About book Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion And The Death Of Utopia (2007)
Another bracing foray by the maverick John Gray; this time essentially to critically examine the international politics of the last few decades or so. No one escapes his acerbic writing, and as he writes it, none of them should!Gray's main thesis is that the horrors and stupidities perpetrated by the powers that be are all tinged with the grievous error of Apocalytic Religions which posit some kind of Utopia which they believe is achievable on earth through the implementation of military force if necessary. Such a Utopian view actually results in more misery then before, and the desired goal seems forever unachievable. For Gray, this stain can be directly attributed to the particular type of Apocalyptic vision created and developed by Christianity, and he argues that many if not all leaders of the West are tainted by that stain. He even argues that idealistic ideas about society developed more scientifically by the thinkers associated with the period of the Enlightenment are also subconsciously perpetuating the same fallacy.What's great about this approach is that Gray is simply unafraid to tread on people's intellectual toes; and this is a perfect text for giving our more cherished ideals a good shaking over.It is only in the concluding parts of this book that, unfortunately Gray seems to succumb to a kind of post-modernist kind of confused 'answer' to the dilemma he describes — and not that post-modernists are also often enough the target of Gray's attacks (how post-modernist can you get?!) Gray asks us to become 'realists', and by that he seems to argue that, politically speaking, someone like Machiavelli would be a good role model... On a more general note, he argues that certain Daoist attitudes are acceptable realism (I presume that here he means to refer to the earlier Philosophical Daoism, not the later Religious version with its Immortals and other types of gods...). Yet despite attacking religion, he also argues for an acceptance of them and an acceptance of their diversity as somehow coexisting and benefitting humanity through their acknowledgement of 'mystery'.I happen to believe with Hitchens that religion poisons everything. I think that this is a realistic truth (in Gray's sense), and that arguing that it will be impossible to eliminate it from what and who we are does not diminish that truth. But to argue that we should all accept the varieties of religions equally, and that they should be allowed to co-exist harmoniously together is, in my opinion, an even more iniquitous position to hold. It is naive to think that religions can accept this. By their very definitions, they each stand for their 'absolute truth'; to acknowledge any other religion as equal would be considered an abomination. Even if it were possible for a time to coexist happily for a time, eventually the forces within each religious group will press the issue or what laws should be followed, what customs should prevail, what languages, what moral codes, etc. etc. We will soon again be at each others throats. And here we return to Gray's original thesis: we are all prone to being violent, cruel and sadistic. In a sense, I don't think Gray has gone far enough. Sure, we all want the 'best', however we define it; but to blame wanting the best on some kind of Apocalyptic vision is surely only part of the problem. An earlier 'error' on which this is based is the Persian Dualism of Zoroastrianism — the mistaken notion that 'good' and 'evil' are separate and distinct ways of being created by different gods. And even further back, another even more basic 'error' is Animism, the belief that things have 'souls'. Maybe the real reality should start from there: there are no Spirits. If we can all accept that, then perhaps we can develop other alternative narratives to the miseries religions all seem to condemn Mankind with.In the meantime, Gray's work here is a good 'cleansing' station for at least some of the problems we suffer today.
Picking up where he left off in his genuinely iconoclastic book Straw Dogs, John Gray turns his attention to the ineluctably human penchant for utopia and apocalyptic fantasy. His style here is less abrasive but no less bracing. A British commentator recently wrote of Gray, "He is so out of the box it is easy to forget there was ever any box" - which fairly describes the intellectual jolt he'll deliver to readers dulled by boxy thinking.The previous reviewer has done a decent job of describing the argument, but any summary misses the electricity that hums in Gray's sentences. Gray's unsparing synopsis of the neo-conservative fantasy that led to the debacle in Iraq will have patriotic Americans grinding their teeth in fury at the waste of American and Iraqi lives and the betrayal of American ideals. He also lambasts liberals who delude themselves about "inalienable" human rights, and minces no words about born-again Christians who've sanctioned and supported the torture and carnage – which leads him to a grim conclusion: "Liberals have come to believe that human freedom can be secured by constitutional guarantees. They have failed to grasp the Hobbesian truth ... that constitutions change with regimes. A regime shift has occurred in the US, which now stands somewhere between the law-governed state it was during most of its history and a species of illiberal democracy. The US has undergone this change not as a result of its corrosion by relativism ... but through the capture of government by fundamentalism. If the American regime as it has been known in the past ceases to exist, it will be a result of the power of faith." (pp. 168-169)Gray is explicit about the folly of religious myths, but he accepts that "the mass of humankind will never be able to do without them," just as he dismisses "militant atheism" as a "by-product of Christianity," mocking its pretensions at evading the conundrums of theology. He's equally clear on the ineradicable future of terrorism. "Nothing is more human than the readiness to kill and die in order to secure a meaning in life." (p. 186) Following the bleak logic of these observations to their conclusion, he can only advocate a clear-eyed realism about the nature of human being - which he confesses may in turn be a self-deceiving hope: "a shift to realism may be a utopian ideal."As I read Black Mass, I couldn't help recalling the work of William Pfaff, who as a political analyst practices the realism Gray recommends, and whose fine study The Bullet's Song examines the "redemptive utopian violence" as it was envisioned by a rogue's gallery of 20th century artist-intellectuals. Neither of these books are comfortable reading; neither offer a panacea - because (as Gray puts it) "there are moral dilemmas, some of which occur fairly regularly, for which there is no solution."Black Mass – despite its silly title – is one of the most stimulating books I read in 2007.
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Political Science and Philosophy. A hard read but a good read. It changed the way I view what is happening in Iraq and Syria and Iran and the USA and Israel and Afghanistan and in Australia. I am neither a philosopher nor a political scientist. Words like teleology and Positivism lost me because I did not have the background. It did not matter. The idea that the religious Christian West "is / is not" the root of all evil. And yet religion is good. The idea that acceptance of difference of religion, government, basic concepts of human rights is the most logical solution. The idea that given our nature war and death, are inevitable. All these are presented in a body of evidence that his credible if shambolic. Not everyone's cup of tea.
—Michael O'Donnell
A singularly unsettling offering from John Gray, upsetter of apple-carts and disturber of conventional wisdom par excellence. In Black Mass he continues his assault upon Progressivism, this time concentrating on the pernicious effect of Western European monotheism - having infected philosophy and, subsequently, Enlightenment thought and science - on modern political and societal institutions, soaking the latter in eschatological and utopian myths and illusions and being ultimately responsible for the savage violence and sheer destructiveness that have followed in the wake of twentieth-century modernity.Gray provides extremely thought-provoking interpretations and analysis of the surge-and-dominance of neo-conservative doctrines, putting forth his evidence for Tony Blair as a convert, tacking to the natural position left open after Margaret Thatcher's ideological and political "victories" created an inviting void in British politics. Fundamentalist Islam is dissected to reveal the flush strains of modernity - the same utopian dreams of the victory of (islamic) good - that lie at its core, underneath the medieval trappings projected to the rest of the world. Of particular interest is the middle chapter on the misguided beliefs, after the end of the Cold War, that there might have arisen an "End of History", and the subsequent exportation of global capitalism and liberal democracy - replete with fervent missionaries to spread the holy word - which, despite its seeming secularity, is really just a mutation of Protestant Christianity into a liberal version called humanism. The liturgy and forms of worship have changed - indeed, God has found Himself superseded by regnant Mankind - but the belief in History with a Purpose, of humanity constantly improving in every aspect - and improvable to perfection - remains.Gray has written a thoughtful and persuasive book, in direct, engaging, and clutter-free prose that moves briskly from one position to the next. The Anchor-Canada edition that I read had enough typos to set my teeth on edge - it may be ridiculous how much a poorly-proofed book riles me, but that's just the way it is - and the title itself is actually quite misleading as to what the contents contain, but these are small irritants. Black Mass is that best of political/philosophical works: one that leaves the reader pondering and debating its theories and themes long after the final page has been reached.
—Szplug
Gray explores the history of religion in politics across recorded human history and how each has been a tool of the other in various attempts to produce a utopian society, free of the trappings of the human condition. Of course, this is just delusion, and he demonstrates clearly that such efforts always result in social disaster. He spends quite a lot of time exploring American involvement in the Middle East, particularly the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, since this is a prime example of exactly this phenomenon in recent history, and it will have international aftereffects in the foreseeable future. The title is an allusion to the naive practice of forcing both political and religious beliefs on societies that, although done with good intentions, all too often produces a result which is the opposite of what was wanted. It is sometimes a little over-academic, but on the whole, this book is a fascinating read on philosophy, politics, and religion, and how they travel hand-in-hand in our supposedly enlightened twenty-first century.
—James Perkins
