User:Jprw/Spoilt Rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality
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Spoilt Rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality is a polemical 2010 work by the British writer and retired prison doctor and psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple. The book attempts to reveal how, in the author's view, sentimentality is becoming culturally entrenched and is having a harmful affect on British society. Dalrymple explores a range of social, educational, political, media and literary issues—including falling standards in education, the Make Poverty History campaign, the death of Princess Diana, the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, and the work and life of poet Sylvia Plath—to illustrate what he views as the danger of abandoning logic in favour of sentimentality, which he describes in the book's introduction as "the progenitor, the godparent, the midwife of brutality".[1] Much of Dalrymple's analysis in the book is underpinned by his experience of working with criminals and the mentally ill.
Author | Theodore Dalrymple |
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Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Subject | Sentimentality, Cultural studies, Media manipulation |
Genre | Cultural studies, polemics |
Publisher | Gibson Square Books Ltd |
Publication date | 29 July 2010 |
Pages | 256 |
ISBN | 1906142610 |
In July 2010 in two separate articles the author used themes explored in the book to analyse high profile cases in the British media involving Raoul Moat[2] and Jon Venables.[3]