Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass

Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass

By: Theodore Dalrymple  

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Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
The reality many choose not to face - I've read two of Dalrymple's books now and each follows the same format, a collection of essays which stand by themselves but are organized around a central theme. This book is excellent, but if you're deathly opposed to anecdotal testimony in support of generalized conclusions, you'll be in a constant mental argument with the good author (who is admittedly aware that his approach is not one of rigorous scientific study). That being said, the study of history and society haven't exactly yielded their secrets when pursued in a lab coat. This book takes the approach you would expect from the empirical mind of a good diagnostician.

Dalrymple relates and synthesizes his day in and day out experiences of working at a hospital and prison in an English city. He also lives nearby and so details his experiences as a resident among the "underclass". His insights detail the historical drivers behind the alarming rise in violent and non-violent crimes and provide an explanatory model based on the choices of individuals. He asks a man who abuses his wife and claims he cannot control it because its a disease, "How is it you can control your anger when in public or in front of the police?" From Dalrymple's perspective, the wife beater makes his choices based on what is advantageous to himself, just like any other decision.

The book also focuses on determining how things got to this point, examining the outcomes of government policy, education, immigration, technology and the justice system on the choices of individuals in the underclass - both the positives and the negatives. Unfortunately, mere words in a book cannot convey the misery, desperation and isolation that membership in the underclass conveys. However, Dalrymple does a commendable job and pulls no punches.

Dalrymple's experiences with the poverty stricken began before post-modernism and the deconstructive historical views that became popular after the 1960's. Like other authors in this category, he notes the degenerative effects of the modern state's welfare policies on individuals and families - how the sense of personal responsibility has been severely eroded in this population, the family unit has been destroyed, the value of education and intelligence degraded, and the sense of purpose and self worth provided by religion that has all but disappeared. "Freedom without virtue is a road to misery."

Highly recommended.

Customer Review: 1 out of 5
This book will put you in a sour mood - Author Dalrymple's claims of interviewing 10,000 people at the bottom of life is amusing in that he must have been doing it out of pure morbid curiosity. He hates these people! He has no empathy with his subjects which 1.) makes him a biased interviewer, and 2.) gives him no credibility with the rest of what he is trying to say with this book. I admit that 25% into the book I gave up and started scanning the rest of it to see where he was going with it. It looked like more of the same. This is the sort of book that I won't lend to friends and won't even sell back on Ebay. I'll just toss it in the trash to remove it from circulation!

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Stunning - Dalrymple succinctly puts on the page the niggling questions we've all had at one time or another but were too politically correct to ask. He raises doubts about the direction our society is going; sadly, he offers little in the way of solutions. But we have to start somewhere and considering a different view of long-held truths is a start. This book should be required reading for every journalist, high school student, teacher, politician, social worker and doctor in the country. Actually, EVERYONE should read this book.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Vital reading to make sense of 21st century Western society - This can only be done today by going behind the veil of political correctness and saying the unsayable, speaking the truth honestly and directly. The modern PC practice of beating around the bush to avoid stepping on the toes of various interest groups with hidden agendas is useless in ascertaining the causes of the breakdown in Western society. It's just because Dalrymple speaks these truths without regard for political niceties that he is labelled a conservative reactionary. The truth is very different. However Dalrymple may label himself, he's no traditional conservative. With the liberal policies he criticizes having been in place for decades now, we are surely today in a position when we can call those who want to conserve the status quo which is ruining Western society the true conservatives, while those like Mr Dalrymple who want to move on from this impasse are actually today's progressives.

The book is of course based on the section of society Dalrymple had most contact with, but this underclass does in fact have direct parallels in all Western countries, even those of other racial or language groups. Contrary to what some reviewers say, he preaches a positive and uplifting message of hope to those who find themselves in the underclass he describes. We are not robots, programmed by birth in a poor level of society to be criminals and no-hopers. It is ultimately our own choice what we do with our lives, and if we choose to ignore the countless warnings offered by millions of information, help and support centers, etc, then we have only ourselves to blame. However, as long as society supports these people's belief that they are victims (living in a luxury unimaginable for billions less fortunate), it's unlikely that things are going to get any better. Help a butterfly free itself from its cocoon and it will develop deformed wings that will prevent it from ever being able to fly. Let it struggle on its own, using its own strength and not syphoning energy off others, and only then will it develop to its true potential. This is a metaphor worth considering, and a book worth reading.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
An excellent perspective on poverty and underclass living. Enjoyable to read, and worth reading again. - I read this book as a result of the exhortation, "You should NEVER donate to charity, go on a mission trip, or more importantly, advocate for some social program before you read this book." The author of this book deals with the poor, the homeless, and the impoverished on a daily basis, seeing literally thousands of patients. He spends much time sharing with the reader the bizarre ideas and way of thinking that all of his patients have in common. He explains why he thinks the source of the problems (depression, disease, bad health, violence, crime) for those in poverty isn't the poverty itself; rather, the problems there are largely the reason for the poverty. Liberalism, moral relativism, and the degradation of basic social mores has diffused from the university to the underclass. While the professors aren't dumb enough to believe their own ideas, these people do.

In retaliating against "classism" and despising differences between the lower classes; we have since WWII seen a change but not a good one. Where within the "classes of britian" there once existed hope and promise for social mobility, we have created a CASTE in the place of the CLASS.

The author gives stunning insights into the life of those in poverty. If you are interested in "social justice" or serving the poor, I would absolutely read this book.

I even thought to myself, "Where we once used to do things with the poor, we now do things FOR the poor" ... If you think about the implications of such a subtle thing, and understand what it is suggesting, then you are thinking on the right track. Read this book!

As a college student, I believe that reading this man's accounts of what he has witnessed is much more worthwhile than sleeping outside and asking congress to spend someone else's money to give them a house. You might still have that conclusion after you read books on this topic, but at least read a bit before you become an activist.

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