Category Archives: Essays

All Turned About

The December issue of New Criterion features a Theodore Dalrymple essay on Coventry’s dreadful modernist architecture, the Turner prize, and a pair of exhibitions in London. Please note that this essay will require a subscription to New Criterion.

The last time I visited Coventry was as a witness in the trial of a man with a tattoo on his neck who had strangled his girlfriend in a fit of jealous rage. Murders are generally sordid, but in my experience as a witness in murder trials, those in Coventry are particularly so.

How Racial Madness Takes Advantage of Other Madnesses

In his The Epoch Times column, our favorite doctor demonstrates the connection between the madnesses of racialism, communism, and modern architecture.

On the contrary, it seems as if the end of communism and apartheid (closely related, for the apartheid regime in South Africa would never have dissolved itself while communists of the African National Congress could hope for an alliance with the Soviet Union, after the downfall of which they swiftly converted to crony capitalism) has liberated the inner totalitarian of the leftist intelligentsia to turn its attention on its own society, and use race, climate and inequality to further its drive for power.

French Fancies

In the November issue of The Critic, the critical doctor observes more dishonest progressive propaganda during a visit to Paris.

War, after all, is not an equal opportunity employer, or at any rate not for long. The aged, the seriously infirm, the mad, the grossly obese must surely be excluded. A totally inclusive navy would probably sink even before it engaged in action. It would never even put to sea.

Derek Chauvin: Justice and the Perp Walk

The dissenting doctor wrote an article in The Salisbury Review back in June about the circus surrounding the Derek Chauvin trial, which has only now come to my attention.

Like so many aspects of civilization, the belief in the right to fair trial is fragile and not deeply embedded in the human soul. Where people are utterly convinced of their own rectitude and of the wickedness of people who have different opinions from their own, the idea of a fair trial will seem to them merely irrelevant or an obstruction to ‘true’ justice. Mob rule is not far distant.

Talking Bilge About Global Poverty

Our skeptical doctor takes issue with the questionable claim by the World Food Programme’s director of the imminent death from starvation of 42 million people, as his organization eyes Elon Musk’s offer of billions of dollars to charity.

There is obviously a kind of person who believes that when you pull an economic lever from on high, the result is precisely what you expect and want. Such people must live in a world without unintended consequences, in which human beings are vectors of forces whose trajectories can be calculated in advance and then shifted in precisely the direction desired. Such people suffer from what might be called the technocratic delusion.

Two Medical Organizations Wish to Guide Our Language Like Dictators

Dr. Dalrymple blasts two American medical organizations for promoting the use of dishonest, politically-correct language in their long-winded and laughable paper.

But health cannot possibly be a human right, since death is inevitable and is not generally a sign of health. I have been severely ill several times in my life, but it never occurred to me that my rights were being thereby infringed.

The Pleasure of Apparatchiks

The November edition of New English Review showcases Theodore Dalrymple’s essay on his misadventure attempting to pitch a historical documentary on deposed dictators for British television.

You might have thought from her manner that everything shown on television was an imperishable masterpiece instead of being overwhelmingly rubbish. “I’m worried,” indeed. The only thing that bitch has ever worried about is her career.

….

There is nothing wrong in itself with being a nonentity; we are all nonentities in some regard or other, perhaps in many regards; but ambition is what makes nonentities dangerous.

Fragility’s Triumph

In his Law & Liberty essay, the good doctor warns us of the potential dangers of hate-speech laws by using the example of the drawn-out legal saga of a Frenchman who dared to publicly critique the lack of integration of Muslims in France.

The concept of hate-crime originated in, panders to, and exacerbates this psychological fragility. It gives rise to a competitive victimhood: my suffering is greater than yours. Even the most privileged can feel victimised, and indeed feel the need to feel victimised, for only thus is he or she able to disguise his or her good fortune.

The Sinister and Ugly Sides of Fashion Shows

Our favorite doctor receives some shockingly familiar photos of expressionless, underfed, effeminate male fashion models and wastes little time in penning his latest The Epoch Times article.

If I am right, this reflects something that, in my opinion, is sinister: namely that their clientele has been so successfully brainwashed into believing a fatuous ideology that it is not even capable of discerning the horrible exploitation of weak-minded young models who parade in fashion shows, or the sheer ugliness of what they are made to wear.