In the autumn issue of City Journal, the skeptical doctor opines on the anti-immigrant rioting in Britain over the summer, the surprising reaction from the left-liberal elites, the ongoing social and cultural decay, and the completely irresponsible immigration policy of the British state.

One of the riots’ ironies (if they were merely an episode and not the shape of things to come) was that liberal intellectuals rediscovered the social value of punishment, which they had previously denied, both on pragmatic and philosophical grounds. Punishment did not work, they had long argued: it neither deterred nor reformed.

Over at Takimag, our genteel doctor has an axe to grind with various members of the Western intellectual and celebrity classes when it comes to obnoxious public displays of vulgarity and coarseness.

Perhaps they believe that by public coarseness other people will fail to notice that they are, in fact, part of a rarefied elite, and therefore will feel no dangerous envy toward them. They feel that they ought, for reasons of political philosophy, to be egalitarian, but they don’t really want to be equal, either.

In the November issue of The Critic, our relentless doctor excoriates attempts to portray Brutalist architecture as anything but monstrous, ugly, and soul-crushing designed by debased, fascistic architects with totalitarian impulses.

There seems to be a propaganda campaign afoot to try to persuade the public that the architectural style known as Brutalism has been other than an aesthetic, social and urban disaster. It is as if the National Association of Thugs were trying to persuade the public that being robbed in the street at knifepoint were a life-enhancing experience.

In the November edition of New Criterion, our bibliophile doctor evaluates another book related to incarceration—this time dealing with the letters of history´s most famous prisoners.

Please note that this essay is behind a paywall.

Conversely, I was often much surprised at how well people of intelligence or education coped with the miseries and hardships of prison—often better than those whose normal train of life much more closely resembled prison conditions.

In the October issue of New Criterion, Theodore Dalrymple reviews a book by a young academic covering the historical development of the idea of incarceration as punishment.

Please note that this essay is behind a paywall.

In fact, prisons in their present incarnation, which seem to us so indispensable a part of modern existence, are not by any means immemorial; they are less ancient than hot chocolate.

In last week´s Takimag, our favorite doctor returns to the curiously disturbing rise in ugliness—from fashion to rap to architecture and art—in our modern and economically prosperous world.

To dress well likewise takes self-discipline. It also takes effort and imagination—not imagination of a high order, perhaps, but of the minimal kind that requires a person to see himself as others see him. But that implies that others are and should be important in our eyes, which is an affront to our self-importance.

In the November issue of New English Review, our lyrical doctor considers the life of the British poet, R.S. Thomas, after reading an excellent biography by Byron Rogers.

Wordsworth, Keats, Thomas: were they right? As on many questions, I face both ways. I know what they mean: we need to maintain our wonderment at Creation, and it is terrible if we lose it or never have it in the first place (a condition that social media promotes).

Over at Australia’s Quadrant, the good doctor weighs in on Starmer’s corruption scandal, the proliferation of rights, and the problematic acceptance of foul language.

At any rate, the very word rights has a tendency to dissolve proper distinctions in the minds of many. Once a tangible benefit has been declared a right, it enters a different metaphysical sphere from that in which most of human life is conducted. If I have a right to something tangible in the possessive sense, then no one and no state of society has a right to deny it me.

In last week´s Takimag, Dr. Dalrymple gives his readers his take on the latest ´Big Tobacco´ lawsuit from Canada and the moral culpability of the government and smokers themselves.

Thus, the principal financial beneficiary of smoking has in effect extorted money from the producer of that benefit, namely the tobacco industry. Whatever the misdeeds of the latter, this is a morally disgusting manner of proceeding, especially when the principal beneficiary was always in a position to prohibit smoking as it has now in part done.