is squalor in the world, those obsessed with social justice feel obliged not only to live in it themselves, at least for a time—an elementary matter of solidarity with those less fortunate than themselves—but also to spread it evenly. Beauty has ever been associated with inequality, much of that inequality illegitimate even from the point of view of the most reactionary of inegalitarians, indeed the product of the most blatant or brutal exploitation or despoliation.

…that the desire for ugliness is not really sincere:

This world [of universal ugliness] will never come about, however, for the desire for it is neither universal nor lasting nor wholly sincere. It is curious how many pop stars, for example, having made their fortunes, retire in their private lives to the physical surroundings of country gentlemen.

…and that it paradoxically serves to increase inequality.

For as it destroys beauty and elegance, so beauty and elegance become ever more rarefied and available to a smaller and smaller elite…

Dalrymple has some criticisms of this study, namely, that it mistakes correlation for causation. But if it is to be believed, it would seem to argue for global warming, would it not?