Life At The Bottom:  The Worldview That Makes The Underclass, by Theodore Dalrymple

Over the past few days I have read three books now by this author (reviews forthcoming) and I have greatly come to appreciate the humor and dedication he brings to his chosen task as a writer of critiquing contemporary decline in Europe.  This particular volume shows the author seeking to understand the worldview that lies at the basis of the underclass and the problems it provides for people.  Admittedly, I am not particularly knowledgeable about the British underclass, although my own background has made me very familiar with several different strands of the American underclass.  There were a lot of similarities I could see, such as the hostility that often exists among the underclass for those children who are ambitious with regards to education, although in growing up the fellow young people did not only show hostility–though I had my fair share and more of fisticuffs with those who thought a bookish person weak on principle–but also sought to take advantage of my intellect for helping to make their own violent games more official because someone had an interest in knowing and enforcing the rules fairly.  The author suggests the British underclass is less curious about life than this.

In about 250 pages the author gives a rather unpleasant look at the British underclass and the horrors suffered by people in it who are generally unable and frequently unwilling to escape its hold.  There are two parts to this book.  The first is titled Grim Reality, as the author looks at the passive use of language to evade responsibility, the way pain helps people feel alive, the tough aspects of love one finds in an area where sexuality is entirely devoid of larger ties, the seeming lack of merit in work and education, and the heart of a heartless world.  We see the author taking others on a tour of the local prisons and exploring the casual violence and degradation that exists in these areas and the total lack of concern that many have towards living a better life.  After that the author looks at the grimmer theory in examining how it is that criminologists and failures in police and other authorities make the problem of the underclass (and the spread of underclass chic beyond its confines) an even more serious problem.  The author is unsparing when it comes to the failures of the British official class in taking seriously the problem of an underclass that does not value education, life, property, or anything besides protecting its shallow self-regard and complacency.

Of particular interest is the fact that the author has such a large sample size for his examinations.  Although there is some diagnostic look at the underclass that varies when it comes to various ethnic and religious factors, the author has managed to interview some 10,000 people who have attempted to commit suicide, a very large sample of misery in the United Kingdom, besides his work in prisons and in Africa, which has given him a great deal of insight into poverty both at home and around the world.  And the picture truly is grim.  There is a certain appeal in using language that avoids responsibility.  It is easier to say that one “caught” a child than to admit that one’s own promiscuity has consequences.  It is easier to say that the beer went mad or that the knife went in than to admit that one is an agent that makes choices, and frequently the wrong ones.  When authority figures enable that failure and fail to hold parents accountable for educating their children–especially among the Muslim population, or fail to protect the innocent from the depredations of the criminal class, then society as a whole suffers unjustly.