It is a consequence of the evolutionary success of an exceptionally rapacious primate. Here are eight of my favorite passages: * * * * * The destruction of the natural world is not the result of global capitalism, industrialisation, 'Western civilisation' or any flaw in human institutions. There is much in this book to ponder, much to which a thoughtful reader may return, again and again. If we cease to believe in progress, to yearn for utopia, we may save ourselves from continual disappointment if we cease to believe in a unitary self in command of fictive choices, we may more easily immerse ourselves-as the Daoist and Zen Buddhist do-in the successive ebb and flow of time, the "lucid dream" which constitutes humankind’s richest simulacrum of reality.Īlthough Gray’s laconic style lacks Cioran’s witty ironies and Ligotti’s deadpan humor, he makes up for it with his wide-ranging scholarship and the concentrated power of his thought. Gray argues that there is no real evidence for any of these commonly accepted beliefs: human consciousness is fitful, free will illusory, progress a fiction (history is cyclical, not forward-looking), and ”utopia”-given the contrary nature of man-will be (at best) the occasional result of autocratic, repressive regimes.Īlthough Gray’s book challenges our comfortable assumptions, it also offers its own severe form of consolation. In ridding itself of theistic illusions, Gray believes, secular humanism didn’t go nearly far enough.įor Gray, Utopianism is a variant of the Kingdom of God, progress a non-theistic version of salvation history, the exaltation of human consciousness and the celebration of free will little more than the vestiges of a repressed belief in the integrity and persistence of the immortal soul. The atheist Gray, who rejects the assumptions of Christianity, here targets the contemporary consensus of humanism. Ballard, Will Self, and Jim Crace is congruent with your assumptions, congenial with your attitudes then John Gray’s Straw Dogs may be the book for you. ![]() If you are an agnostic with few illusions who seeks the consolations of philosophy if you are fortified by Ligotti’s bleak analysis ( A Conspiracy Against the Human Race) and sustained by Cioran’s grim maxims ( A Short History of Decay) if the fiction of J.G. ![]() Straw Dogs is an exhilarating, sometimes disturbing book that leads the reader to question their deepest beliefs. Drawing his inspiration from art, poetry, and the frontiers of science as well as philosophy itself, John Gray presents a post-humanist view of the world and of human life. Straw Dogs explores philosophical issues such as the nature of the self, free will, morality, progress and the value of truth. ![]() The aim of Straw Dogs is to explore how the world and human life look once humanism has been finally abandoned. John Gray argues that this humanist belief is an illusion. Even in the present day, despite Darwin's discoveries, nearly all schools of thought take as their starting point the belief that humans are radically different from other animals. Philosophies such as liberalism and Marxism think of humankind as a species whose destiny is to transcend natural limits and conquer the Earth. ![]() From Plato to Christianity, from the Enlightenment to Nietzsche, the Western tradition has been based on arrogant and erroneous beliefs about human beings and their place in the world. Straw Dogs is a work of philosophy, which sets out to challenge our most cherished assumptions about what it means to be human.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |