Theodore Dalrymple

Global Warning | 28 June 2008

Theodore Dalrymple delivers a Global Warning

issue 28 June 2008

No doubt a Martian arriving on earth for the first time would perceive little difference between an inhabitant of Great Britain and an inhabitant of New Britain (off the coast of New Guinea), except perhaps that the former showed a greater propensity than the latter to get drunk and scream in public. Similarity and difference are what G.E. Moore would have called non-natural qualities, and are in the eye of the beholder: as a woman was overheard to remark in a Dublin bus, now that the Emerald Isle has become an El Dorado, ‘Russians, Nigerians, Chinese, they all look the same to me.’  

It was Freud who remarked on the narcissism of small differences: but what, exactly, are small differences? As I travel between Britain and France, I notice a lot of differences, but whether they are large or small I cannot say with any certainty.  

On the other hand, I see a lot of similarities when I read the newspapers.

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