The idea that freedom is merely the ability to act upon one's whims is surely very thin and hardly begins to capture the complexities of human existence; a man whose appetite is his law strikes us not as liberated but enslaved.
Theodore DalrympleWhen every benefit received is a right, there is no place for good manners, let alone for gratitude.
Theodore DalrympleIt is only by having desire thwarted, and thereby learning to control it โ in other words, by becoming civilized โ that men become fully human.
Theodore DalrympleThere is nothing an addict likes more, or that serves as better pretext for continuing his present way of life, than to place the weight of responsibility for his situation somewhere other than on his own decisions.
Theodore DalrympleThe idea that man is a tabula rasa, or Mao's sheet of blank paper upon which the most beautiful characters can be written, is an old one with disastrous implications. I do not think though that the cults you mention could survive honest thought about human nature.
Theodore DalrympleThe loss of the religious understanding of the human conditionโthat Man is a fallen creature for whom virtue is necessary but never fully attainableโis a loss, not a gain, in true sophistication. The secular substituteโthe belief in the perfection of life on earth by the endless extension of a choice of pleasuresโis not merely callow by comparison but much less realistic in its understanding of human nature.
Theodore Dalrymple