Roda Viva Internacional | Theodore Dalrymple | 29/12/2016

[Music] Magical Pikat. Fore speech. Anthony Daniel. [Music] Nelson Asher journalist Maril Mauricio journalist Vager Paulo, Theodor, Brazil. Anthony Daniels, Theodor Daro. there aren't really any differences. Uh the reason I have two uh identities is because uh when I was working I had to disguise a little what I was writing about. So I don't feel that I'm I'm not like uh the three faces of Eve, you know, the multiple personality. I don't have that. So actually I don't really think there's any um any real difference between the two. Uh, you mean that they have informed on one another? Is that what you mean? They they they denounce Well, I think yes, I think uh in a way to complain of that is to complain about human nature because I think that happens everywhere and if there's an advantage to be had uh from uh uh from denouncing colleagues, people do it. I mean we we saw it in France, we saw it in Germany during the war and people are uh want to save their skins. So uh I mean it's not very beautiful to observe but I'm afraid it's profoundly human Dr. Daniels. Virginia Wolf. Well, V I think Virginia Wolf was a very interesting uh figure because she she was in many ways extremely privileged. And in my article, I wrote a book that was called Three Guineies. And uh she managed to make herself appear as if she was more unfortunate than uh unemployed miners in the 1930s, which is an extraordinary thing to claim. and only someone who isn't fundamentally interested in other people could possibly make such a claim. Uh it it's absurd. Um self-pity of course is is a a very strong um uh emotion and there's no one who is so lacking in comp so lacking in compassion that he doesn't feel sorry for himself. Um and uh she start she was one of the first people I think to to manage to make her herself uh into a victim. I mean victim status is uh very important now. And so we have this extraordinary um situation in which people who are really the most um privileged people, most fortunate people who've ever lived managed to make themselves into victims. Um but being a victim has or feeling yourself a victim has certain compensations. It puts the blame elsewhere. uh it makes you feel superior to the world um and so on. Resentment is a very powerful emotion. It's one of the only emotions actually that lasts. All other emotions uh disappear but emotion but resentment can continue uh for the whole of a lifetime. There [Music] was administr Well, partly ly because people don't challenge uh the role of victim. I mean I saw it for example in uh to take another example. I don't want to talk about uh about your former government because I don't really know much about it. But uh but uh there are advantages always psychological advantages and sometimes uh of course uh economic advantages to claiming uh to be a victim. And unfortunately we don't really challenge that. In my work in a poor part of England, um I I tried to challenge people who claimed to be victims and often they were victims. I mean they were really they were very badly treated. They had been very badly treated but they were not only victims and to concentrate on their victimhood was actually to enclose them in the world that they were already in. So to take a very graphic example, I saw hundreds and hundreds of women who had been very badly treated uh by their men. I mean to a degree that I would hardly have believed was possible. Um and they would present themselves as victims. And of course they were victims. They were genuinely injured and they were very badly treated. But when you actually examined how they had got into this situation, it was clear that they had, if you like, cooperated with it uh and had failed to learn anything from it because they often went from one situation to into another situation without thought uh and into exactly the same in in exactly the same circumstances. So I thought it was necessary while I of course I sympathized with them being victims uh I thought it was very necessary for them to understand that they weren't just victims and they should understand what part they had played in in um in reaching the situation they had reached. Mm. M uh yes well of course I've uh I went uh I I wrote a book about the peripheral communist countries and I I went to um to North Korea which is a kind of reductio and absurdum of tyranny. I mean it's hard to imagine a tyranny greater than that. And of course I don't I don't want to say that everyone is totally responsible all the time and that there are no mitigating circumstances uh uh that uh that help to mitigate someone's culpability. But in the vast majority of circumstances people do have some choice as to whether to behave badly or not. If that were not the case, then of course everywhere would be like North Korea, but everywhere isn't like North Korea. And it's precisely because North Korea is a country where you feel that actually people are never left alone to make a choice of their own uh that you feel you don't blame the North Korean uh people. But there is a there's a if you like there might be a continuum but there's always a choice. There's always a choice or almost always a choice and it's necessary to emphasize that choice. If you don't emphasize that choice, people then feel passive. They just feel themselves to be objects. Brexit, journalist, economist, professor, scared to end the scene. election. Uh well I think that like in England like in many other countries there's a a feeling that uh the political elite has formed itself into a a class or even a cast uh which is completely separate from the rest of the population. Uh and also that happens also with the intellectual league. It's not quite true that there were no journalists and no professors who uh were not in favor of leaving because I know quite a few actually. My idea Yeah. the majority. Yes. But of course there would be a majority. There has to be a majority one way or the other. Um uh and uh one thing that's very interest I think is interesting people said well the young people uh voted to remain and they were very very upset when uh when the results the unexpected results were announced. Well, that's what I was going to say. The we don't actually know what young people felt because the majority of them uh didn't uh vote and so they presumably didn't feel that strongly uh one way or the other. One assumes because it's fairly easy to vote in England. I voted. Yes, I voted to leave. Why? Um because I think that the I voted for political reasons. because I think uh the uh European Union is a uh a political uh project which will of course uh reinforce this very uh this very tendency to have a small uh cast a small elite which is separate from uh from the rest of the population. I mean you only have to go to Brussels or Strasborg to see people who obviously have not bought their own lunch for 40 years. So, you know, and have never seen anything except from the back of an official car. And there's no possible way I of of um of the European Union being even minimally democratic, having any control, any check and balance to its power. And in fact, from the very first, this is what was intended by the founders. They didn't think that the population actually should have any say because they knew better. And we can see that in in um in when we have um uh referenda in other countries, the result is always against what the political elite wants and the political elite takes absolutely no notice of it. And in fact, there was a a funny cartoon in um in uh Lef Figuro, the the French newspaper, and it said it had two Frenchmen looking across the channel, and they and they're completely different over there. they they take notice of the election results and although it looks very much as if uh now I don't know whether you saw today uh the court in in England has ruled that uh it's up to parliament which is strictly speaking correct actually the parliament and and the parliament uh is mainly in favor of remaining for example Brexit. Uh yes. Well, the uh the the the young who voted for uh the um to remain were actually part of part of the population that expects to benefit from our highly corporatist state. So they will either be they will be in the elite. They themselves expect to be in the elite and they will be in the elite. And that's why I think they're in favor of schemes uh to to favor that elite. Yes. Well, they they claim to be concerned about uh uh the the future, but in fact, if you look at Greece, for example, what future do the young people of Greece have? 50% of them are unemployed. In Spain, it's 45%. In Italy, it's 25%. Uh Spain, Spain is is 45% I think something like that. Um but that doesn't seem to worry them. and it it doesn't worry them because they are not going to be amongst the 45% who are unemployed. I remember when if I if I can change slightly the the the subject after the riots in um in France in 2005, I predicted, it's the only good prediction I've ever really made. I predicted that if the government tried to liberalize the French labor markets, there would be riots on the bulas. And that's exactly what happened because the interests of the the well-off young people uh who have access to the bulge are directly opposed to those of the people in the Borneo. Foreigne [Music] Well, that has of course been raised as a possibility that uh if things came to a head particularly in France of course is is the country in which most people think that's a possibility. Um uh yes that's that is a possibility that has been raised. I don't think it's very likely. Uh but one has to remember that the the French are very ruthless. Uh I don't know whether you remember during the um during the Algerian war they killed 200 about 200 we think uh Algerians and threw them in the sand in the in the par in Paris. Um and it was interesting during the 2005 riots. Not a single rier went into the center of any French town because the CRS, that's the security forces, uh were waiting for them. And the head of the security forces said at the time, he said, and this is very sinister, he said, "The worse it gets, the more serene we are." So, uh, he was confident, of course, that they that at that time they could they could keep the lid on what was going on and they did. I I was astonished. I was in a town called Kmad's very nice town in uh in Alzas and I was eating in a very uh nice restaurant and about 800 yards away they were 800 meters away uh there were riots going on and the cars were being burnt and and so on but everyone in the restaurant was completely confident that it wouldn't uh that it wouldn't affect them. Now, of course, if that changes, if the balance of forces changes, then there could be uh much more trouble. But I I'm not that pessimistic at all. Shadows. Well, I certainly think there's a big problem of meaning and particularly in Europe. If you think of the possible sources of meaning in people's lives, one is the struggle for existence. Um, you know, if you struggle for existence, you don't worry much about the about meaning. Uh, but we don't have any struggle for existence. I once asked a Dutch person, how could you starve to death in Holland? And you couldn't unless you rejected all assistance. So, it's impossible. There's no struggle for existence. So that's that's out. Religion in of course is one possible source and the greatest possible source of meaning. Uh but religion in my country and certainly in France is more or less dead and there's no it's a very very irreligious country and France is actually an anti-religious country. The English are too lazy to be anti-religious. They're just not religious. The French are actually anti-religious. Um, so that's out. Uh, one possible source of meaning is um is politics and whatever you say about Marxism, it did provide people with a transcendental meaning and purpose. They thought that they were taking part in something bigger than themselves and they were taking part in something bigger than themselves. Unfortunately, I think that it was something very bad, but nevertheless, it did give meaning. uh then there's culture uh uh participating in or contributing to culture but we see a very strange phenomenon in in our countries and that is that there has been a I think almost deliberate uh cutting off of people from a any sense of continu continuation of a culture and I it's not as bad in France as in Britain but it is but it it it is happening in France France as well as Britain. So what is left? There's not much that's left. I mean the the the pro- Europeans try to make the European project as they call it. They never tell you what it actually is. They they try to make this a a source of meaning, but it but it is no source of meaning. So I agree that the the lack of meaning is a very serious problem for uh for um for modern man. Another one of course another source of of um of meaning is patriotism. Uh but uh the idea of patriotism in Europe is now uh shunned uh because it's equated uh with the worst excesses that we all know about Theodor Daro. [Music] Theodor Daring. sentiment [Music] Um well, it's related to capital sins. I would say it's uh related to pride. Uh it's related to hatred. Uh uh resentment gives you a pride that you are um I mean we've all felt resentment. I'm sure everyone who I I doubt that anyone has never felt resentment. I felt it for quite a long time myself until I realized. Yes. out by that. Yes. Well, it can it can it can be like that. Um, and it, as I said, it's related to anger because resentful people are angry uh a lot of the time and uh they're envious as well. Uh envy is a powerful source of resentment. So, while resentment isn't actually any of the seven deadly sins, it's clearly related to some of them. Mais Dennis, Conrad, William Shakespeare. there. I think they're different enterprises. So, uh, one expects uh, at least in the human sciences certain corners to be illuminated, but they're not in my view for metaphysical reasons. And this the sciences are never giving going to give us the answers to human existence. And I don't really think that psychiatry is very scientific. Actually, it's pseudocientific. Much of it is pseudocientific. For example, the um uh the uh diagnostic and statistical manual of the American Psychiatric Association, there's just been a fifth edition. um is uh shall we say not very scientific and I don't know whether you know but if you add up all the add up all the prevalences of the diseases uh or the disorders that they uh that they uh that they describe um uh the average person has two and a half such diseases a year um which is very good for business of course but it's I don't think it's science so I don't think psychiatry is only partly science uh and I I think that the neurosciences have been oversold as um as uh the answer to human problems and human existence. Of course there are problems that they will that they will solve. I mean, there are remarkable advances in the treatment of Parkinson's disease, but I don't see how you can put someone in a uh in a scan of any kind and find out what the purpose of life is. It doesn't make any sense to me. And of course, Shakespeare doesn't tell you what the purpose of life is, but he tells you uh a great deal about uh human life, much more than any psychiatric textbook. for economic was sentiment. I I think it does. Of course, some inequality would be the direct consequence of the most obvious injustice. I mean, there is such a thing as uh unjust inequality. I mean if you think of South Africa for example where people were prevented from doing well just for uh biological reasons if you like completely arbitrarily and so on and and were maltreated on that basis uh you could say in that sense they were justifiably resentful although of course even that produced bad consequences. for example in South Africa that children didn't go to school for a generation and that has had disastrous consequences both for them and South Africa. So going to school even in a in bad circumstances is better than not going to school. Um so I wouldn't like to say that there's no uh inequality that is unjust. Um but obviously uh there's no better way of stirring up uh resentment than to point to inequalities. Well, I think that that talking about whether it's uh your body is not the right way to talk about it. Um I'm not totally against abortion. On the other hand, I don't think that abortion should just be uh as it is claimed to be uh the same as removing shall we say a blemish in the skin and that's how it that's how when you talk about it as a right it becomes so and Yes. No, I I I I think it should be available legally. However, what what we had in England uh it was about 1967 or 8 that it was made legal and uh parliament at that time made a law in which abortion was available under certain circumstances such as threat to the woman's um uh well-being or particularly health or well-being and that was soon used uh to have abortion on demand. people would start saying, you know, if I uh if I can't go on holiday because I'm vomiting, because I'm pregnant, then that is a threat to my well-being. And also, of course, it's statistically a fact that any abortion is safer than any pregnancy. So, you could always argue that. Uh, and that's why I think uh uh it's more than just a legal question, but I'm I'm I'm certainly not in favor of back what we call in English backstreet abortions where women go to uh to somebody who has a coat hanger, which is what used to happen. I'm not in favor of that. Uh on the other hand, I don't like the idea that abortion is just the same as any other operation because it means that there's an attitude that human life has nothing special about it. Brazil. Um, well, I have visited a couple of prisons, but I think they were in Brazil the last time I was here, but I think they were modern model prisons, and I'm not sure that they were typical of prisons as a whole. I disagree with the idea that prison is a kind of hospital for criminals. Mhm. because that means that what you're in fact saying is that they are ill and it's the wrong measure. The purpose of prison in my belief, whether it achieves it or not, the purpose of prison is fundamentally the reduction in crime in the population and the protection of the rest of the population. And CS Lewis actually wrote a uh a very good essay. I don't know whether it's been published in Portuguese. In a few in a few um pages, he explains why the humanitarian theory of punishment is actually very cruel. Um and is compatible actually with the most ridiculous leniency and the most revoling cruelty. Because if your if your theory is that punishment should be effective, then that places no limits on what you can do to people. You could cut off people's hands. That would be very effective. Mhm. Uh but in any case, I think there's a fundamental error in thinking that prisons are there to reform people. It's very good if they do. I have no objection to it, but that is not their purpose. Well, my own experience I mean it's both personal experience and I try to look at statistics so that for example in Britain and I don't know that it would be the same in Brazil but I would suspect that it is the same. The fact is that most criminals stop being criminal at the age of between 35 and 39. So that in a sense they reform themselves. Uh they don't go on being criminal. Now it might be different in Brazil. I I don't know the the situation in Brazil but in Britain that is the case. There's also the the case in Britain that um that most criminals as I used to speak to them quite frankly and they would speak I think frankly most criminals had done between five and 20 times as much as they had ever been accused of doing. They would tell you all the things that they had done. Mhm. And if you put these two things, these two things together, then actually it would in Britain and I, you know, Brazil might be very different, uh, it would be an argument for longer prison sentences rather than shorter ones. And actually, I think that would probably in the end reduce the number of prisoners rather than increase the number of prisoners because often it's the same people. Uh, it's like a revolving door. They come out, they commit another crime. It's a very good scheme of employment for lawyers. Incidentally, Uh well, it's always been used. Um it's not a very beautiful, as I said, it's not a very beautiful site to see people denouncing one another. Uh I suppose it's almost inevitable that that we use such a a system. is uh well uh no I don't think it it shouldn't increase the penalties of others but in practice uh if you if you if you want people to inform and and I I'm afraid I think that's uh part of life um then you have to give them some incentive to inform. I mean if you if you punish the informer as much as the person he's informing against even if he's as guilty then why should he why should he give any information. Mhm. August. Yes, I I think that's uh that's reasonable. I mean uh yes I mean why should anyone if you didn't have uh uh any um informing then how would anyone know view but but but it is a but it's a pretty it's still a horrible thing actually when you meet when you meet people who have informed and you have to you have to be I mean it's a very dangerous thing uh uh that kind of informing So in England for example, we uh the last government um sorry the government before the last uh wanted people to inform on those people who were receiving social security and working at the same time of whom of course there were large numbers. And I I found that not that I'm in favor of people cheating the social security system, but I found the idea of neighbors informing on the police uh informing on their informing on their neighbors and then receiving some kind of reward that that's horrible. It's just disgusting. American. France frequent both people. Well, I think the if you're talking about Germany receiving a million refugees, there's a particular situation in Germany, a historical situation uh which they have been uh if you like trying to overcome unsuccessfully for the last 70 years. And this was an opportunity for them to be better than everyone else. Um, and oddly enough, the Swedes are the same. But very quickly it changed in Sweden so that there's now actually a border between which I never thought would come about between Sweden and Denmark. is that you actually have to present your identity now between Sweden and Denmark or rather Denmark and Sweden. Um because the refugees were going to Sweden because they got higher social security in Sweden than they got in Denmark. Um so uh but I think this is a particular historical situation and I think of course that it it's not going to continue. I mean I don't think Mrs. Merkel will take another million uh refugees in a hurry. And the argument there were various kinds of arguments that she did it because uh Germany needs Germany's population is declining. So they need they actually need workers. They need immigrants. But why do they not take the unemployed in Spain or Greece? Um and that why not recruit there? I don't think that's the reason. I think the reason is that the Germans took so many refugees is that they still feel this tremendous uh guilt and we're trying to demonstrate that they are not as they were uh before. Well, one of the problems is that we won't actually uh enforce the international agreements and the international agreements as I understand it. I'm not an expert on this um subject is that a refugee should take should claim refuge in the first first safe country in which he arrives. He has no right to say I want to go to Sweden because it's better than Denmark or I want to go to Denmark because it's better than Germany or and so on and so forth. He has no right in international law. But we don't have any will to enforce that. So you see in Calala now there's a lot of pressure on Britain to take people from Calala. There's absolutely no reason why Britain legally speaking should take these the people in Calala. Um, I have to say that I face both ways because my mother was one of the refugees in uh in England and she arrived in England in uh January 1939 just in time and she never saw her parents again. They went to China and they as you said they were trying to to go everywhere. I recently saw the letters that they were writing. They were trying to go to Hayiti. I didn't know that there was a Haishian embassy in Nazi Germany, but there was. And they tried to go to Hayiti, they tried to go to Colombia, they tried to go to the Dominican Republic, they tried everywhere. And eventually they were allowed to go uh to China, to Shanghai. Well, uh, if you're saying that, for example, Britain and France should have intervened sooner in Nazi Germany. Well, maybe, but they didn't. And, and intervention there would have been a much easier thing than intervention in Syria or the Middle East. I mean, we we have no idea really what we should do. We have no idea. And I don't think our I don't think our interventions so far have been a a resounding success. [Music] My menus. Uh well, I don't want to say that there was ever a golden age because uh uh if you take all the countries of Europe, you can see that uh uh very few of them were actually stable or without terrible histories. So it's not true that uh uh there was a time when Europe was a shining beacon for the rest of the world politically because I don't think that that is actually true. And I think the cat the catastrophe the first the real catastrophe I think was the first world war and that destroyed European comp self-confidence um which of course could only get worse after the second world war um the threat if you like to our civilization if that's what it is and I don't think we're I don't I don't want to be too apoc apocalyptic um comes from within. It doesn't come from without. I we it it it's a lack of confidence within. Yes. Yes. Well, I think that that they are the agents, if you want to call it, the agents of sabotage, but uh it's not, you see, that their arguments are totally implausible because there really have been the most terrible catastrophes in Europe. The first world war was such a catastrophe. Second world war, you have only to look at how countries behaved in the second world war uh to see that there really is a lot to be ashamed of. which is terrible. The problem is that that is brought forward as if it were the only thing in European history and of course you European history is both terrible but also very glorious. So its achievements are immense and it's the concentration on the catastrophe that uh that produces this lack of confidence and everything else is taken for granted. The achievements are taken for granted. we don't think of them. I I'm sure if I were to ask many British school children, even um intelligent and reasonably well educated ones, to name some British achievements, they wouldn't be able to, but they would be able to tell you all about uh the darker sides of our history. forodor [Music] Theodor. Um well because man is a thinking being uh thinking feeling uh being and uh how can I say I thought that uh the condition of people in in poor areas relatively poor areas in Britain was actually um more pitiable in a way than that that I saw in Africa. They had less they had less pride. They had less self-respect. They had no self-respect actually. Well, certainly it's um how can I say the welfare state is a necessary condition of that state of the soul. Whether it's a sufficient one, I doubt because there are uh welfare states which are less bad than Britain's. So as I said it's a it's a necessary condition but it's not quite sufficient. I think there has to be a kind of ideological change as well. And I could see it for example in the attitudes of my older patients who were genuinely grateful for the assistance that they received from the state because they could remember a time when life was much harder. But it gradually changed and uh so that things that were once received as a benefit were now received as a right. So people are grateful for benefits but they're not uh grateful for what they receive as a right which and it's a cause of resentment actually because what they receive is never as much as they would like to receive. Um and there was a very interesting semantic um change in the way people received their money, how they described receiving their money. Now I don't know whether how easy it is to translate it into Portuguese but when I started people would say that they would receive their check from social security. uh that was in about 1970s and at that stage people could still remember uh much greater hardship. Nowadays people in the same situation say I get paid on on Friday and what they're being paid for is existing. That is that is their work. Existing is their work. Whereas before they just said they received the them the money which was a neutral a neutral phrase a neutral way of putting it. Um well, of course, it partly depends on what you call socialism, but you only have to go to uh um um you only have to go to or could could have gone to communist countries to see that it doesn't work and the reason it doesn't work is that it requires central control of of life and this is impossible and we can see in Venezuela the people in the the government in Venezuela could produce a shortage of salt water in the Pacific and that is socialism. Now, of course, there are degrees of it. So, um it's not uh it's a bold totalitarian or or or completely free market and there's nothing in between. Uh but that is the the uh the reason. And if you look at Britain for example, take Britain, take our educational system, we spend $100,000 a year on every child's education. And 20% of them uh come out uh virtually illiterate or only semiiterate, hardly able to read, not able to do any mathematics at all, certainly no foreign language. And you think, how is this possible? How can you spend $100,000 a year and have children coming out of school probably knowing less than when they went in at the age of five? And this is this is fairly typical of a centralized bureaucratic governmentont controlled um organization. from Jose Mart. necess forch. Well, I like you, I feel both ways in this. I'm not a defender of poverty. I don't I don't want to live in poverty myself. I I don't particularly want to be enormously rich, but I certainly don't want to be poor. And I in my own life, um I've I've ended up neither poor nor very rich, and I certainly wouldn't want to be poor. And I don't want to underestimate the horrors of real poverty. Um, and I can only say in my own case, um, I don't strive to make as much money as I possibly can. There are the things that, uh, interest me much more and seem much more important to me. Um, the one of the problems I suppose we have a very crude materialism. Uh in Britain for example, I used to have pu uh parents coming to me to ask me why their children were so horrible. Um they say, you know, doctor, why is my little Johnny why is he horrible? And I ask them questions and they say, why is he so horrible when we do everything for him? And I say, what do you mean by doing everything for him? And what they mean is providing him with latest tennis shoes and other actual rubbish really. I mean things of no value whatever in any other in any normal sense. So we h we have skewed values. There's no I think there's no doubt about that. I've known people I've known um a case of murder over over the brand of tennis shoes. Um, so that's a it's a very strange thing, but that's probably because there's nothing else. There's no there's no culture, there's no there's no cultural continuum, there's no pride in the country. Uh there's no political project, there's no religion. And so I think Happy Well, there's a loss of sense of hierarchy in of value as well as social hierarchy. So my father was born in a very poor area of London and the education he received in this very poor area of London was probably better than that of 99.9% of children today and the his teachers to whom he was always grateful never took the view that he's a poor man so he can't be expected to uh learn Latin or appreciate science or or art. They never took that attitude and they thought that by opening his eyes to that. I mean he he told told me how they would take it's true it was a kind of elite of children the top children but they would devote their spare time to taking children to museums and and there's very little sense of that now because the idea that one thing is higher than another has disappeared uh from uh not only well especially in our intellectual class who are actually all playing Marian Twuinette because you know Marian Twuinette played G shepherdess well they don't really like their own children to not to have any sense of hierarchy but they will propound the theory that there is no higher and lower and and unfortunately it it affects everyone now Um, yes, it's it's to read my books. group. I think it is true. Um uh there is a left-wing journalist in uh in um England who writes for the Guardian called Polytoinby who um is not one of my favorite journalists. But she did say uh that if she has to choose between her feminism and her multiculturalism, she chooses her feminism. So she will protect uh or or argue for the protection of Muslim women but it actually goes quite far in our administration. So that for example I used to have lots of patients lots of young Muslim patients who had been denied access to school by their um parents and the authorities never never once in my experience did anything about it. But if a white workingclass girl didn't go to school, the parents might be threatened with uh legal action and even imprisonment. And um I think a considerable part of it is now fear, just straightforward physical fear. Um but also I think the intellectuals are always on the lookout for an opportunity to demonstrate their the broadness of their sympathies. Um and of course it's does a lot of Civiliz actually there have been a very large number of um of uh doctor writers. There's been a very large number of doctor writers in English and in England and other countries. Yes. And um so I don't think that's and it's not surprising because um medicine is a very good training actually for a writer because you are involved a doctor is involved in the most intimate details of a patient's life but at the same time he has a kind of objectivity to it. So he's both involved and observing at the same time which is a very good combination if you want to if you want to write. Um I don't know whether that answers your question. Oh my case. Yes. My case. Oh well I always wanted to write. Yes. I mean um I had that desire from an early age and I thought I would write [Music] [Music] [Music] Yes. Scoundrel. Yeah, Dr. Johnson. Well, it's it's obvious that a very inflamed patriotism which claims that uh your own country is the only good country and all other countries are terrible countries and everything uh good in the world came from your country is bad. I mean that's it's obvious. But to love the place that you were born, to love your own culture is surely a condition of contributing to that culture. So it's a it's a necessary thing. But it doesn't mean to say that you that you should be completely blinkered about the bad aspects of your uh country. And I I call myself a patriot, but I've criticized my country very strongly because um I care about it. and feel that it ought to be better. Um, but it's not that I I I deny the greatness of other countries. I think it's almost possible to be a patriot of more than one country actually. So, [Music] Yes. Yes. Yes. We are I feel very resentful in um well I I I was very interested in the level of violence in between men and women in uh the area in which I lived and um uh and also women were becoming more violent as well actually. So I used to see every year in one little bit of the hospital I used to see 400 women a year who had been beaten and 400 men a year who had beaten the uh women. So I I saw it all together. Now I thought that the level of violence had increased and I had a reason for thinking that which I can't explain now but but one of the reasons why this level of violence had increased was that there were no institutional there was no institutional structure to the relationship between men and women. So for example, in my hospital, it was almost unknown for a child to be born who would go home to a household where there was a man and a woman. And if there was a man, it almost certainly wouldn't be the father of the child. And the problem I I don't have any um it's not that I have a a terrific uh revulsion against that but in practice if you have instability of relation you call it promiscuity and the man and the woman also want exclusive sexual possession of someone. It arouses ferocious jealousy. So uh ferocious jealousy was much more common than it had been. If you if you read psychiatric books from years ago, jealousy would there was there was something about jealousy but not a lot. But now it was extremely important because the men assumed that every other man and it wasn't just violence to women. It was violence in the society because the man took every other man as a rival. as a predator because he had been a predator. And his violence towards the woman was actually rational in a certain kind of a way because what he would do is he would be extremely violent to her and she would spend the whole of her mental life trying to find out what provoked him to be violent. And of course there wasn't anything. It was the whole situation that provoked his violence. There wasn't anything in particular. In fact, his violence had to be arbitrary in order to be effective. There had to be nothing that she could do to prevent it. Now, in the end, she usually did leave him. Now this became a mass phenomenon in in Britain and it's much less of of course of a phenomenon amongst highly educated well-off uh people who I mean of course there is violence at every level but there's much less violence and that's both because there were there was u more uh uh more restraint and so on, but also because uh the possession of the woman by the man was not quite as important because he had other things. So actually in the higher social class the fact that there were powerful women who were doing extremely well uh was no problem. It was at the lower end of the spectrum or that that I'm talking about Britain. And I don't know whether it has any application in Brazil where things have obviously [Music] This is uh well uh we don't discuss it, we practice it. Um I I I think the same thing would be true. I have no objection to free love in itself if uh you don't demand fidelity of others but it doesn't go very well free love doesn't go very well with the demand that you want fidelity that's the problem and actually it just seems to be the case that most people do want the fidelity of their partner and uh far from oppressing uh women actually marriage I think protects s them. But uh if you say how do you uh how do you promote the family? It's a bit like asking how do you make eggs out of an omelette? Once you've got this situation, it's rather difficult to see how you can go back. I mean there are things one could do. In Britain for example, we have u made uh marriage of marriage has no economic advantage whatsoever and in some circumstances for some people actually has disadvantages economic disadvantages for people stay not only marriage but for people to stay together. There are economic disadvantages. Well, this is mad and you could change that but no one has the courage to do that. Zimbabwe, African Uh well, what I saw there was of course poverty on a completely different scale from anything I had known before. And in fact, on one occasion I traveled uh across Africa by public transport, which is not very easy to do. And it took me about six months and I received nothing but kindness and I saw that people were very polite. Now I'm not going to say that Africa is a kind of utopia where everyone behaves extremely well to one another. That's obviously not the case. But it did make me start to think that poverty is not the same as personal degradation because the people that I saw who were very poor were not personally uh degraded. Uh and they were often extremely kind. They had beautiful manners. Tanzania was one of the most um one of the poorest countries in the world. And the people are the most beautifully mannered of any country I have ever been to. never never would you uh find rudeness there. So of course that changes your attitude or change my attitude I should say. Uh I began to see that poverty is not just a question or should I say bad behavior is not just a question of uh not having enough money. These people were really poor but had many admirable qualities. Yes. Uh, well, I'm not sure I have the solution. uh I if you take just the question I I'm quite interested in um the visual arts and there you can see the degeneration has gone very far. I recently went to uh the uh exhibition of the the uh the um students who were had graduated from the Eldar in Paris which was the most prestigious art school in France and it was the most astonishing rubbish. I mean it was Yes, that that's true. But unfortunately, that very small uh um proportion of people controls art schools and controls quite a lot of the museums as well and makes people feel guilty for for for criticizing as if they don't understand. Um and um so well I don't Yes. I mean I don't want to sound like a populist and say uh that which the most people wants is the best because I don't believe that either. Uh but uh I don't think uh unfortunately we have a very small elite. No doubt there was always a small elite. Uh but it was an elite with taste and the problem is that uh uh we have an elite without uh taste really and um and how you change. Yes. Yes. It's it it's almost ide what would you say militant bad days. It's not it's ideological and militant. Um so for to give you an example I I had a few patients who were art students and um I remember one um girl they all complained that they were not taught how to draw for example but that is almost unknown now in art schools. I had an art uh student who came to me and said he had been to three art schools, important one, big ones, uh in an attempt to find someone who would teach him to draw better. And he didn't find it. This is an art school which are really like kindergartens now. They do the kind of things I I was asked to do when I was about five. Um, but anyway, I asked the this art student what she liked and she liked art history and I said, "Well, what what uh what are they teaching you in art history?" And she said, "Well, we're doing um what's his name? Uh the pop artist, uh I've forgotten his name now. Likensstein." Likenstein. Exactly. Yes. And that's what they're teaching them. So art began in 1960 and so they're completely cut off from uh from what went before. Mauricio Brazil. Brilliant. Foreign [Music] [Music]