This is from Lotus Eaters (which is always a step above when Sargon takes the chair). Important point made here. I always argued that the awfulness that liberal Ireland detested wasn't from traditional practice, but from the way it was used by a cohort in the exercise of petty prejudice. Those people who were so awful in previous times have now migrated to a new hypersensitive condescension that is even more ludicrous and subject to superficial scrupulosity than ever before. The "Liberal Agenda" was, of course, also an ignorant snobbery in and of itself, as well as a justification for swinging - just take Fintan O'Toole, and the magnitude of gobdawery he routinely practices.
As for the Galtonism, I disagree - the critical factor for
social condition is the exercise of virtue and vice, it is not primarily decided by wealth, which itself can be a blessing or a curse. Always thought the breeding argument was
an effort to retain privileges by those who found themselves with them but didn't deserve them. Recall how the Irish were an inferior race? We always knew that was rubbish but sure
didn't they have their airs and graces to hide their crimes. The truth of the matter is that the engine of human degeneracy is habit, not genes. We now have a parody of moral leadership which has had profound consequences to the health of everyone in society.
Here's a link to
the 2007 Persuasion (a wonderful film about the only sort of woman worth the effort), and of a much different class to the latest Netflix effort by all accounts. There has been so much vandalism in the current mania for remakes - a resentment to the superior gift in portraying the sense and sensibility of human relations in the past perhaps. I post the link to the full film principally for Myles, someday your prince will come old girl.