In this perceptive and witty book, Theodore Dalrymple unmasks the hidden sentimentality that is suffocating public life.

Under the multiple guises of raising children well, caring for the underprivileged, assisting the less able and doing good generally, we are achieving quite the opposite—for the single purpose of feeling good about ourselves. Dalrymple takes the reader on both an entertaining and at times shocking journey through our culture and shows the perverse results when we abandon logic in favor of the cult of feeling.