WHAT is Wrong with Us? is the provocative title of a new collection of essays in ‘cultural pathology’, co-edited by Farnham-based author Eric Coombes, and the social commentator and retired psychiatrist, Theodore Dalrymple.

The 14 essays address a diverse range of cultural topics, including architecture, the visual arts, the rise of celebrity culture, social policy and political discourse, the universities and religion.

Eric Coombes told The Herald: “This book is not, of course, specifically about Farnham; but it is concerned with a ubiquitous cultural climate in which the sources of Farnham’s discontents flourish.

“We are governed, locally as nationally, by a party that calls itself ‘Conservative’, but seems undistinguishable from other parties by any commitment to conserve the social and cultural capital of our inheritance—the destruction of which will destroy us.

“Our governing classes esteem nothing for what it is in itself, but only for such alleged instrumental benefits as supposedly promote the enlargement of GDP.

“Our culture is understood not as the meaning-soaked environment of words, sounds, images, actions, and surroundings in which we live and think - a culture which we have a duty to sustain, criticise, revise and, if possible, enhance - but as a kind of nation-wide department store whose sole purpose is to maximise financial profit.

“I have subtitled my introduction ‘The Disutility of Utilitarianism’. The discussion and decision-making of public affairs have become dominated by a crass, simple-minded utilitarianism that rejects judgements of non-instrumental value as meaningless, thereby pretending to exclude them.

“But despite the current demonisation of ‘judgementalism’, such judgements are in the end inescapable. Utilitarianism, therefore, is ultimately self-defeating.

“It promotes short-termism, because, when nothing is valued for what it is in itself, no principled objection can prevail against the destruction of what stands in the way of some new project, some novelty favoured by transient obsessions and often by predators seeking financial gain. There is then no long term, only a summation of short terms.

“This climate of thought - or of thought evaded - has been developing for a long time. The consequences of its earlier manifestations are still visible in the vandalisation of East Street and South Street.

“Like other places, Farnham is today menaced by predatory developers exploiting the situation created by a bullying central government determined to impose yet more building in what is already the most overcrowded area in Europe, far in excess of any local housing need.

“This has the supposed utility of stimulating the economy and, for the Tories, the actual utility of pleasing its financial supporters in big business. Utilitarianism is especially treacherous when invoked by the powerful: utility for whom or what?

“For Farnham itself, in the case of the Brightwells scheme, as claimed by councillors obeying the Tory whip? Hardly. In reality, utility for the coffers of WBC, at the expense of Farnham.

“Utility for Crest Nicholson, of course! And, perhaps most of all, utility for those councillors whose vanity is invested in their obstinate perseverance with a discredited scheme.”