Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass

Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass

By: Theodore Dalrymple  

Buy it now at Amazon.com!

Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher

Customer Review: 3 out of 5
Data Needed - No doubt, Dr. Dalrymple's experiences make for compelling, albeit voyaristic reading about life in one small region of lower class England. It's tempting to find in this book some comforting reinforcement for preconceived notions about poverty and crime.

However tempting that is, I think it is wrong. What's needed for Dalrymple's work to represent a broader slice of the population is for him to actually study and measure what it is that concerns him.

The plural of anecdote is not data, which are the result of measurements and observations. And it takes data, placed into context to make them understandable, to form information - the basis for knowledge.

Customer Review: 3 out of 5
Is this a gay book - Is this a gay book - "life at the bottom?" I'm only kidding. I'm black and I don't understand why this English auther has only pictures of white folks on the cover, as if they the only ones who have problems. Why don't they have at least ONE black man on the cover? Or woman? We the experts on strive and trouble.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Excellent, Thought-Provoking, Enlightening Read - "Life At the Bottom" is a series of thoughtful essays based upon the experiences of a psychiatrist who works in a hospital serving the British "underclass" as well as serving inmates within prison.

Dalrymple demonstrates through real-life anecdotes what bureaucrats, the judicial system, and idealistic armchair generals deny -- namely, that government policies which reward irresponsibility make life worse -- not better -- for the truly underprivileged.

Being soft on crime means more victims of crime; punishing those who try to progress (out of poverty) -- while rewarding those who milk the system -- trap those who would otherwise rise out of the underclass. Rewarding the guilty punishes the innocent.

Dalrymple's essays deal with everything from gambling to the layout of government housing, from bureaucrats who look the other way to police officers who are instructed to let crimes less than murder go unattended. He addresses tattoos, violence, living in fear, drug and alcohol addictions, and the mentality of living for the moment. I especially appreciated the chapter titled, "The Knife Went In." This explains how criminals view their horrendous acts passively -- as though these things happened without their consent. Enlightening.

As an American, I can see how the British system (unaffected by the American "Reagan Revolution") advanced along the direction of the American mentality of the 1960's and 70's. While America slowed that course and began to hold people more responsible for their behavior and cracked down on crime, Britain went the other way. This is not to say the U.S. has broken free from such liberal mentalities (based upon the idea that criminals are merely misfortunate and cannot help their lot), but rather that the U.S. offers competing viewpoints that are given equal time in the media and even somewhat in academia.

An enlightening book, an interesting read, and especially well-written. Dalrymple's pithy observations leave the reader thinking, "Of course! Why can't everyone see this?"

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Well Written and Interesting - Life at the Bottom reminds me, in many ways, of Down and Out in Paris and London. It is an author looking at the lower classes from a fairly intimate and not academic view. Like Orwell's book there's not a ton of sociological jargon or academic noodling. That makes the book extremely readable but it also limits it to being a bit more anecdotal than far reaching.

Customer Review: 1 out of 5
Completely lacking in empathy - The author is just dripping in self-righteousness. He places 100% of the blame for bad situations on the decisions the poor have made. He shows no grace or empathy. His observations aren't necessarily wrong- but he extends his assumptions to everyone in the same situation.

This is how he explains that abused women choose to be abused:
"At first, of course, my female patients deny that the violence of their men was foreseeable. But when I ask them whether they think I would have recognized it in advance, the great majority- nine out of ten- reply, yes, of course. And when asked how they think I would have done so, they enumerate precisely the factors that would have led me to that conclusion. So their blindess is willful." P40

These sorts of explanations are given for all different types of ailments of the impoverished.

--> Find out more about "Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass" at Amazon.com or Order Now