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Theodore Dalrymple,Eric Coombes

What is Wrong with Us

Can any of us entirely banish from our hearts and minds grave misgivings about the condition of the culture we now inhabit? Expressions of those misgivings are mostly unheard in public forums, ignored in the dominant media, and, if noticed at all, dismissed by state-supported bureaucracies and commercial vested interests. To have any chance of gaining attention, they must resolve themselves into coherent forms. We need to clarify our perceptions of the things that trouble us, by articulating and developing our thoughts about them. That is, we are in need of serious criticism—serious criticism, aesthetic, social and political—which is notably lacking in the contemporary world, especially in places readily available to the educated non-specialist, such as the 'quality' weekend newspapers, and especially, perhaps, in relation to the visual arts.
The pieces collected in this volume are not presented as amounting to an overall account or theory of our cultural condition. They are offered merely as examples of serious criticism, of what we need if we are to begin to think more profitably about our condition, daring, in defiance of contemporary dogmatism, to make the necessary judgements of value without which our culture will continue to disintegrate.
360 printed pages
Publication year
2016
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Quotes

  • Артем Малахивскийhas quoted3 years ago
    Eccentricity, which is the unselfconscious difference from other men in the way of going about life, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, has given way to exhibitionism, the conscious adoption of a mark of difference merely to stand out from one’s peers
  • Артем Малахивскийhas quoted3 years ago
    Orwell knew, this sort of nonsense is inherently dangerous. Ready-made phrases, he cautioned, ‘will construct your sentences for you - even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent - and at need ... will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.
  • Артем Малахивскийhas quoted3 years ago
    Such phraseology’, says Orwell, ‘is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them’.[9] It distances language from reality by deadening imagination
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