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Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass | 
| Author: Theodore Dalrymple
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  73 reviews
Sales Rank: 30544
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 1566635055
Dewey Decimal Number: 320
EAN: 9781566635059
ASIN: 1566635055
Publication Date: May 25, 2003
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Product Description
A searing account of life in the underclass and why it persists as it does, written by a British psychiatrist.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 68 more reviews...
 Excellent, Thought-Provoking, Enlightening Read August 20, 2008
"Life At the Bottom" is a series of thoughtful essays based upon the experiences of a psychiatrist who works in a hospital serving the British "underclass" as well as serving inmates within prison.
Dalrymple demonstrates through real-life anecdotes what bureaucrats, the judicial system, and idealistic armchair generals deny -- namely, that government policies which reward irresponsibility make life worse -- not better -- for the truly underprivileged.
Being soft on crime means more victims of crime; punishing those who try to progress (out of poverty) -- while rewarding those who milk the system -- trap those who would otherwise rise out of the underclass. Rewarding the guilty punishes the innocent.
Dalrymple's essays deal with everything from gambling to the layout of government housing, from bureaucrats who look the other way to police officers who are instructed to let crimes less than murder go unattended. He addresses tattoos, violence, living in fear, drug and alcohol addictions, and the mentality of living for the moment. I especially appreciated the chapter titled, "The Knife Went In." This explains how criminals view their horrendous acts passively -- as though these things happened without their consent. Enlightening.
As an American, I can see how the British system (unaffected by the American "Reagan Revolution") advanced along the direction of the American mentality of the 1960's and 70's. While America slowed that course and began to hold people more responsible for their behavior and cracked down on crime, Britain went the other way. This is not to say the U.S. has broken free from such liberal mentalities (based upon the idea that criminals are merely misfortunate and cannot help their lot), but rather that the U.S. offers competing viewpoints that are given equal time in the media and even somewhat in academia.
An enlightening book, an interesting read, and especially well-written. Dalrymple's pithy observations leave the reader thinking, "Of course! Why can't everyone see this?"
 Well Written and Interesting August 11, 2008
Life at the Bottom reminds me, in many ways, of Down and Out in Paris and London. It is an author looking at the lower classes from a fairly intimate and not academic view. Like Orwell's book there's not a ton of sociological jargon or academic noodling. That makes the book extremely readable but it also limits it to being a bit more anecdotal than far reaching.
 Completely lacking in empathy July 8, 2008
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
The author is just dripping in self-righteousness. He places 100% of the blame for bad situations on the decisions the poor have made. He shows no grace or empathy. His observations aren't necessarily wrong- but he extends his assumptions to everyone in the same situation.
This is how he explains that abused women choose to be abused:
"At first, of course, my female patients deny that the violence of their men was foreseeable. But when I ask them whether they think I would have recognized it in advance, the great majority- nine out of ten- reply, yes, of course. And when asked how they think I would have done so, they enumerate precisely the factors that would have led me to that conclusion. So their blindess is willful." P40
These sorts of explanations are given for all different types of ailments of the impoverished.
Insightful and relevant April 7, 2008
I was so struck by Dr Dalrymple's insights into the worldview of those at "Bottom" that I purchased six more books for distribution to friends. His essays speak volumes to what we can expect if the United States continues down the well intentioned but wrong-headed course of giving everything but expecting nothing in our cultural-societal context. Dalrymple's reflections illustrate what has happened in England to the mindset of the poor and most alarmingly, the upward migration of the self-destructive and society-destructive attitudes fostered by the welfare state. In my own opinion, this is also representative of what happens when you strip meaning from life. See Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning".
`You know funny people.' March 1, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Dr Dalrymple's essays draw on his experience as a psychiatrist treating patients in a busy general hospital in a British slum and in a prison. The public policy issues he raises are not unique to Britain, nor are the characteristics of the underclass he portrays so vividly.
This particular set of essays was written before 2001, and while they touch on the consequences of a number of different areas of public policy failure there are some strong central themes. Dr Dalrymple talks about the squalor of England as not being economic but moral and cultural. He reinforces this by drawing on examples of cases where people are not required to be accountable in any way for the consequences of their actions, and those impacted by these actions have no redress. Notions of accountability (or moral responsibility) have become muddied by forms of political correctness that seem to excuse all manner of bizarre, violent or unlawful behaviour on the basis of cultural, ethnic or class discrimination.
These essays are thought provoking and confronting. In Britain, Dr Dalrymple writes of a third generation of an underclass. This is not a uniquely British problem and, unless it is addressed, can only grow worse. Causation theory is rarely simple and I do not agree with all of the points Dr Dalrymple makes. But I absolutely agree that those of us with an interest in social and public policy should be seeking to shape the debate on these issues. Reading this book of essays could well be a starting point.
`..we had but to go a hundred yards off to see for ourselves, but we never did.'
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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