On reading "Straw Dogs" by John Gray

I’ve not yet finished this book and I am also half way through Nicholas Stern’s “ A Blueprint for a Better Planet”, Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”,  Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” and ”Britain on the Couch”  by Oliver James. I’ve also just finished re-reading Dawkins’ “The Selfish Gene”.

Before “Straw Dogs” if asked why I am reading these books I would have said “To understand why humans behave the way they do.” I saw this as some kind of seeking after truth. Gray makes it clear that a search for truth is just another form of faith. “Darwinian theory tells us that an interest in truth is not needed for survival or reproduction. More often it is a disadvantage.”

Gray’s book attacks just about every pre-conceived notion that we humans have contrived. He attempts to sweep away all our illusions, all the fanciful ideas that our overgrown brains construct to make our lives more comfortable. There is no purpose to our existence, we cannot teach ourselves to live better, there is no good and no evil, no morals, no justice, no ethics, no afterlife. Happiness is irrelevant. Even our consciousness has very little control over our lives which are mostly lived exactly as animals live, by reflex.

I’m not sure that I “believe” all of this; it’s a lot to take on, but I can accept the main thrust of what he is saying, and that leads me to attempt a more precise definition of what I hope to achieve. What I am doing is trying to find some sort of consistency in what is going on around us. It was easy enough to find consistency if some external agency – e.g. God  – was deciding what went on. It was all “God’s Will”, and there are many people now who are adamant that the world is indeed shaped by God’s Will – my sister-in-law is one of them. It seems to me that the accumulation of scientific knowledge (that is the mechanisms of the physical universe) has led to an increasing understanding of the flaws in the creation theory, and the rejection of the traditional idea of God. Evolution is a far more consistent way of explaining life on earth, and as yet no scientific research has found a better one. I have enormous admiration for the way Darwin insisted on examining in detail every aspect of the living world which he had access to, even when his understanding of what he observed came into painful conflict with his Christian beliefs.

John Gray is professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics. I’ve always been aware of the influence that philosophers have had on the course of history. The ideas of Plato, Sophocles, Kant, Machiavelli, Marx and the rest have had direct affects on the lives of millions.  Yet, have they really helped in this quest for the consistent?  It seems to me that philosophy has been so concerned with patterns of thought that it has neglected the way the natural world actually functions. Although he is an academic philosopher, what Gray is saying is that we don’t need thought. Life goes on perfectly well without all this philosophising.  

In our Western material culture the world seems full of contradictions, many of them neatly summed up by Gray: “It is no accident that the crusade against drugs is led today by a country wedded to the pursuit of happiness – The United States - (which is engaged in) a puritan war on pleasure”. That same country has one of the highest rates of church attendance in the western world and by far the biggest pornography industry.

One of our most cherished beliefs is in the sanctity of human life yet we deliberately kill each other in ever greater numbers. Everywhere it is obvious that the explosive growth of the human population is devastating the planet, yet we will not tolerate any deliberate policy to reduce those numbers.

I’ve been trading books and ideas with my friend Andy Brice recently, and he puts it like this: “...governments and almost everyone else in positions of power (are) still talking about the need for economic growth, only a few small voices in the dark are expressing the need for radical change and everyone else, i.e. the great majority of the population is doing 'business as usual' and chatting about when they are getting their phone upgrade.”

My reply was: “..or you could take the view that we should upgrade now for tomorrow we die”

I think this is a reasonable attitude to what we see around us. Why not take advantage of the fantastic technology available to us?  It won’t be available for much longer. Once it becomes obvious that the life we are leading is not sustainable, and once you look clearly at the implications of that, then the future looks very bleak indeed. Nicholas Stern, also a professor at the LSE, advisor to governments, and co-incidentally an old friend, makes a strong argument from the position of the liberal/left establishment. He is an economist so he has to believe that government policy can reverse the process of destruction. He puts his faith in intelligent people in positions of power being willing and able to negotiate international agreements which will control human rapacity. Those of us who think it is now too late for that are a small minority, but our numbers are growing rapidly, and I am convinced that one day those in power will see the full extent of the mistakes they are still making. By then the best we can hope for would be an apology, but by then a very large number of us will have ceased to exist and the great and exciting challenge for those who remain will be to live lives that are truly sustainable.

It might seem odd that I derive comfort from the thought that our descendents might be able to create a more sustainable society. I shall be dead; even my children will probably be dead. Why should I care? This is one of the strange and wonderful things about us humans – we do care very much about what happens to our species.

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