In the October edition of New English Review, our philosophical doctor considers the evolutionary development of a common beetle, the curse of having been informed early of his high intelligence, and the pursuit of the good life.
The question raises that of the good life. What is the proper end for a person to pursue? Does anything actually matter, given the size of the universe, the second law of thermodynamics, the transience of life, the inevitability of death and the infinitude of time?
In a September Takimag piece, our old-fashioned doctor recounts his shocking first encounter with television after being away for a quarter century.
The debate between Nixon and Kennedy was Plato by comparison with what we have now, albeit that Nixon’s five o’clock shadow played some part in the public assessment of it. We are more intelligent and better educated than ever, but somehow public discourse becomes cruder, more stupid, more ill-tempered, less concerned with truth, as our cognitive level improves.
In Australia´s Quadrant, Theodore Dalrymple reasserts his view of the detrimental cultural and moral effects that the increasing popularity of psychology in the Western world has had.
This study too has undergone a vast expansion, indeed out of all recognition. Psychology is now the third most popular subject in American colleges and universities, and no doubt elsewhere as well. I suspect that this popularity is a manifestation of mass narcissism rather than of curiosity.
Over at Takimag, our dubious doctor receives an email with unsolicited advice and bogus concern from his insurance company, which gets him thinking…
It is rather that such constant surveillance tends to undermine the distinction between what is properly public and properly private, to the detriment of the latter and the expansion of the former. Where everything is recorded (and we are increasingly complicit in this), we become performers rather than characters, and the boundary between the real and the bogus is extinguished.
In his Quadrant column, the skeptical doctor expertly sums up the woeful Parisian Olympic farce in not one but two scintillating essays.
Still, there is little doubt that Paris has not been beautified by its vainglorious and completely unnecessary decision to host the Olympics. It is true that the security situation in the world has deteriorated unpredictably since the decision to apply was taken; but the horrible physical mess that has resulted, the City of Light becoming the City of Concrete, was all too predictable, and the harm done to a unique place is much more important than the pleasure, which could have been taken anywhere in the world.
In his latest Law & Liberty essay, Prof. Dalrymple warns of the ongoing dangers of the infantilization of the British populace, which has gone hand in hand with the unhealthy growth in the popularity of psychology at universities.
But the very idea that reading about something unpleasant, even knowingly and without compulsion, can lead to such severe psychological reaction that professional assistance is necessary to overcome it is peculiarly demeaning of human beings and comparatively recent, occurring pari passu with the growth of clinical psychology as study and profession.
In last week’s Takimag, our ornithological doctor marvels at a friend’s phone app that can assign bird sounds to the correct species of bird.
They would surely soon learn respect for knowledge and lose some of their exhibitionist disillusionment before they ever had any illusions. Pseudosophistication is a great temptation for, and enemy of, the young.
Over at The Epoch Times, our distressed doctor covers the fallout from the Cass report, which is a recently published inquiry into medical services for ‘transgender’ patients in Britain.
In essence, the Cass report found that there was little good evidence to support the treatments that supposedly transgender children and adolescents were receiving. Even the natural history or evolution of the condition was not known.
In an August Takimag piece, Dr. Dalrymple sounds off on the latest round of punishments meted out to disgraced scientists for committing fraud during the course of their research.
There seems to be a lot of this about, but presumably it is only a tiny proportion of all scientific activity. Or is it because, if punishment of scientific fraud were more severe, scientific activity itself would grind to a halt?