by: F.R. Duplantier

British physician Theodore Dalrymple tells the story of an angry young Englishman who had a spat with his girlfriend in a bar, whereupon he "punched her to the ground, and kicked her so viciously that he left her head and stomach covered in bruises." This display of barbarism occurred just two months after his acquittal for "an assault on his previous girlfriend, the mother of his two-year-old child."

Writing in the current issue of City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, Dalrymple concedes that such uncouth behavior is characteristic of "English underclass life: the easily inflamed ego, the quick loss of temper, the violence, the scattering of illegitimate children. . . . But the young Englishman was not a member of the underclass," he points out, "nor was the woman he assaulted. His salary alone was $1.25 million a year, and she was a well-known weather-girl-turned-talk-show-host."

Dalrymple reveals that the assailant was "a famous professional soccer player." He emphasizes that, "in the past, [soccer players] who managed to escape their lowly origins usually aspired to be taken for bona fide members of the middle or upper classes by conforming their conduct to middle-class standards." But no more. Dalrymple laments that, "in modern Britain, the direction of cultural aspiration has reversed: for the first time in history, it is the middle and upper classes that aspire to be taken for their social inferiors, an aspiration that (in their opinion) necessitates misconduct."

Dalrymple believes that "the coarseness of spirit and behavior grows out of ideas brewed up in the academy and among intellectuals -- ideas that have seeped outward and are now having their practical effect on the rest of society. The relativism that has ruled the academy for many years has now come to rule the mind of the population," he argues. "The British middle class has bought the multiculti cant that, where culture is concerned, there is only difference, not better or worse. As a practical matter," Dalrymple explains, "that means that there is nothing to choose between good manners and bad, refinement and crudity, discernment and lack of discernment, subtlety and grossness, charm and boorishness." And that, he concludes, is why "the British have become such total and shameless vulgarians."

We have our own vulgarians in the colonies, of course: enormously overcompensated, dimwitted, and glowering hulks who expectorate on game officials, strangulate coaches, and chew face parts off of their antagonists. They ravish innocent women, assault their consorts, and (in at least one notable case) murder ex-wives with impunity. Americans, by and large, wink at their barbarism. The more outrageous incidents may generate a round of howls, but the disapprobation runs its course as quickly as a "wave" in the stadium stands.

We didn't have such glaring problems when we kept close watch on the nuances: grooming, dress, deportment, all the little things that make ladies ladies and gentlemen gentlemen. How quaint such terms seem now! How nice it would be to give them currency again!