Second opinion
A FRIEND of mine recently said that I am the disgusted in pursuit of the dis- gusting. This is not .quite accurate: the disgusting pursues me remorselessly without any activity on my part to find it. On my tomb, I want the following words inscribed: 'If you seek the reason for his disgust, look around you.'
Of course, there are few emotions more secretly gratifying than disgust, which in part explains why it is so easily aroused in me. For example, I was recently walking my dog around the church at night when a police helicopter hovered over me and beamed its power- ful searchlight down on us. Theoretically, at least, it was searching for those Christ- mas shoppers of the underclass, the bur- glars (Burgle early for Christmas', 'Only 12 burgling days to Christmas').
It was more likely, however, to catch my dog fouling the church's flower-beds with his small and perfectly formed biodegradable excreta than to catch those who so successfully stimulate the insurance business.
Such a powerful state apparatus to catch so small a dog! It was — yes, dis- gusting. I grew quite angry at the thought of it. We can't even walk our dogs in peace any more without agents of the state interfering. Of course, by comparison with the con- tent of the lives of most of my patients, this was but a minor irritation. Earlier that day, for example, I had been con- sulted by a young women of Indian extraction who had dressed herself up with the instinctive bad taste and vulgari- ty of the English lower orders. I noticed the several rings around her thumbs: always, in my experience, a sign of moral turpitude.
She came from a respectable family of hardworking people who wanted nothing more for her than academic success and marriage to a decent man. Needless to say, with her mind filled by popular cul- ture, this was an insufficiently exciting prospect for her, and she went to the bad.
She associated with an Indian family of drug addicts and law-breakers, one of whom was in prison for arson and kidnapping. Unfortunately, she had fallen out with the family, but Vengeance is mine, saith the criminal, and the family pursued her by threaten- ing telephone call, anonymous letter and finally by sending one of the boys round.
In this case, the boy in question was Afro-Saxon, and as is well-known respectable Indian families view Afro- Saxons as peasant rogues and slaves, if not as out and out Untermenschen. I have known Indian girls sent home to India to be killed for consorting with them. So the fact that an Afro-Saxon came to the door at all asking for Pardeep was bad enough, but the fact that he had a gun with him was even worse. The mother screamed, a couple of shots were fired, the girl tried to jump out of the window (but took an overdose instead) and all was wrong with the world.
I tried to explain to the girl that her present predicament was in some way connected with her past choice of friends, but having been taught no histo- ry at school, she took the view that then was then and now is now. There is no learning from experience, there is only extrication from the current dreadful sit- uation.
England is a giant factory for turning decent people into scum.
Theodore Dalrymple
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