Behind Blue Eyes

There was a bumper sticker once that said something like “professionals do it when they’re not in the mood”. Ho ho. There is some (non-double entendre) truth in it though. The quickest way to get me to put something off is to try and put pressure on me to do it. Studying a novel to death at school was, for me, the easiest way to put me off ever enjoying it. It is somewhat of a surprise, therefore, that I did enjoy A Clockwork Orange despite it being one of my GCSE studies.

Likewise I feel somewhat under pressure to write a review of Not With A Bang But A Whimper after having been sent a copy by Monday Books. I must grasp the nettle, however, because the premise for sending me the book was that I would review it on the blog. So here goes, but please note: I am not a professional book reviewer.

In Not With A Bang But A Whimper, Theodore Dalrymple explores the effects on the most vulnerable in society of utopian intellectualism and – in particular – the brand of progressive liberalism which has been practised in Britain. He shows how rarefied academic debate can trickle down and dramatically alter the “morality” of people who have not read the works or have no intellectual interest in the subjects themselves.

In chapter after fascinating chapter, Dalrymple gives examples of people who have had their existences destroyed by the high-minded and well-meant but ultimately disastrous policies of the post-war political elite. He argues that many of the people who preach the kind of radical reforms that we have seen in the last decades are insulated from and therefore ignorant of the effects of them while continuing to live their lives as if nothing had changed. He tells the story of one “philosopher” who preached Total Freedom while living an almost ultra-conservative life himself. He argues that the destruction of ambition and “classical” education has hurt exactly the people it was intended to help. He gives examples of how much of our “culture” has totally lost its sense of humanity and perspective. He is scathing about Blair and Brown’s era but also explains why much of Thatcherism went wrong, too.

The book is presented in relatively short chapters each comprising a self-contained essay – it is almost a blog in some respects. Some chapters will bring you almost to tears at how a once proud society has been reduced to a shadow of its former self, others will have you punching the air with the delight that you are not alone in despairing at the state of the world. I confess that some of the chapters on philosophy were a bit beyond me because I have not studied or even heard of some of the characters he mentions. But as one of Dalrymple’s main points is that we, as a society, have lost so much of our academic rigour I can hardly criticise him for being more widely read than I. After all, what would be the point in reading a book about a subject with which you are already more familiar than the author?

Theodore Dalrymple is certainly quite controversial. When I wrote elsewhere about another of his books, Life At The Bottom, I was shouted down quite heavily. People on the “left” will dislike his views that it is state generosity and the removal of the fear of failure which is the cause of much of our nation’s social demise. Those on the libertarian “right” will criticise his view that there is more to freedom than individual liberty. Whatever your political stand-point is, Not With A Bang But A Whimper will certainly get your thought-juices flowing. I did not agree with every point Dalrymple makes but he certainly provided food for contemplation.

The point which I most took to heart from the book is that Dalrymple believes that human society is far too complicated to be governed by a simplistic ideology or a set of laws written down in a few sentences on a blank sheet of paper. He argues that tradition and culture are significantly more important than “intellectuals” give credit for and that we abandon institutions and a way of life at our peril. In that respect he has reminded me that, while small-c conservatism lacks an attractive, easily explained, “pure” ideology, a step-by-step approach is much less likely to have unintended negative consequences than fire-brand idealism.

If you enjoy the act of thinking, you should definitely read this book.