Theodore Dalrymple
Anthony Malcolm Daniels[1] (born 11 October 1949), who generally uses the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, is an English writer and retired prison doctor and psychiatrist. He worked in a number of Sub-Saharan African countries as well as in the East End of London. Before his retirement in 2005, he worked in City Hospital, Birmingham and Winson Green Prison in inner-city Birmingham, England.
Daniels is a contributing editor to City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, where he is the Dietrich Weismann Fellow.[2] In addition to City Journal, his work has appeared in The British Medical Journal, The Times, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, The Salisbury Review, National Review, New English Review, and Axess magasin. He is the author of a number of books, including Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass; Our Culture, What's Left of It; and Spoilt Rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality.
In his writing, Daniels frequently argues that the socially liberal and progressive views prevalent within Western intellectual circles minimise the moral responsibility of individuals for their own actions and undermine traditional mores, contributing to the formation within prosperous countries of an underclass afflicted by endemic violence, criminality, sexually transmitted diseases, welfare dependency, and drug abuse. Much of Dalrymple's writing is based on his experience of working with criminals and the mentally ill.
Quote
“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is...in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”[3]
External Links
- https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/124952-in-my-study-of-communist-societies-i-came-to-the
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Dalrymple