John Gray - Philosopher. What do you think?

[ussusimiel]

I saw John Gray in coversation at the Dublin Book Festival recently and I found him and his positions very interesting. I'm listening to him on youtube talking about his books (Straw Dogs, Black Mass, Gray's Anatomy etc.) and atheism. I don't agree with everything he has to say but he does hold positions that I have tried to articulate in the past (so I'll be drawing on his erudition in the future ).

Has anybody read him, and if so, what do you think?

u.

[ussusimiel]

I'm going to try and summarise some of John Gray's central philosophical positions to give people who maybe don't know him a sense of him (mostly from Wiki).

• Gray is a critic of Progress and he believes that history is cyclical rather than linear.
  
  Human nature, he argues, is an inherent obstacle to cumulative ethical or political progress. Seeming improvements, if there are any, can very easily be reversed: one example he has cited has been the use of torture by the United States against terrorist suspects.
  
  He argues that this belief in Progress is derived from an erroneous Christian notion of humans as morally autonomous beings categorically different from other animals.
  
  He identifies the Enlightenment as the point at which the Christian doctrine of salvation was taken over by secular idealism and became a political religion with universal emancipation as its aim. Communism, fascism and ‘global democratic capitalism’ are characterised by Gray as Enlightenment 'projects' which have led to needless suffering, in Gray’s view, as a result of their ideological allegiance to this religion.
  
  Gray uses the term 'agonistic liberalism' as an overall description of his position. He uses this phrase to describe his support for both value pluralism and liberalism.
  
  Agonistic liberalism can be any kind of liberalism which claims that its own value commitments do not form a complete vision of politics and society, and that one instead needs to look for an "uneasy equilibrium" between competing values.
  
  Agonistic liberalism holds that over time solutions may be found that determines which values are correct.
  
  Agonistic liberalism is the theory that conflict rather than discussion is the basis of social change.*

Again, while I don't agree with all the positions that Gray holds, I find some of them very accurate to how my own thinking has evolved and changed over the years. I am particularly interested in the idea of an 'uneasy equilibrium' which I find similar to the need to become comfortable with the uncertainty that, for me, is a characteristic of contemporary life.

u.

*If this is true it would explain why the 'Tank is so fractious; it's bursting with social change!

[Orlion]

My rebuttal to Gray:

[ussusimiel]

Not sure that I get it, but it's funny anyway!



u.

[Orlion]

Not sure that I get it, but it's funny anyway!



u.

His assumption that history is "cyclical" and therefore, no progress can be made is erroneous. We can visit the "same problem" over and over in different forms, but as we resolve these problems, we can also spiral upwards (likewise, we can go downwards as well). The fact that there are still immoral actions does not mean we are not more moral than an Indian killing, land stealing, slave owning society.

[Vraith]

Not sure that I get it, but it's funny anyway!



u.

I think I know what he means, and I think it's funny AND "true."
Although it only rebuts particular Gray areas.

[heh, I see he's posting now...basically what I thought. With the addition that it looks like a spring...an energy/power source to move up, a cushion when we crash.]

[ussusimiel]

His assumption that history is "cyclical" and therefore, no progress can be made is erroneous. We can visit the "same problem" over and over in different forms, but as we resolve these problems, we can also spiral upwards (likewise, we can go downwards as well). The fact that there are still immoral actions does not mean we are not more moral than an Indian killing, land stealing, slave owning society.

Gray has a couple of things to say in relation to this. One is that inherent in the idea of Progress is the idea that we never go backwards. The reason for this is that it is seen as analagous to scientific progress where once knowledge is gained it can never be lost again i.e. 'progress has been made'. (With torture in 'civilised' society this can be seen not to be the case.) So, the point is that Progress is categorically not the same as scientific or technological progress. (I'm not saying that you think that it is, Orlion, only that the narrative of Progress and some of the assumptions made about it do include this false analogy.)

The second thing is that while civilisations can progress, that progress can all be lost when the civilisation falls e.g. Rome, Greece etc. Gray's point is that while progress at the level of civilisation is possible it has no effect at the level of the individual. Unless a person is raised within a civilisation they have to start from scratch with regard to moral and ethical matters. It may be obvious in one way, but the implications for the idea of Progress are significant. (Many a dystopian novel has been written on this premise and I feel that I've read most of them )

u.