Life at the Bottom: The Worldview that Makes the UnderclassThis collection is based on a series of discussions the author - who worked as a doctor at a slum hospital in London and in a British prison - had with members of the underclass. In asking why they continue to commit the acts that keep them poor, or homeless, or incarcerated, he searched for the underlying attitudes that effectively bar some people from life in the mainstream. Dalrymple concludes that long-term poverty is not caused by economics, but by a dysfunctional set of values. Whether the subject is sexual relations, alcoholism, drug addiction, education or marital abuse, he finds an essential self-deception at work among his patients and traces the common root of these ideas to fashionable social policies that deny individual agency and, therefore, personal responsibility. |
Contents
The Knife Went In | 5 |
Goodbye Cruel World | 15 |
Reader She Married HimAlas | 26 |
Copyright | |
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Life at the Bottom: The Worldview that Makes the Underclass Theodore Dalrymple No preview available - 2001 |
Common terms and phrases
abuse addiction Anna asked assault behave behavior bingo Blackpool boyfriend Britain British burglar called casino child church club conduct course crime criminal criminologists culture daughter doctor drug drunk England English example fact father fear folie à deux girl girlfriend homeless hospital hostel human hundred idea illegitimacy Indian intellectuals intelligent Jesus Army Jock Young Juliet Hulme Kouao least liberal live means middle classes mind misery modern moral mother murder Muslim National Lottery never nurses once overdose parents Parker-Hulme murder patient person police poor population poverty prison public housing R. D. Laing racial racist received pronunciation recently replied responsibility sexual Sikh slums social worker society someone street suffering suicide tattoo teachers television tell THEODORE DALRYMPLE things thought tion told took underclass victim violence ward week welfare woman women young Zealand