In the Salisbury Review: A visit from a water quality inspector causes Dalrymple to marvel at modern technology – and the need for it.

Given Dalrymple’s well-known arguments about personal responsibility and Western (so-called) poverty, it is probably not well understood how tolerant he is of beggars, the homeless and the like. For example, as recounted in Taki’s Magazine, recently a former prisoner knocked on his door late at night claiming to be a door-to-door salesman.

Dalrymple’s response? He invited the man in:

I bought yet another feather duster that we did not need, but I did not tell him that we did not need it: I wanted him to think it would really come in useful, as perhaps it will in twenty years’ time, when all the others are worn out. I was fully aware, of course, of all the many ways in which this young man might have been cheating me; but the thought of turning away someone who was genuine, and who appeared to be a suffering human being, was many times more painful to me than the thought of being bilked of £9.99.

Analysis of some examples of appalling behavior leads to the question of which came first, the supply or the demand:

The relationship between supply and demand is no doubt dialectical. A created demand (for something which must have at least an initial appeal to pre-existing or potential human tastes) will eventually become spontaneous: which will not by itself make it right or good, of course.

Dalrymple’s wife recently bought him a couple of notebooks, which included some advice from the manufacturer about “journaling”:

‘There are many ways to journal,’ continues the advice, which is impersonal in the sense that no one has affixed his or her name to it. ‘One way is to write down your thoughts and feelings about what’s happening in your life.’ One wonders whether this is a thought that will illuminate any potential keepers of a diary: apparently the world’s appetite for soothing banality is as great, and perhaps dialectically related to, its appetite for apocalyptic visions.

It gets funnier

Activate sarcasm detectors:

Facebook and the internet are certainly bringing the intrinsic decency and sense of fair play of the British into prominence, as well as their refined use of language.

To be fair, I think the behavior referenced is ubiquitous, leading to the question:

Did people have lovely sentiments such as the above before Facebook enabled them to be expressed anonymously in public, or did the possibility of expressing them in public anonymously call them forth?

A recent production of Hamlet that Dalrymple attended gave Benedict Cumberbatch yet another opportunity to express his belief in his moral superiority:

It was appropriate, in a way, that Hamlet should hold up his hands in the midst of the applause for him at the end of the performance to ask for quiet and to make an unctuous appeal to the audience on behalf of the children of Syria: or rather, on behalf of the Save the Children Fund’s appeal for the children of Syria, which is not quite the same thing.

But a look at the (supposed) charity’s finances leads to another conclusion:

It would have been more honest, then, if Cumberbatch had come forward to appeal for the Save the Aid Workers Fund, or alternatively to ask for voluntary contributions to the government’s efforts to keep unemployment down by means of pseudo-Keynesian policies.

A slaughterhouse near Dalrymple’s home in France has recently been discovered to have been very cruel to the animals on whom it carried out its work. Dalrymple’s piece on the issue at Psychology Today is unusual for him in that it consists merely of a series of questions, impressively long, that the case raised in his mind. A small sample:

Were the staff of the abattoir a self-selected group of people, drawn to that kind of work and therefore susceptible to the allure of cruelty, or were they, to quote the title of the book by Christopher Browning about a genocidal reserve police battalion in Poland during the Second World War, ‘ordinary men.’ What were they thinking as they behaved in the fashion shown, seeming calmly in the midst of an Armageddon? Were they motivated by the fear of losing their jobs if they did not obey orders, fill quotas set by management, etc.? Were they horrified at first and merely habituated themselves to what they saw and did? Were they afraid to appear weak and sentimental in the eyes of their colleagues? Did they justify their actions by, for example, theoretical denial of the self-consciousness of animals, or did they think there was simply no ethical question to be answered?

…and many more. Go here for the rest.

In The Salisbury Review Dalrymple describes hearing a woman discuss her serious illness with friends and can only conclude: “An admirable spirit all round!”

A look at pro and anti articles in the New England Journal of Medicine seems to indicate no justification for the practice:

The annual medical is a kind of ceremonial or ritual which, according to its critics, is without rational foundation despite the fact that so many patients, and perhaps a majority of doctors, believe in it. This proves that superstition is not dead: but perhaps that is no fatal criticism of the annual medical after all, because superstition will never be dead. If it does not attach to one thing, it will attach to another.

As a politician, Jeremy Corbyn may be refreshingly uncalculating, as evidenced by his appearance, which is clearly not the product of consultants. No, it’s his uncompromising dedication to some very troubling opinions that is the problem:

He is a stater of, rather than an arguer for, them: any contradiction of his views tends to bring forth a repetition rather than an attempt at persuasion or even explanation. As with his appearance, so with his opinions: and no one could accuse him of hiding them (I will not call them a light) under a bushel. If you dislike Hamas and Hezbollah, Mr Corbyn is not going to change his opinion or stance merely to canvass or capture your vote. He is sincere, terribly and frighteningly sincere.

Dalrymple at The Library of Law and Liberty