currently reading Life At The Bottom The Worldview That Makes The Underclass Im glad i discovered this man!

@brianwebcam8433

3 жыл бұрын

This man has a clear agenda, which is the opposite of what he claims to be seeking. He is a tool of the wealthiest of the right.

@truthprevails4386

10 ай бұрын

He’s telling you logic. He’s not a shill

He is a doctor and psychiatrist who has worked and lived in Africa. From 1974-1976 he worked in Rhodesia and S-A. From 1984-1986 he worked as a doctor in a Tanzanian village. His experiences there were written down in a book 'Not As Black As It's Painted'. He has also traveled to communist holdouts in the east-bloc in the late eighties. From 1990-2004 he divided his work as a psychiatrist between a hospital and a prison in Birmingham

@plumlogan

3 жыл бұрын

Africa is a wreck compared to the rest of the world. There's not a single sub-Saharan metropolis that tourists flock to. Never has been.

@fw2101jacobinsleight

3 ай бұрын

Thanx for the Bio.

My favourite writer

I just found myself a hero , on so few words .

of course we cannot generalize, but we ´ve seen how this dependence from government´s assistence is bad in Brazil. Lots of people simply gave up looking for jobs or studying... and since there is a help for each child a mother has, too, many moms decided to have more and more children

@raveninaforest - When I first read Singers work 20 years ago in college I was a bit disturbed by his ideas. Now that I am older and more experienced, I find them completely revolting. This "asshole" Dalrymple walked the walk all over africa and the world caring for the very people discussed here, with his own hands and at his own risk. I'll take the pseudo-intellectual rantings of such a man any day. There's no expertise necessary to understand ethics. Dalrymple has GENUINE love for people

I beleive TD was referring to the society as a whole and not the individual. The last post referrs to rampant corruption, poor infrastructure, etc. as is it were like the weather.. random bad luck completely out man's control. In order to do good we must first correctly dianose the problem.. even if we dont like the answer. It takes intellectual honesty and courage especially when faced w/ ad hominem attacks from those unable or unwilling to give up their ideological precepts.

@fw2101jacobinsleight

3 ай бұрын

The poor man heareth not the "rebuke of the rich" according to Christian Scriptures. Most of the enemies camp hasn't read it enough.

"When given the opportunity" is key here and somewhat undermines his argument

@castlemount

4 жыл бұрын

... Only if your understanding of "given the opportunity" is limited to someone poor being a passive waiting receiver, while some benevolent benefactor vouchsafes to "give" him an "opportunity"--with the implication that without such benefactors, someone poor is condemned to remain so.

@justinkennedy2128

4 жыл бұрын

kinkyplunk , it’s comprehensive if you can put down your own ideology, if you close a welfare door you are giving the opportunity to seek employment.

Im beginning to suspect some of us may have viewed this video without knowing the entire context of the message. This "asshole" was not saying we should just leave these people to fend for themselves, he was advocating microfinancing as an alternative to fighting poverty. It has provided one thing to people that charity cant.. a sense of pride and self sufficiency. These low interest loans (provided primarily to women) have gained wide support for its unexpected success. Its worth reading

@fw2101jacobinsleight

3 ай бұрын

We could help them privately someday so easy.

@6musky He hits the nail on the head sometimes, but his discourse never rises above the level of: 'Everything goes wrong in this world'. This kind of non-constructive conservatism claims to fight lethargy and nihilism in society, but he ironically fights it with the same weapons. He's basically a sophist.

@ajs41

6 жыл бұрын

You're wrong. He believes that almost everything was getting better in human societies for thousands of years until the 1960s, which is about 99.999% of human history.

Is this part of a longer discussion and if so, is there a link to it out there? Thanks!

@thepharmacist73 "The first thing I would say to those who say that we must come and give, otherwise these people are incapable of improving their situation and getting out of poverty." I think it's pretty clear who he is referring to here. "Those who say that we must come and give" is an obvious reference to the make poverty history campaign and its intellectual supporters such as Peter Singer and Peter Unger. By "these people", I think it's clear that he means people living in poor countries.

If your truck breaks down and you spray it with water it won't fix the truck. If after years of spraying it with water you conclude that there must be something wrong with the truck that water won't fix, thats not circular reasoning, thats induction. If you think the failure of the water to fix the truck is evidence that you haven't been spraying enough water, thats really closer to circular reasoning.

2019, with an ever great number of working poor and marginalised people.

@edwardmclaughlin7935

4 жыл бұрын

Photo........ Who is marginalised?

@satanidomini very well said.

@AirstripOneProle Do you know anything about development?

While it may be the case that some people are poor due to moral turpitude. This isn’t a sufficient explanation for why poverty levels differ so much by country or point in time, for that matter. For any social phenomenon, there are numerous potential causes. But if poverty is a personality defect, does this explain why there was less upward social mobility in America during the 1930s than before? Did American’s back then have less grit, determination and entrepreneurial spirit than American’s today? Or maybe the Great Depression had something to do with it?

Theodore Dalrymple annoys a lot of people because he's right 99% of the time, and they know he's right even though they don't like to admit it.

For those who would like to read more about Theodore Dalrymple, google 'theodore dalrymple Skepitcaldoctor'.

@raveninaforest Because for the last fifty years we have been hearing how Africa needs to be saved by intellectuals from all backgrounds. And yet look at Africa today. It is worse off now than ever, despite the billions giving to it by public and private charities. Did you know that the population of Ethiopa has gone from 35 million in 1980's ( band aid remember that) to over 72 million today. Ethiopa is poor yet the government there has no problem in spend 10's of millions on army tanks.

"Dalrymple walked the walk all over africa and the world caring for the very people discussed here, with his own hands and at his own risk." And he should be praised for it. But why does he then set about ridiculing efforts to raise money to invest in alleviating poverty, the intellectuals who make a sober and reasoned case for doing so and the campaigns (such as the Make Poverty History Campaign) which seek to raise awareness about the issue and extend reach to ordinary people?

@Finnbar01 "And yet look at Africa today. It is worse off now than ever" This exactly the kind of circular reasoning which has led to such poor levels of foreign aid. That the intellectuals have been saying it doesn't mean much has been done (it hasn't). And that Africa is still in dire straits doesn't mean that investment, international development and poverty reduction programs don't work (they do). If the public and politicians acted on the evidence, global poverty could be ended very soon.

That is the whole point behind Peter Singer's book where he argues that westerners, and our governments, have an ethical duty to give money to these nonprofits that facilitate micro-finance and other methods of development and poverty reduction such as development, access to clean water and basic healthcare, access to technology etc. It's Singer's argument that Dalrymple has attacked. You know this I assume? @thepharmacist73, if he has written otherwise please direct me to where I can see this.

I have said for a long time that we are actually insulting these poor countries by giving continuos aid, its not even reaching those its intended for anyway, let these people learn to sort out their own problems, they dont need outside help.I know what its like to be given unwanted charity, l felt insulted and belittled by it, so l would think that is how they feel.Why cant we just keep our noses out of other countries business, and just focus on our own people and problems, we have made them dependant on us, l suppose that would give thiose in charge a sense of superiority and power.

@thepharmacist73 "The last post referrs to rampant corruption, poor infrastructure, etc. as is it were like the weather.. random bad luck completely out man's control." Obviously there is human agency behind much of these problems. But it's the agency of the political class in those countries; often who are unelected. The average people born into these countries, for them it is a case of bad luck: the bad luck of "individuals" being born into poverty without the opportunities to escape it.

I understand that it's dis-empowering to allow people to become dependent on the welfare hand-OUT. But by the same token, in a competitive marketplace, it is not always possible to break out of poverty without a hand-UP. For example, how is somebody living on the streets supposed to get a job without assistance? how do they buy decent clothes for the interview, how do they access a computer to email their resume? How are any of these things possible without some form of assistance?

@G96Saber

8 жыл бұрын

He's talking about really poor countries. The kind that doesn't give a shit about your clothes.

Wonderful Point for: You can be left and an elitest and racist, too by: We Need to help them! They simply can not do it themselves. Ok, never mind their asian neighbours but... Seriously, These People have done more harm than good on an massive scale. Without the poor themselves doing the right thing meaning self-responsibilty every govermental Intervention is furtile at best and harmful at worst.

Which means that he is not at all far away from real life and real problems, as you claim. And maybe what he is saying is not what de middle class wants to hear, but what your don't want to hear. He really has some credibility over these subjects. You might want to consider what he is saying at least, before putting him down as an upper-middle class out of touch self-righteous man. Also you mix up the right to an opionon with a valid opinion.

"he was advocating microfinancing as an alternative to fighting poverty". Well, I'm glad. But micro-finance requires nonprofit organizations to initiate and administer them. Or western governments to take the initiative in putting up the capital to get them going in which ever countries. This requires that the nonprofits have the sufficient funds from individual donations or government grants. Or that governmental initiatives have funds raised by taxes.

There's nothing wrong with that, but he never talks about the economy, or the fragility of the labor market etc, which is existential these days. Dalrymple creates a caricature of society without qualitative arguments. Types like Malthus, Burke, Dalrymple etc manipulate reality in their discourse in such a way that the people who pull the strings can wash their hands in innocence according to social injustice while promoting a negative solidarity mechanism.

"not ... everything the Nazis did was horrendous; and we cannot condemn things like euthanasia just because the Nazis did it." P. Singer Yes Im familiar w/ Singer. I still have the tattered remains of Animal Liberation on the shelf. A required reading by an angry liberal professor more intereseted in teaching us what to think instead of how to think. Indeed he is easy to admire for some, his books read as if they were intended for 9th graders. This is no accident of course.

@thepharmacist73 And by the way, there was nothing secular or "utopian" about Nazi Germany.

@satanidomini Exactly. These "aid charities" make themselves out as being the realistic, genuinely compassionate ones. This is a tactic to patronize and misrepresent the motives of foreign aid/development organizations to make them seem out of touch and naive. This "realistic" approach is just a front for achieving what they world really want -- little to no aid. And, as you point out, what an insult to suggest that the grassroots orgs have ever been against self-sufficiency and micro-finance.

Cant believe anything without a lot of thumbs up. There's some reasoning?

Which means.. what? I can still disagree with his beliefs about society.

If he should be praised for it, then why do you call him an asshole? Thats not like any kind of praise I've ever heard. Moreover, why on earth should he not be able to comment on third world development just because he was only a doctor in places like Liberia? If he has to keep his trap shut and stick to doctoring, why shouldn't an ethicist keep his shut about international economics and stick to whether you can kill your neighbors dog?

"He is an advocate of euthanasia.. not just for those who want to die but also for the active extermination of those that are burdensome to society." Not true. You are misrepresenting his position. He's never argued for removing "burdens" from society. "He claims parents should have to right to kill their disabled infant if it will increase the communal happiness of society." Again, not true. His position on infanticide has nothing to do with increasing "the communal happiness of society."

@brianwebcam8433

3 жыл бұрын

He is antihuman.

This man basically tells the things the upper middle-class wants to hear. He over simplifies social issues without any form of nuance or deeper knowledge of the matter. Basically a very self-righteous man who stands far away from real life and real problems.

@ajs41

6 жыл бұрын

He's right on almost everything. The best thing for poor people is almost always for them to take responsibility for themselves.

"not ... everything the Nazis did was horrendous; and we cannot condemn things like euthanasia just because the Nazis did it." P. Singer This seems like a completely uncontroversial statement. You can't dismiss an argument just because it was a policy of Nazi Germany. The Nazi government was anti-communist. I assume (and hope) that you are an anti-communist). Does you being anti-communist make you Nazi? I hope you can see why you're logic on the Nazi point is so weak.

You can read pretty much the entirety of Singer's book by skipping between the two additions from google books. Search 'The Life You Can Save'. Also see his article Famine, Affluence, and Morality. There's a link at the bottom of the wikipedia entry. It's pretty uncontroversial that Singer solidly demolishes this pseudo-intellectual ranter. Dalrymple is just plain out of his depth talking about these issues. He should stick to his psychiatry and leave ethics to the experts.