Agency And Its Enemies
The more problems they made for themselves, the more they were rewarded [by the welfare state]. We had a peculiar demoralisation… I mean, an actual removal of morality from all human consideration.
I remember, I had a patient with multiple sclerosis, and her husband worked, but he didn’t earn a lot of money, and they needed some adjustments to their house so that she could get out of the house more easily and so on. It seemed to me this was a place where the welfare state could actually help. So, I phoned a social worker… and I made a grave mistake. I said, “I have a particularly deserving case…” And there was a stony silence on the other end. And then the social worker said that all cases were deserving. In other words, you couldn’t distinguish between this case of need, which was nobody’s fault, and someone who took drugs and set fire to his house in a state of intoxication. There was no difference.
And since, of course, people who behave badly become more needy, they actually gain more attention and more sympathy. If you remove desert from all considerations, this means that one source of meaning in life is completely removed.
Jordan Peterson interviews Theodore Dalrymple.
Plenty to chew on and at times darkly funny. Regarding the quote above, this isn’t entirely unrelated.
Update, via the comments, another snippet:
At which point, this came to mind.
*saves for commute*
*saves for commute*
Still good, and sometimes darkly funny.
Almost 2 hours long–that’s wonderful. It’s almost impossible to say anything in a 15 minute interview. About an hour is really necessary. I greatly miss Milt Rosenberg’s radio show in which he’d talk with a guest for 2 hours. It would be wonderful if Peterson and Dalrymple would do this again whenever they find topics they’d like to delve deeply into.
Still working my way through it.
Another bit:
At the risk of flattering myself, this came to mind.
That Jordan Peterson really is an intellectual powerhouse – beacon of thoughtful integrity in a dark and stupid world.
On the recommendation of Benjamin Boyce I watched Peterson interview Paul Rossi who is currently being pilloried by Grace Church High School for standing up to the racist cult of Woke.
It’s like sitting in on a therapy session. The depth and perspicacity of Peterson’s personal analysis is really quite awe-inspiring. I was genuinely moved.
Dalrymple swearing. 🙂
Dalrymple swearing. 🙂
Heh. I shouldn’t think he gets much practice. But yes, the prison anecdotes are some of the funnier moments.
I was trying to persuade intellectuals that a lot of their world outlook was bad and was doing harm rather than good.
I’m reminded of Thomas Sowell’s quote that you only find intellectuals in arenas – academe, QUANGOs, etc. – where ideas can survive without actually being correct.
Dalrymple’s essays are a consistent highlight on the Takimag site.
In other words, you couldn’t distinguish between this case of need, which was nobody’s fault, and someone who took drugs and set fire to his house in a state of intoxication. There was no difference.
This is the difference between you, as an individual, giving to the poor versus just paying your taxes and expecting some government functionary to get on with it.
Dalrymple’s essays are a consistent highlight on the Takimag site.
He also appears regularly in the New Criterion, City Journal, and the New English Review.
He had a column in Roger Scruton’s Salisbury Review until August 2019, but you can read the archives here.
David, could you please poke the spam filter? I made the mistake of writing a comment containing four hyperlinks.
Jordan Peterson interviews Theodore Dalrymple.
I’ve only got through a little more than an hour, so far.
I hope to watch it all (with naps in between).
My take:
Jordan Peterson talks too much.
The interviewer should let the interviewee do most of the talking.
I agree that Jordan Peterson should have let Theodore Dalrymple talk more–the Platonic ideal would be to let him talk until he has said everything he wants to say on the current question. And yet at the same time I found everything Jordan Peterson said to be interesting and useful too. Both being psychologists–Peterson a clinical psychologist and Dalrymple being a psychiatrist–they could contribute equally. My hope is that they each will come up with lists of things they felt they did not finish exploring, and get together again to tackle them.
David, could you please poke the spam filter?
Freed.
Thank you, David.
Much as I generally agree with Dr. Peterson, yes. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen somewhere a video of him discouraging trampling your conversational partner’s thoughts with your own.
I remember a video in which he himself mentions he’s been told he really likes to talk.
He’s still recovering from the benzodiazepines that nearly killed him, and he’s also said he’s in constant pain. He’s mentioned akasthisia, uncontrollable restlessness, which could be another aftereffect. My wild guess is his outpourings of interviews are a result of that. Unless you watch them to the exclusion of almost all other media and other activity, they’re impossible to keep up with. And it’s starting to look like too much exposure, which isn’t a good thing.
The writer Dr Daniels describes as coming from the Left and documenting similar topics is Nick Davies. I’d recommend his book ‘Dark Heart: The shocking truth about hidden Britain’, but be warned that I found it a harrowing read.
Thank you, Trevor. You saved me going back and searching the interview for that mention.