Our first major task is to read, discuss, and write about Theodore Dalrymple’s Life at the Bottom. Dalrymple is a physician and psychiatrist who, until his recent retirement, worked in a British jail and slum hospital. He has a professional interest in self-destructive behavior (something he sees a lot of, as you’ll soon learn) and he has strong views of what causes crime, poverty, personal disasters, and so on. By the time we’re done reading his book, you’ll know a lot (perhaps more than you care to know) about various problems in Britain; you’ll also perhaps draw parallels to problems in Britain to problems right here in the United States. At any rate, we must of course start by reading the book. Therefore, here’s assignment number one. Complete the assignment in the order I present the steps:
I. Read the Introduction and the following chapters: “The Knife Went In”; “Goodbye, Cruel World”; “Reader, She Married Him–Alas”; “We Don’t Want No Education”; “Choosing to Fail”; “Lost in the Ghetto”; and finally, “And Dying Thus Around Us Every Day”.
Dalrymple is an exceptionally good prose stylist and clear thinker; he is not, however, an “easy” read. He’s not unreasonably difficult either, but he writes about complex human behaviors (and the self-delusions that often drive such behaviors) and therefore, you need to read closely–and repeatedly. Let me stress this point: you will have to re-read the chapters…a once-over simply will not work, so you are wise to simply accept this fact as we begin.
II. When you’re done, answer the following questions:
1. In the introduction, the author writes: “Such flattery is thus the death of aspiration, and lack of aspiration is, of course, one of the causes of passivity.” What is the “flattery” to which he refers? Why is this flattery, according to the author, the “death of aspiration”?
2. In “Goodbye Cruel World,” your author writes: “She has always taken the line of least resistance, and as it says in Shakespeare, nothing will come of nothing.” What does your author mean by “the line of least resistance?” How has it harmed the patient about whom he is writing?
3. In “Reader, She Married Him–Alas,” your author writes: “Nevertheless, the painful and inescapable fact remains that many aspects of the cultures which they are trying to preserve are incompatible not only with the mores of a liberal democracy but with its juridical and philosophical foundations.” What are these “cultures” to which he refers, and what are the efforts to “preserve” them? Why are these cultures, according to Dalrymple, at odds with a liberal democracy?
4. In “We Don’t Want No Education”, the author writes: “Thus are the young condemned to live in an eternal present, a present that merely exists, without connection to a past that might explain it or to a future that might develop from it. Theirs is truly a life of one damned thing after another.” Why do the young people under discussion here live in “an eternal present”? Why is it “eternal”? And why is that a bad thing? Note that the author uses the word “condemned”, and therefore he concludes that this “eternal present” is not desirable.
5. In “Choosing to Fail”, the author writes: “But it isn’t comfort he is after; he is making a statement of disrespect in the face of what he supposes to be authority. His fragile ego demands that he dominate all social interactions and submit to no convention.” Who is being discussed here? Why is this person seeing the author? Why does the author recognize so quickly the “cues”, so to speak, given off by the person he is discussing?
6. In “Lost in the Ghetto”, the author writes: “And where decent sensitivity is not nurtured, encouraged, supported, or protected, brutality abounds. The absence of standards, as Ortega y Gasset remarked, is the beginning of barbarism: and modern Britain is well past the beginning.” Just why would an absence of standards lead to barbarism? In other words: what is the logic of the author’s claim?
7. In “And Dying Thus Around Us Every Day,” the author discusses a truly appalling act of child brutality–and a truly appalling response by the authorities. Why, according to the author, did the authorities so badly fail to effectively help the child? In other words, what prevented authorities from offering effective aid and assistance? Why, according to the author, will such tragedies simply continue? (Note the essay’s title…it implies an ongoing process).
Okay, that’s a good start.
Total length of your answers to assignment one: a minimum of 700 words total, for all your answers combined. Some questions will take a bit longer to answer than others, but if your answers are less than 100 words or so, you’re probably not answering them sufficiently.
I’m not looking for formal essays here in terms of length, but make sure you squarely and directly answer the questions. A good rough-and-ready estimate for length is a total of 700-800 words. And make sure you read all the essays assigned…the author’s arguments get easier to follow if you read the essays in the order assigned, as the book is organized in such a way that the arguments build upon one another. If you skip around, you’ll have difficulty following him. Also, reading all the assigned chapters will help immensely when it comes time to write essay number one.
