The Problem of the Underclass

When my brother was working on his Masters in psychology in Chicago, he had what seemed to him an essential "Aha!" experience in a therapy group he was part of. He called me afterwards and shared this insight, which moved him profoundly: "I am responsible for my behavior."

The ramifications of this basic insight are many. If I make bad choices, I am responsible. If I want to change my circumstances, it is up to me. If I do not want to wake up in my own vomit every morning, I have to change the decisions I make the result in that. 

These thoughts came to mind as I started reading Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass, a book I received as a Christmas present but am just finally getting around to reading. The author Theodore Dalrymple is British psychiatrist who has spent his life working in the slums and prisons of England. 

The straightforward opening sentence hits with great force. "A specter is haunting the Western world: the underclass." 

That opening reminds me of another opening, from Scott Peck's The Road Less Travelled. "Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths." And once we've resigned ourselves to the reality, everything gets easier. 

In Dalrymple's introduction, the author outlines where his book will take us, that we might better understand the mindset of those who live in "the purgatory of our slums."

There are really two kinds of poverty. There are those who have little or nothing, but make choices that open more opportunities. This is different from the "cycle of poverty" that perpetuates itself from one generation to the next, the kind we get a glimpse of in Hillbilly Elegy, for example.

In many respects, as I have begun the journey this book is taking me on, I see our current "problem of the underclass" as a symptom of bad philosophy. Having discarded common sense, the culture has embraced a new belief systems whose foundations are fictional, yet feel good because they alleviate us of responsibility. 

The author addresses issues in a manner that feels honest, based on decades of first hand experience. Even if you do not accept his assessment, I believe the book can be a useful starting point for serious discussions about a topic that will not be going away any time soon. 

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