Theodore Dalrymple

Followed a link at Milt Rosenberg's blog, Milt's File to this interview with Dalrymple. As someone interested in education, I found it very interesting. In addition to being a columnist for the Spectator, he is also a psychiatric doctor working in an inner city area in Britain with both a hospital and a prison practice.

Refering to drug users, "in those night clubs are not the underclass. It’s widespread. It’s people in their 20s, their late 20s, and I don’t know if they’re ever going to grow out of it. I do meet intelligent people and they come to me and they know that there’s something missing in their lives, but they don’t know what it is. I tell them that what’s lacking is any kind of educational or cultural interest, but they don’t seem to be able to acquire one, even though there are of course ways of doing so. I suppose it’s possible for someone at 28 to get educated, but it’s difficult. I’ve often wondered whether, just as if a child doesn’t acquire a language by shall we say the age of six, so too if a child hasn’t learned to concentrate by the age of 12 or something, if they don’t acquire the habit of concentration, then I don’t know that it’s something they ever learn."