In this week’s Takimag, the grateful doctor reminds himself—and his readers—of the need to occasionally look around and be thankful for the life that he has been given.

It is difficult—impossible would probably be a more accurate way of putting it—to be always counting one’s blessings, however great they might be. Nevertheless, it is important to try to do so at least intermittently, or else one would lose sight of them altogether and give in to self-pity, one of the few emotions that can, and often does, last a lifetime.

The dubious doctor informs us of the Parisian Left’s new lofty mission to overturn the deeply ingrained societal stereotypes concerning rats—as the city’s rat population multiplies by the hour.

It turns out that not everyone in the population or on the city council is unequivocally opposed to rats, according to an article in Le Figaro. The rat problem has become ideological, like practically all others. This broader development may be indirectly related to the downfall of the Soviet Union, after which the ideologically minded had to satisfy themselves with a cause other than Marxism, and found one wherever they could.

In his Takimag column, Theodore Dalrymple ponders which taboo will be knocked down next or sexual perversion normalized by radical progressivism in light of the Spanish government’s shocking recent decision to decriminalize bestiality. God help Spain!

Transgression has long been a term of praise for art and other critics, without much regard to what is being transgressed, but now transgression is something that has become desirable as social policy also. Find a taboo and transgress it, seems to be the way we “progress” today.

In the winter edition of City Journal, the concerned doctor reflects on the shocking Rotherham sexual abuse scandal, which was largely swept under the rug by the criminally negligent local authorities.

The toxic mix of two degraded cultures intermingling in the context of a public administration that is bloated, cowardly, unsure of itself, and rotted by ideological stupidity resulted in child abuse almost on assembly-line principles. The Rotherham scandal was some years ago now, but it was far from unique.

In his latest Quadrant piece, our critical doctor shares his thoughts on graffiti, tattoos, noisy restaurants, and the lack of creativity in modern hotel room designs.

Few things reveal a man more than his aesthetic judgments, which is why so much art and architectural criticism, at least of contemporary art and architecture, fails to make any. A whole vocabulary is employed to avoid them: they are as much to be avoided as rude remarks at a garden party. Which of the desiderata of truth, beauty and goodness remains standing after the postmodernist assault?

In last week’s Takimag, the doubtful doctor lambastes the latest addition of hideous modernist architecture blighting Oxford’s cityscape.

The story of the modern addition to Pusey House in Oxford is a case in point. Only three years after it was completed and opened, it has had to be closed because it is cracking up, but not with laughter. At the time of its opening, it was lauded by the usual suspects as being “innovative” in design, but we have enough experience of innovation by modern British architects to know that the word in their mouths means ugly, dysfunctional, and improvable only by demolition.

Our favorite doctor castigates a new oath at the Minnesota Medical School, and warns us against the dangers of the increasing politicization of the medical profession over at Law & Liberty.

Political propaganda has never been intended to inform, and under totalitarian regimes, it is not even intended to persuade. In conditions in which it is obligatory to assent to, applaud, and even repeat and intone it, doing violence to the truth can itself become an aim. The less truthful propaganda is, the more it is at variance with common sense and common experience, the better: for by forcing people publicly to assent to what they know to be false, the propagandists humiliate them and do violence to their self-respect. Such people are easy to herd and dominate: their locus standi to resist future impositions has been destroyed in advance. 

Over at The Epoch Times, Dr. Dalrymple voices his concern over conflicting messages from the American Medical Association relating to what doctors can and cannot say publicly.

In essence, they require physicians to voice their opinions but also to face disciplinary action if their opinions happen not to coincide with the received opinions of their time. This is a very odd way of going about stimulating medical debate, which is so necessary to progress, to say nothing of freedom itself.

Dr. Dalrymple skillfully diagnoses the conflict between the typical demagogic democracy and sensible, long-term fiscal policy over at Takimag.

But, even supposing a government to be honestly disposed in the matter of balancing its budget, it finds itself on the horns of an insoluble dilemma: It must either reduce its expenditure or increase taxes. And in modern democracies, government is not about doing the right thing by the country but about winning the next election. We live, in effect, in a permanent election campaign.