I am currently reading British Philosopher John Gray's - Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions.

I tend to be turned on by anything controversial, but throw religion into the mix, slide in a healthy dollop of political cynicism, whisk that into a dismissal for the entire concept of 'the human race' and my brainbox is just about ready to ignite with pleasure.

Where Gray's earlier tour de force, Straw Dogs, introduced me to his main theories, Heresies succeeds in fortifying them, readily providing a glimpse into the past few years of Grays political and philosophical writings. His style is extremely lucid, concise and self aware. I find it hard not to revel in his ideas.

His main tenets, as I understand them, include:

1. Humanism, and with it 'progressive liberalism', are born of Christian ideologies and as such reflect a religious-like faith rather than a rational materialism.
2. The belief maintained in science as humanity's tool of salvation is naive and, at base, a nonsense. Science can bring change, but progress is an illusion.
3. Free will, and thus morality, are also illusions.
4. Humans are animals driven by natural forces beyond our comprehension. Animals should not be understood as separately existing species, but merely as an ever evolving interplay of forces proceeding one another in rapid fashion. The idea that 'we' can control such nonexistent entities is therefore a farce.
5. Humanity is a rapacious species and a detriment to the planet Earth, Gaia.
6. History is a series of cycles ultimately leading to nowhere.

The liberation inherent in such interpretation is, for me, anything but cynical, yet I find myself at a pause when trying to fully grasp Gray's world view.

Much of the way we understand our reality is semantic. Language deals in symbols cast by culture. Whether this cultural influence is ancient, or whether it comes from a present political ideology is oftentimes irrelevant - the fact is that what we come to understand depends on the very components that make up understanding itself.

How is one to apply Gray's theories to a world which is composed of an utterly mirrored series of philosophies? The rhetoric of society is of the human, of the humane and humanity. In attempting to view this world through a Gray coloured lens am I destined to be forever mired by the irregularity of its appearance?

I'd love to know what you think about Gray's own ideologies. If you haven't read any Gray then take his Wikipedia entry as your starting point: the extended links contained therein will keep your reading list fresh for a while to come.

Is ignorance bliss after all?

History may have no meaning, it is often said, but 'we' can give it one. 'We' are not mankind, however, and the human animal is itself only a passing tremor in the life of the planet. The meaning believers in progress imagine they can impose on history is an expression of their own hopes and fears, and bound to be lost in the drift of time.

Fortunately, the Earth is larger and more enduring than anything produced by the human mind. For humans, the growth of knowledge means only history as usual - if on a rather larger scale of destruction. For the Earth, it is only a dream, soon to end in peace.

John Gray in his introduction to Heresies

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