In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas Hardcover – August 10, 2007

I might as well get this part over with. My politics are far to the left of Dalrymple's (his real name is Anthony Daniels but apparently he wanted a nom de plume that sounded serious and weighty-whether Theodore Dalrymple fits that bill is up to each reader, I suppose). However, I came to a reading of this book because some of its themes are central insights of conservative thought. I ended up disappointed because the man is (on the evidence of this book- I have not read his others) seemingly incapable of bothering to put together a real argument for his themes.I always like to stress what is strong in an author so I will try to outline some of his major themes before I criticize his style of argumentation.This book is largely a series of short somewhat connected jabs in the face of what Dalrymple thinks is liberal thought. He doesn't really attempt to build a coherent positive philosophy except in oppositions to the errors of his enemies (I use that word precisely- Dalrymple does not have intellectual opponents, he regards them as one would an enemy).His central theme is that some of the philosophical assertions of Descartes and Mill have been incredibly damaging to the culture at large.This damage had occurred by a process that Lord Acton described; "Ideas have a radiation and development, an ancestry and posterity of their own,in which men play the part of godfathers and godmothers more than that of legitimate parents." (quoted on p. 45 of Dalrymple). So a bastardize version of Mill and Descartes has caused all the problems. According to Dalrymple the problem is that everyone now feels as if they have to approach all of life, each instant of life as "ontologically seperate" (p.78). Each moment is a blank slate that we must evaluate and think through on our own.Of course, Dalrymple has no problem making hash of such a position. In one short chapter, he enlists no less than Kant, Adam Smith and Karl Popper to overturn the bastardized version of Descartes and Mill. What is curious is that Dalrymple is possibly the purest version of something I have noted again and again in the last few years. Conservatives who don't want to argue any more the issues, theories and facts around a particular issue become a type of postmodernist.Dalrymple tells us that prejudice is unavoidable. A blank slate nevers happens and can never happen. He tells us over and over and over again that one can only replace one prejudice with another. He feels that most the time, the change is for the worse. He makes a fundamental conservative point which is always worth thinking about: Change is not necessarily a good. It is rare that an individual or a group comes up with a change that is really an improvement over the accumulated wisdom of tradition. The biological equivalent of this is obvious. Most mutations result in trouble for the organism. Rare is the mutation that leads to evolution.All of this is well and good and worth keeping in mind. But there are far more better writers to read on these themes than Friend Dalrymple (for the love of doG, read Edmund Burke or Allen Bloom). Why? Because Dalrymple is an irresponsibly sloppy thinker (i.e., he is a polemicist) who will stretch his argument every which way to make his point and he suffers from a rather severe case of misanthropy.Three examples about the argumentation. His use of the word prejudice is this book covers everything from instinctual reaction to dangerous sounds to emotional reactions to aesthetic judgments to political judgment to philosophical argumentation. In effect, he is using the word prejudice as if it means 'thinking'. This legerdemain of usage allows him to make the questioning of any prejudice seem inherently dubious.Second, he is a master of the false alternative. In an early chapter on the writing of history, he writes as if the alternatives are the laudatory celebrations of a Macaulay (by the way- my copy of the book badly botches a quote from Macaulay's History of England. It looks as if the quote is four lines long when the last three are actually Dalrymple's) or the denigrations of the 'social historians' (pp9-12). Really? Are those the only two choices? This is the naivest possible point of view of the issue and is insulting to any historian. There are many historians who weigh the evidence and actually change their mind about what happened. As readers, we can compare the writings of a Macaulay or an Engels (I love Dalrymple's example of a social historian) or a Woods or Collini or whomever and weigh their merits. I claim that some writers can be shown to come closer to some furtive animal called the Truth than others. It is never a final judgment but it can be a reasoned judgment.Finally, Dalrymple loves to attack enemies that exist only in his fervid imagination. The quote from Acton is useful for this. It allows Dalrymple to avoid actually having to square off with what Mill or Descartes said; specifically with all their ifs, ands and buts. Dalrymple says that Mill's thought became that old conservative bugaboo: "that one opinion is as good as another, even in matters of fact" (50). Please show me anyone who has ever said that. A quote please. (Another oddity about Dalrymple- he never cites anything. He quotes people and names some of the books but never actually cites a single edition or page. And here I thought there was a rather good scholarly prejudice in favor of that. That must be one of those new-fangled prejudices that Dalrymple doesn't like).My point is that Dalrymple makes his work too easy by jousting with opponents existing in his own imagination. Don Quixote, indeed.Which brings me to my point about his world view. Where the heck does this man live? He makes contemporary England sound like a level of Dante's Inferno. Apparently rude hordes of the barely educated wander the streets littering, stabbing each other with knives and talking some guttural version of English. I know he worked with prisoners (thousands, he states). But the typical prisoner is not the typical citizen. If we are going to build our cultural critique based on experience with prisoners than we should expect it to have minimum application to the majority of the population.To sum up- in spite of the feisty praise that the other reviewers have lavished on this book (one fellow who comments on the few negative reviews likes to suggest that the negative review be deleted since, you know, doG forbid, we cannot have a decent conversation where we disagree about something). If you are a conservative of the misanthropic bent who likes to read someone who will not challenge you own prejudices than Dalrymple is the man for you. Otherwise, I really feel you will learn much more about the issues that Dalrymple raises from a bit of Burke or from Bloom or Paul Rahe or my boy Leo Strauss.

Theodore Dalrymple is a moral essayist of generally very high standard, and although I would argue this isn't his best work, In Praise of Prejudice is a fundamental read regarding one of the most pressing issues of our time. To be more specific it is really a single essay in 29 parts that is a response to current trends in post-modern thought which have more than certainly influenced the bastions of our governance and culture, and from there have radiated into many slices of society if not all. The post modern quest to eliminate the sway of pre-conceived ideas is evident in the transmogrification of the word discrimination from the highest ideal of cultivated intelligence to one connotative of debased hatred, the narrowing of the concept of prejudice to negative prejudice only -in the colloquial sense-, and the esteem with which people boast of their "non-judgmentalism" as a badge of distinction and honor.However Mr. Dalrymple argues persuasively that the elimination of traditional prejudice has not unlocked the human fulfillment of all desires so promised by the movement's godfathers, John Stuart Mill, Rousseau, and Bertrand Russell amongst the most luminary. Rather, pre-conceived notions are inexorably present in human nature, and cannot be eliminated but to be immediately, if unconsciously, replaced by others. The shedding of the accumulation of the wisdom of mankind (painfully imperfect as man himself and permanently tainted with Original Sin) has instead been replaced by a more feral nihilism and egotism, with moral squalor the result, and in the resulting chaotic (and "empty-headed" as opposed to open minded as one reviewer puts it so well) quest to slake all human desires fewer are sated and society is worse off overall.A few drawbacks deny a fifth star to this otherwise elegant, concise, fundamental and compelling expose on the nature and necessity of morality and the pre-conceived notions it rests on. Sometimes the author can meander off into the bizarre and trivial simulated Socratic dialogues to make a point, such as his made up argument with someone who believes the Pacific Ocean is made of brie. Other times his chain of thought can have some ghostly thin links. Last he can sometimes write some very overly punctuated and confusing sentences.Despite these flaws this is a book that is important to read and understand, although very high-brow which may put off a lot of readers. A civilization based on freedom and liberty depends on the authority of the morality of its citizens lest it devolve to the basis of authoritarian government to compensate for that morality's evaporation. Theodore Dalrymple shows that the morality necessary for freedom rests on prejudices, which must be evaluated, reviewed and improved as time progresses, but which not only can not but should not be eliminated in spite of their inherent imperfectability.

the language, thought and logic are indisputable.

Um livro escrito por alguém com grande experiência tanto profissional quanto de vida, alguém que merece ser ouvido com atenção. Profissionalmente vivenciou muitos dos problemas que a nossa sociedade vive hoje e traz para nós suas reflexões. Recomendo fortemente a leitura.

The book is in praise of prejudice..or discrimination (in the literal sense) or the choice of one thing over another whether that is religion, ethics, taste, or anything else you may care to make choices about. In fact, in the context of this approach to "prejudice" on the truly vapid a free of prejudices.

イギリスの保守系コラムニストで、特にアメリカで大きな人気を誇っているお方。長年刑務所の医者としてイギリス下層社会の姿を見てきた人でもあります。最近はイギリスを見限ってフランスへ移住なさったとか。パリの人種暴動を予言したことでも有名。デビューしてすぐ人気の出たコラムニスト氏なので、このように少ないページ数でも無理やり(?)本が出てしまうのかしら。テーマ的には統一されたシリーズエッセイですが。内容はrecluseさんレビューをご覧下さい。『Life at the Bottom』『Our Culture, What's Left of It』はいずれも大変な名著ですが、それらを読んだ読者には議論としてはあまり目新しい部分はありません。｢自分自身こそが全てを測る尺度」という近代ナルシシズム、｢素晴らしい自分｣との自慰行為、その社会的惨状と精神的退廃を指摘する過程で様々な電波系インテリとその走狗たちの名前を登場させてきたダーリンプル氏ですが、今回はジョン・スチュアート・ミルと、最近「神はいない！」と託宣を下す本を上梓なさったリチャード・ドーキンスが突つかれています。ミルは経済学者としてしか認識しておりませんでしたが、一読して「…シーン」となるような自由論を書いてらしたらしい。ドーキンスに関しては、彼がヘンなのはダーウィン信者の進化論学者だから仕方ないですね。新著で「Question everything」と高らかに宣言しておられるとのことですが、へーほーふーん、『The End of Science』で描かれるドーキンスは、学会で気に入らない質問が出ると相手を容赦なくバカ扱いするかなりおっかないヒトでしたけど。尤も私は、ご本人より彼の本を読んでフムフムとかなっている人々の方が気持ち悪い。短い言及でしたが、生命倫理学者のピーター・シンガーもその著書を読む限りヘンな人という印象を私は持っています。となるとむしろ「インテリが社会人として電波系になりがちなのは何故か」という方が興味深いテーマかもしれません。ダーリンプル節ともいうべき名文を楽しむだけでも十分ですが、一晩で読めてしまうページ数はちょっと物足りなかったです。

prejudiceは偏見と訳すのでしょうか？この作品の中でのこの用語の使い方を吟味してみると、日本語での偏見という言葉よりは、むしろ伝統が作り出した一定の見方や観点と訳した方がいいのかもしれません。著者はこの本である２人の人物をターゲットとしています。一人john stuart millで、もう一人はrichard dawkinsです。もっともmillの取り扱いは、ある程度の斟酌がなされており、むしろmillの考えの誤用と意図しなかった結果としての現代の合理主義と個人主義、そしてそのグロテスクな帰結が取り上げられています。一方dawkinsに対してはその議論と論理の非現実性に対して呵責のないが批判が浴びせられています。著者はprejudiceが時として害をもたらすことは十分認識したいます。しかしその上でprejudiceの不可避性とそれへの的確な判断の必要性を指摘します。というのは「世界は決してわれわれという個人の一生で終わるのでもなければ、われわれによって新しく始まるのでもない」からです。したがって、そこでは、個人のエゴと合理主義に基づく傲慢さは否定され、過去の蓄積から生み出された知恵の重要性が強調されることになります。本作品は読みやすい小冊子ですが、中身は深いものです。ただすべての論点が過去の著者の作品ですでに取り上げられたものであるため、新しく読む必要があるかどうかは議論が残ります。