The Grim Reality

“Life At The Bottom”
by Theodore Dalrymple

Each chapter in this book is a separate essay written by the experienced public health psychologist, author and philosopher. Separate yet they follow along a theme as they all come from his observations of supposed “disturbed” people.

I can relate to his rantings as they are similar to mine. The endless stream of apparent victims who wont accept responsibility for their own actions. The chapter headings say it all: ‘the knife went in’, ‘tough love’, ‘choosing to fail’ and ‘we don’t want no education’, to name a few.

He tells it how it is and not how you would like to think it is. The irony in Dalrymple’s observations is that the systems in place to help those disadvantaged in society go a long way to disadvantage them further only in different ways. Think, for example, how endless welfare creates a cycle of dependence. Also how about how abused children are sent back to their irresponsible parents because the ideology is to have them with birth parents as a priority. Common sense, it appears, does not exist as much as it should in the area of public health, according to Dalrymple.

He does rant, and sounds cynical at times. But I don’t blame him at all. He works in the tough field of mental health yet still seems to be quite patient and understanding. I struggle for patience, talking with irrational people is very difficult.

Good on Dalrymple for his persistence in the field and for producing a sensational piece of common sense literature.