A Nova Síndrome de Vichy

by Theodore Dalrymple, Maurício G. Righi (Translator)

Em A Nova Síndrome de Vichy, Theodore Dalrymple remonta o mal-estar europeu até as duas guerras mundiais do século passado, com os seus desastrosos embora compreensíveis efeitos sobre a autoconfiança da população do continente. Como resultado de seu passado recente, os europeus não acreditam mais em nada, exceto na segurança econômica, no aumento do padrão de vida, na redução da jornada de trabalho e na ampliação das férias em lugares exóticos. Como consequência, não conseguem estar à altura dos desafios que os assaltam, seja no tocante à crescente penetração islâmica na Europa, seja em relação à crescente competitividade da economia mundial.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Cultural, Essays, European History, Philosophy

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Anthony Malcolm Daniels, who generally uses the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, is an English writer and retired prison doctor and psychiatrist. He worked in a number of Sub-Saharan African countries as well as in the east end of London. Before his retirement in 2005, he worked in City Hospital, Birmingham and Winson Green Prison in inner-city Birmingham, England.

Daniels is a contributing editor to City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, where he is the Dietrich Weismann Fellow. In addition to City Journal, his work has appeared in The British Medical Journal, The Times, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, The Salisbury Review, National Review, and Axess magasin.

In 2011, Dalrymple received the 2011 Freedom Prize from the Flemish think tank Libera!.

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theodore Dalrymple (Anthony Daniel's nom de plume), applies his considerable erudition and wit to the decline of Western Civilization yet again, this time looking at continental Europe and specifically looking at the European Union as an institution. The title is misleading since the subject of the title is tangential to the book as a whole which traces the intellectual and sociological transformation of Europe in the twentieth century and frankly has little to do with the surrender to barbarism which is merely a symptom of a larger cultural malady. I guess the publisher needed to capitalize on post-9/11 hysteria among the right-wing to drum up book sales.

A lot of what is here you may have read before in Daniel's columns for the New English Review and The New Criterion. One perspective on the decline of Western Civilization that I had not considered before or read elsewhere was the idea that near universal access to higher education is partly responsible because skepticism, as a philosophical discipline, undermines common sense, moral and aesthetic judgements that undergird the culture and enable the widespread acceptance of a debasement of the culture as a whole.

[P.S. Carrillo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had this book on my shelf and remembered only slightly it's contents from a reading a few years ago. After a second reading, I can understand why it didn't make much of an impression the first time. The writing style and organization is at times incoherent, the author makes many vague historical references and attempts clarity with footnotes that seem to have no relation to his train of thought. It seems that the text was dictated verbally and later transcribed by an indifferent editor. Also, it seemed that the author was hesitant to state his real opinions about Europe's identity crisis, so the book lacked teeth and felt tiresome in its attempts to state both sides of any issue. No wonder Europe is in decline. He did make some salient points about World War 2 and the effects it had on European power and attitudes towards itself. His quick thoughts on the United States were far too optomistic. We are walking in the same footsteps as Europe, culturally and socially, and our Protestant roots and belief in our own exceptionalism won't save us. We can blame the globalization of financial markets for that. We will all collapse together in one big human tsunami of greed and stupidity.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be deeply interesting and thought-provoking, as it is written from the point of view of someone who understands history and politics and the way that Europe has tragically lost its self-confidence in the face of self-inflicted disaster during the course of the 20th century.  That Europeans are simultaneously arrogant bureaucrats (as can be seen by their group think when it comes to issues of regulations and climate change) and also craven cowards who it would be insulting to poultry to compare to chickens, is something that is easy enough to recognize.  Yet uncovering the implications and ramifications of this is not something that is always done, and without praising America completely the author manages to engage in this task quite well, pointing out what separates the United States from Europe and what common malaise afflicts them both, especially among the leftists of the United States' political spectrum.  There was a lot to enjoy and appreciate here, and the author's conclusions and analysis are both dryly humorous as well as darkly relevant in an age where barbarism is a great threat that many political leaders are simply unequipped to handle.

In this short but powerful expose of European weakness, the author makes his point in about 150 pages.  After a short preface, the author discusses what is rotten in the European Union, what everyone acknowledges to be weakness and corruption and bloated bureaucracy (1).  After that the author talks about the demographic worries of Muslim takeover (2), a look at declining fertility and various other explorations of this demography (3), and some summary conclusions thus far (4).  After that, the author critiques the relativism that is so common in European thinking and behavior (5) and spends seven chapters asking why Europeans are like this (6-12), spending a great deal of time looking at the catastrophes of World War I and II that crippled European colonial power as well as self-confidence.  The author looks at the influence of defeatist intellectuals as well as corrupt political leaders (especially in France) on the inability of European nations to deal with their own historical sins and face up to their situation.  Of particular interest and humor is when the author notes that dividing up nations by ethnicity only meant that nation-states were afflicted by new minority problems, which can be seen in other parts of the world like the Near East.  Finally, the author concludes with a look at the consequences of European weakness and folly (13).

What would it take for Europe to revive in a form that is likely to please anyone?  While it is possible that continued European weakness could lead to the search for scapegoats and the rise of right-wing groups, as happened during the interwar period, it is also possible that an insecure bureaucracy could lead to oppression through socialistic means by seeking to provide people with security in the face of an insecure world.  Both fear and loss could trigger Europe to see a way out of its weakness through projecting more strength than it in fact possesses.  It is hard to see a way that European cultures can become more dynamic without coming to terms with their own past and changing their values and indeed engaging in some sort of revival with ideas of progress and ultimate truth that are more than simply material in nature.  The author, wisely, does not attempt to predict what will happen, given the difficulties of that task, but he does a good job at explaining what has happened to Europe to bring it to the point where it now is, and he reminds Americans that we are not that far behind if we continue to suffer from the same malaise that afflicts our left.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

A look at thinking in Europe. Hits on all sorts of topics. Demographic fallacies. Greek problems with debt -- reflected on a few years ago. the decline of religion. The effects of World War I (including that the "disillusionment" took some time after the war to hit) and World War II. Colonies and their loss. And more.

[Nolan · Rating 4 out of 5]

With a bit of a rambling-man habit and a gracious helping of Romance-language maxims, this book is not an especially easy read in spite of its small page count, but certainly an entertaining one. I went in expecting to morally disagree with the author based on the title and cover binding alone; ended up very shortly surprised; found myself nodding in admittance of a few faults of my own; and thoroughly enjoying the change of pace Dalrymple's expressive multilingual style and verbosity provided to someone who has been on a recent warpath of reading translated North Korean biographies.

I only hold off on the five star rating because while I enjoyed the read thoroughly and it has piqued my interest in the author's work as a whole, I did find the sheer number of footnotes, the frequency of non-English vocabulary which does in a handful of instances feel too far from English understanding to intuit, and the waxing-oratory format by which information was presented to be detractors enough to not want to quite call this one a masterpiece. In a better world - on a better platform than Goodreads - I'd give this a 4.5. Maybe I'll chew on it and give it a 5 in favor of underscoring the book as worth one's time to read on this site, and perhaps I'll also come to appreciate the author's style with future reading and decide that my perceived issues were less the author's and his editor's problems, and more of my own. What a concept!

An admittedly lazy statement, but the book leaves one with a lot to think about. A far, far more even-handed analysis than I would have expected from the title, which no doubt has done some discredit to the author's merit, although its potentially incendiary appearance at first glance to shelf-browsers and webpage-scrollers may have done more than enough going the other way.

[cool breeze · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theodore Dalrymple is a marvelous essayist, but he is at his best when he allows his mind to wander freely onto whatever topic catches his interest. Thus, his best books are collections of essays on various and diverse topics, typically collected from his periodic online and print essays over time.

As he himself put it in Farewell Fear,

“Whenever it is imperatively necessary for me to read a book pursuant to something I am currently writing about, I immediately lose interest in it… and then I want to read about something else entirely.

Often I read more than one book at a time. When I tire of one I fly to another. My mind is magpie-like, attracted by what shines for a moment”

This book is different. Although structured as short essays, clearly Dalrymple forced himself to sit down and write a collection of essays on a common theme. It is still very good, but not as good as his best work.

[Inert1 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dalrymple is what the world needs more of, a smart guy willing to tell it like he thinks it is. He provides a richly textured diagnosis/lamentation about the state of Europe, asking--and sometimes answering--pointed questions that many people shy away from, while maintaining a fundamentally optimistic outlook about the feasibility of positive change.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theodora Dalrymple is one of the most interesting writers at this moment in our cultures story. All of his books are worth reading.

This one will serve as a useful pre-read for the referendum on the year to take place in June 2016.

[John Reis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was written in 2010. Dalrymple discusses the decline of European culture and civilization. He talks about anxiety and weakness.

In chapter 2 he discusses demographic woes.

In chapter 3 he focuses on Muslims. How their demographics are so very much different than the natives in European countries. He talks about the treatment of Muslim women in European countries and how it is ignored by leftist agitators and activists who fight for Muslim causes.

Chapter 5 is a very interesting chapter on relativism both in ethics and knowledge. He spends a little time on Thomas Kuhn. Then he changes to the subject of choice and how it has become the most important value in the west.

In chapter 6, he points out we are a herd of individuals. He also talks about the decline of religion in the west. The greatest effect being we are left with the individualism that Christianity gave us but no longer have any humility that came to us from our belief in the existence of God.

Consumerism is not transcendent.

“Just as Leninists knew what was good for the proletariat, thereby conferring on themselves a gratifyingly providential role, so the environmentalists now know what is good for humanity and likewise confer on themselves a providential role.“

He finishes chapter 6 by discussing the nature of national identity and how it has been encouraged to promote the European project in Europe but as a counter example he discusses what happened in Africa during colonial times and after. The arbitrary borders the colonists had imposed on the continent were kept when the colonists left or were forced out.

In chapter 7 he discusses the fact that we have more than one identity. We may have a national identity but we also have an occupational one. But that is limited. After all, Soviet brotherhood was never very successful. So we are left with the notion that national identity leads to war. I am not as concerned about this as perhaps he or others might be. As I see it globalization is a very great threat to liberty. And the only real bulwark against it is national identity. Active trade with other countries can limit aggression.

He spends the next several chapters discussing how various countries in Europe have very blemished historical records.

In chapter 12, he discusses the motivations of modern politicians and historians. He points out one: bitterness at the loss of European power and significance in the world at the end of the second world war.

Two, “limitless guilt being a form of grandiosity, the past commission of great crimes is a consolation for those who have lost power. In other words, we are still important.” But this is quite an about face. “That is why we can go almost seamlessly from believing that everything we have done and do is the best, that we are civilized in the world, to the believe that we have ruined the world and that everything that is bad and it is ultimately traceable to us.“ Page 142.

Three, “a miserablist history is a very useful instrument in securing if not a social revolution then at least a change or expansion of elites.” The country must’ve been led at that time by the wrong people. “Bureaucracies must be created to write the wrongs of the past, the very bureaucracies that absorb the newly educated thousands and millions.“

The author spends the last couple of pages talking about the differences and similarities between the situation in Europe and the situation in America. He thinks that the situation in America quite possibly is a little bit better than that found in Europe. Plenty of Americans are still religious. America was founded on a philosophy intentionally and not accidentally is in the case of the countries of Europe. He does worry about the culture war as he sees it in 2010 when this book was written.

[bartosz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The New Vichy Syndrome by Theodore Dalrymple is a book dedicated to exploring the various ills infecting Europe.

While there are many good things to be said about Europe, such as life expectancy and wealth, there is an impeding sense of doom when contrasting European cities to Beijing or Dubai. No technological breakthrough seems to be in sight to keep up with the cheap labor of China or India and Europe is dependent on foreign energy and resources.

The European man no longer wishes to have children. Combined with a raising life expectancy this introduces worries about sustainability and unvoiced fears about immigration as a potential solution. The author dismisses both problems as not insurmountable: societies adapt, and while some cultures might not be compatible with ours, mostly immigrants integrate well into European life.

Instead, he argues, the real problem of Europe is the culture that demands luxury and safety without sacrificing anything, and appeases the worst barbarities of foreign cultures (e.g how the issue of a cartoon depicting Mohammed was treated in Holland). Paradoxically, in a continent rapidly shifting its demographics, youth culture predominates while the needs and values of elders are ignored.

Dalrymple describes the root causes of this malaise of values: moral relativism which dissolves the inherent bounds placed on personal conduct, and the lack of transcendent meaning needed to live a good, purposeful life. Instead, life is lived to experience as many things as possible, without commitment because commitment implies denying oneself of future options, while at the same time escalating the quantity and quality of experience. Loss of religion inflated man's sense of self without giving him any humility.

The author argues that for civilization to thrive it needs to be both open to innovation but not blind to its own achievements, so that its best parts are preserved. Europeans are anxious about their own history while at the same time viewing it in a smug, shallow and self-deprecating manner in the form of historical miserablism - European history is NOTHING BUT bloodshed and war.

I love Theodore Dalrymple. He writes with a style and clarity that I aspire to have one day. While the New Vichy syndrome exemplifies his style, I found the book to be weak in terms of coherence. The arguments that the author presents in each chapter are well thought-out and some were terrifyingly insightful. But I did not find an underlying theme or a big thought connecting the logic. Nevertheless, I would be amiss not to recommend it to anyone interested in Europe's future, its culture, and values.

[Melissa Riley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dalrymple is one of my favorite authors, but I didn’t enjoy this read overall. It feels like scattered thoughts in need of an editor. There were some good points, and I learned a few things, but it was a stilted read. It referred to specific events and people in France that I didn’t understand, which also hampered my reading.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theodore Dalrymple is a super interesting author, even if you don't happen to agree with him all the time. This series of essays is Dalrymple at his best, with a sober and levelheaded analysis of the current European (and Western) maladies.

[George Eraclides · Rating 4 out of 5]

A critique of Europe in decline into the morass of post-modernity (a prevailing theme in TD's writing - and don't mention Le Corbusier!) and cultural self loathing. Clear and astute writing. Insightful.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

About the creation of the EU and intellectual arrogance. Not as good as his normal social commentary.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deep, subtle analysis of the European psyche by a psychiatrist. The author is highly opinionated, and his opinions mostly match my own; I liked them and the way he expressed them.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Europe was the center of the world of art, science, finance, manufacturing, culture, and military power, with colonies across the globe. Well before the end of the 20th century, the colonies had become independent and it was clear that the U.S. had taken over the leadership in nearly all areas, with consequent wounds to Europeans' self-regard and self-confidence, and a good bit of national sovereignty had been surrendered in an effort to create the European Union and thus prevent future great wars.

I learned quite a bit about the 20th century, especially the two great wars, both factually and from the European point of view. Dalrymple is British, his wife French. He does a good job of admitting his own biases, and tries to be as objective as possible.

[Kbord · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw this on the "new" shelf at the library and picked it up.

This book should be subtitled "Why Europeans deprecate themselves."

It is a judgmental book that explains the European psyche and how it got there (especial attention is paid go World Wars I and II leading to a total peace/total war mindset with no middle-ground spectrum).

It was a very interesting read, but major points are docked for assuming too much previous knowledge about world or European history, and also for using too many uncommon French phrases without explanations (usually that's a problem with Latin phrases, not French). So, I give it a 3.

Also, "miserabilism" is defined in a footnote on page 154. There are 155 pages. Who would wait until the second-to-last page to define a major theme of the book? (Perhaps it was explained at first mention, I don't remember.)

[Jade Cahoon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but my edition badly needed a better editor.

[Tika · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You might say of Europe that it had lost its purpose, and not found any to replace it."

[Janice McMillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting take on Europe

Interesting but I would have like to know more about European culture and how it has changed. This just touched at it.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting analysis of the would be" United States of Europe."

[Doug J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it. The author is English so the prose is a bit different than this side of the Atlantic, but still readable.

[Suleiman Yussuf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ideas have consequences . What surfaces now as a norms starts as a very innocent idea, usually thought out and supported by group of intellectuals.