Our World

The most important lessons are usually learned from experience.

Occasionally, an author whose experience has imparted vivid, deep, and durable lessons emerges to share them with the rest of us. That is precisely what Theodore Dalrymple, the pen name of Anthony Daniels, has done with his remarkable book, Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass.

Dalrymple spent his career as a doctor in places most of us would rather avoid: prison wards, inner city hospitals, and the crumbling neighborhoods that feed them. There, he saw poverty at its most corrosive—an affliction involving not merely a shortage of money but of meaning, responsibility, and hope.  

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You wouldn’t steal a car. You wouldn’t steal a handbag. But would you keep a £450 paddleboard delivered to you by mistake?

For a growing number of the usually law-abiding middle class, the answer is “yes”. While many would draw the line at slipping something into their handbag at the shops, they have no qualms about claiming that a product wasn’t delivered so they could get a refund, or “forgetting” to scan an item at the self-service checkout.

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The most consequential inequality in America is not the wealth gap or the wage gap. It may not be the racial opportunity gap. The marriage gap is wreaking havoc. And unfortunately, it’s the gap that gets the least attention.

I’m a libertarian. I don’t care whom, or if, you marry. Yet I’m reminded that there is a problem by a new report from the American Enterprise Institute. Edited by Kevin Corinth and Scott Winship, “Land of Opportunity: Advancing the American Dream” covers a broad range of challenges facing the country today, from the cost of living and workforce development to education, crime, and the erosion of community life.

Climbing the stairs from the subway left me winded. “You’re really out of shape you fat fuck,” I muttered to myself as I stopped to catch my breath, but the pain only started when I’d walked a block and turned the corner onto Simcoe Street, south toward the convention centre.

It was a new kind of pain. Since turning 50 there seemed to be some fresh variety of pain revealed annually, and I tried to play it down by telling myself I’d add it to the list. This was different, though – a steely sharpness that started in my chest and blossomed up through my shoulders to my neck and jaw.

I was on my way to a trade show for photographers and video makers in the big room on the north side of the convention centre where they hold the auto show every year. The same place where I’d lined up in the shadow of the CN Tower for the first dose of the COVID vaccine, joining the rest of the city eager to get back to normal life and a day like today – minus the chest pains.

NB: The author knew Kathy before I did.

Grandiose declarations by Western politicians claiming preventive force against murderous regimes is somehow illegal have become de rigueur. The leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Norway and most European countries have weighed in with parallel and often identical statements on the essential importance of obeying international law while waging war against Iran and its terror proxies, such as Hezbollah.

On any given day, you can casually scroll on social media and unearth a plethora of freshly posted videos of single men and women recalling nightmarish dating experiences to their followers.

“When he says, ‘I’m big on honesty’ and lies about his height while you’re literally looking at him,” reads the caption of one young woman’s post.

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