Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals by John Gray

Mar 14, 2013 brian rated it 5 of 5 stars

1. although this does happen to crystallize and articulate much of what i believe, that's largely irrelevant. i recommend reading this wonderful nuthouse as the extended essay (read: rant) thomas bernhard never wrote. plus, it lays out the meaning of life and explains the secrets of the universe.*

2. a terrific antidote to the ubiquity of all that 'everything happens for a reason' nonsense.

3. makes me happy to imagine people who bought this wanting something else by the guy who wrote men are fro...more

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Dec 14, 2009 TD rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Vanity in pessimism.

It is not my customary practice to turn to the back of a book before commencing, but I did with this one to discover the final thirty pages comprising a chapter by chapter “further reading” list. It did not take long for admiration at evidence of scholarship to slide into incredulity, then disgust and finally a breed of dismal hilarity at what unfolds in the body of this book. Although I daren’t suggest Gray hasn’t read the works cited in his further reading list (this gestur...more

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Aug 21, 2009 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone. Anyone seeking questions and answers about mankind and life's meaning

Shelves: philosophy, science, own, favourite, ecology

Potentially life changing. I say potentially because this is not a book for someone who is scared of facing their fears and doubts about what they have believed about mankind and their life. For me, he has blown me away. I can't help jumping up and wanting to tell someone about so many particular sections that i read that are so striking. I will warn you though, be prepared to experience depression or despair if what he writes does speak to you deeply. I feel both liberated and utterly despairin...more

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Dec 21, 2012 Warwick rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy

This smallish book is one of the most depressing and pessimistic 200 pages I have read in a long time. John Gray has been getting darker and darker in his vision of the world and Straw Dogs finally brings him round to bleak nihilism.

The book has many virtues. It is written in an admirably simple and clear way, with thoughts broken down and laid out in Pascalian pensées, some of them only a sentence or two long. The content is never less than thought-provoking. In six broad chapters, he outlines...more This smallish book is one of the most depressing and pessimistic 200 pages I have read in a long time. John Gray has been getting darker and darker in his vision of the world and Straw Dogs finally brings him round to bleak nihilism.

The book has many virtues. It is written in an admirably simple and clear way, with thoughts broken down and laid out in Pascalian pensées, some of them only a sentence or two long. The content is never less than thought-provoking. In six broad chapters, he outlines his theory that humans are mere animals, that faith in science is no more rational than faith in religion, free will is a myth, progress an illusion, and morality "a sickness peculiar to humans". His vision of the future is one of wars which are "certain to be hugely destructive" and in which humans will probably die by the billion, ultimately to be replaced by machines. Not only is this inevitable, it is not even particularly undesirable: humans are "not obviously worth preserving".

It takes a kind of heroic cynicism to be quite so relentlessly negative, and that alone tells you that Gray must be overlooking quite a lot. But at any rate the book, though rather fascinating, is a mass of inconsistencies. On the one hand he spends a lot of time trying to demonstrate that humans should become less obsessed with action and more content with simply being. But on the other hand he insists that humans cannot change and any attempt to alter human nature is doomed to failure. Similarly, he bangs on about how pointless the concept of truth is – "the worship of truth is a Christian cult" – yet what is this book if not an attempt to put forward his own view of truth and overturn the "untruths" of others? If this book does not offer a kind of truth, it offers nothing.

His criticism of science is too extreme to be valuable. Gray views it as a kind of modern mystical religion, an object of faith every bit as irrational as its religious ancestors. This allows him to make some pretty silly statements:

Yet after all the work of Plato and Spinoza, Descartes and Bertrand Russell we have no more reason than other animals do for believing that the sun will rise tomorrow.

Call me a bluff old traditionalist, but I feel that Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and so on have given me a much firmer basis for that belief than simply past evidence. Gray's failure to recognise progress is perverse. Of course, people will always feel unhappy and will always suffer, but there can be no denying that modern civilisations have raised the general standard of living, demonised inequality, established systems of justice and law enforcement, produced great works of art, and so on and so forth. Gray, when he acknowledges such things at all, merely suggests that this is a blip which will soon be followed by more misery and extinction.

Yes, there is a danger in blind faith in progress or undue veneration of science. But all Gray has to offer as an alternative seems to be an even more unreliable amalgam of Eastern philosophy and Gaia theory. It's not enough. The apocalyptic romance of his vision is itself more akin to mysticism than rationality. And so the leaps in logic pile up. It is worth stressing (though hardly a new idea) that we are animals like any other species. But it takes some effort to go on to say that we are therefore in no way unusual in our accomplishments both good and bad. Similarly, Gray is right to show that morality breaks down in extreme circumstances. But he is wrong to conclude from this that it has no value.

Liberal humanism has had so many demonstrable benefits that any attack on it has to offer some comparable alternative. Straw Dogs sidesteps this competition by arguing that belief in progress or development is silly, and we should rather simply accept that we are ultimately heading for annihilation both personally and as a species. That may be so, but this book fails to prove that bleak resignation is the most appropriate response, either for personal happiness or for social stability.(less)

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Mar 06, 2008 Adrian rated it 5 of 5 stars

A savage kick in the face of a book, a white hot iron poked into your brain by someone who is not interested in appealing to any of our notions about Western culture or civilization. Or at least that's what it felt like to me when I first read it. The premise of the book is simple. Human life has no over arching purpose, no meaning, no happy ending and no salvation. Gray spends his time trying to prove this point and to liberate the reader from the anxieties that hoping and wanting for more out...more

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Sep 24, 2012 Josepha rated it 2 of 5 stars

Although interesting and complete this book had so many flaws.
- Opposition to Hegel's teleology and the goals of the enlightenment (The progress of mankind)
-That atheism is christian invention (He simply refers to it as post-christian)
-Replacing ethics with the mindnumbingly dumb views of Taoism and saying that morality is the disease of man
-The coming of mankind as a species IS the most important event in the history of the world since man has so radically altered and exploited it (extinct spec...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Bruce rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I remember the days when there weren't any reviews on goodreads... and so anything I had to say was of course very valuable! ;-) Nowadays thougthful people who write better than I do have covered the basic ground very well already, leaving nothing but the off kilter angles to me.

So I am going to compare this book to Rupert Sheldrake's The Science Delusion. Both authors do the very important and valuable work of demonstrating through their scholarship of the history of ideas that contemporary sci...more

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Jul 26, 2011 H Wesselius rated it 4 of 5 stars

Brilliant. A quick easy read since most of his premises agreed with me and echoed my own thoughts. He manages to successfully attack teleological thought, progress, modernism, post modernism, atheism, Judeo-Christian-Islamic thought, etc leaving you with an appreciation for an agnostic relaxed here and now enjoyment of the life we have. An equal opportunity critic he takes down both Plato, Paul, Augustine and Buddha, he manages to tear apart the foundations of western thought without embracing a...more

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May 14, 2013 Sacredfire rated it 1 of 5 stars

I came to this book with high expectations after hearing the premise and reading other reviews. Unfortunately, while the premise still interests me, I have hardly made any productive headway from reading this book. The most striking issue was the weakness of Gray's starting argument and mish mash of topics and opinions left me wondering what side he was actually on.
Another key issue is that although the book is doubtless very well researched there are many glaring issues with the scientific and...more

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Mar 20, 2013 Douglas Dalrymple rated it 2 of 5 stars

Both Plutarch in the Moralia and Montaigne in The Apology for Raymond Sebond argue rather convincingly that animals are more human than we imagine. John Gray, however, wants us to know that humans are no different from animals at all. These are two very different things to say. The first grants that certain traits we might have imagined belonged only on our side of the fence are actually present on both sides. The second claims that there is no fence and that you are the physical, intellectual a...more Both Plutarch in the Moralia and Montaigne in The Apology for Raymond Sebond argue rather convincingly that animals are more human than we imagine. John Gray, however, wants us to know that humans are no different from animals at all. These are two very different things to say. The first grants that certain traits we might have imagined belonged only on our side of the fence are actually present on both sides. The second claims that there is no fence and that you are the physical, intellectual and moral equivalent of a bacterium.

The sort of arch-materialist philosophy propounded by Gray is the same one popularized by Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins and their ilk. According to this view, your sense of self is illusion, your notion of what constitutes just or ethical behavior is imaginary, your every action is absolutely determined, and all that you think you know about reality – relying on common sense – is false. There’s a lot of buzz these days about Thomas Nagel’s attack on this arch-materialism in his recent book Mind and Cosmos, which I have not read, but Andrew Ferguson’s recent piece for The Weekly Standard gives a good summary.

Whatever your personal take on the issue, it’s hard to avoid the sense while reading Straw Dogs that Gray is slowly dismantling his own argument without quite realizing it. For example, after assuring us that there's nothing whatsoever to set human beings apart from other animals, he goes on in the course of the book to make at least three exceptions. He admits that human beings do, in fact, differ from animals in possessing a sense of selfhood (and hence an understanding of death), in the complex conflicts of their interests, and in their means of employing language.

I’m less sure of these particular points of divergence than Gray is, actually. I’ve personally known several animals with what seemed to be remarkable notions of their own selfhood – and I could trot out a half-dozen anecdotes suggesting that certain animals, at least, do have a notion of what death means for an individual. But in my opinion, despite the obvious fact of our shared animality, there comes a point - in the degree and use of intelligence, for example, or in the control of nature, or in the capacity for empathy, etc. - where even quantitative difference adds up, in effect, to qualitative difference. No bacterium will ever write a book arguing that bacteria are essentially equivalent to human beings. The fact that Mr Gray’s book exists seems to contradict its own premise.

All this strict determinism I find equally unconvincing. According to Gray, determinism extends into the realm of the intellect. There is no free play of mind. People are no more responsible for their perspectives or beliefs about things than they are culpable for their actions. If this is so, of course, then there’s no point arguing. There’s no point trying to convince someone to change his or her mind about anything, and Mr Gray himself can take no credit for his own quite accidental illumination. I insist that I can, nonetheless, choose to punch a stranger in the face or not. I can likewise choose to endorse Gray’s notion of determinism or not, and the choice I make will have consequences. It will inform my view of life, my interactions with others, my own behaviors and choices. If this is so - if I can make even small, inconsequential adjustments in my perspectives or ideas, and if these changes can change me - then strict determinism is false.

And yet dour John Gray steps down from the mountain and addresses the human animals that crowd non-volitionally around him: "You don't want to hear it, dear species,” he says, “but the sad truth is that no one – absolutely no one – got it right except for Schopenhauer, and of course me...." G.K. Chesterton in his 1933 biography of Thomas Aquinas writes of the John Grays of his own day: “No sceptics work sceptically; no fatalists work fatalistically; all without exception work on the principle that it is possible to assume what it is not possible to believe. No materialist who thinks his mind was made up for him, by mud and blood and heredity, has any hesitation in making up his mind.”(less)

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Oct 28, 2010 Gail rated it 4 of 5 stars

Secular humanism is Christianity in a tracksuit. That's the book in a nutshell. Admittedly, a small and not particularly satisfactory nutshell. But a nutshell nonetheless.

I recommend this to you, dear reader. Gray writes about a vast array of ideas - from science, theology, philosophy and psychology - and, with tremendous economy, unravels the myth perpetuated by thinkers from each discipline in our so-called liberal secular humanist era: that we humans are higher than animals, and that our fan...more

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Sep 08, 2010 Bob Nichols rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is filled with one challenge after another to accepted belief and philosophical wisdom. Gray comments that humanism, science and green thinkers are secular versions of Christianity's quest for salvation. Socratic philosophy is the origin of Shamanism, a belief in an unchanging, eternal world that supersedes our material world that is an illusion. Nietzsche's Superman was a "ridiculous figure" who tried to transform humans into something they are not. Does meditation, he asks, heighten...more This book is filled with one challenge after another to accepted belief and philosophical wisdom. Gray comments that humanism, science and green thinkers are secular versions of Christianity's quest for salvation. Socratic philosophy is the origin of Shamanism, a belief in an unchanging, eternal world that supersedes our material world that is an illusion. Nietzsche's Superman was a "ridiculous figure" who tried to transform humans into something they are not. Does meditation, he asks, heighten consciousness or bypass it? Genocide is just as human as art or prayer. Morality is a branch of fiction that should be tossed aside in favor of prudence, or how to live skillfully. Without Western monotheism, he says, we would be spared of religious wars. Polytheists are not missionaries. Christians hate the body because the body dies, and the soul becomes the vehicle for eternal life. From another writer, Gray quotes that "'Progress celebrates pyrrhic victories over nature.'" Today's consciousness he says is a byproduct of the media. And, he states, Descartes would have been nearer the truth if he had described himself as a machine.

Gray steps outside of the generally accepted Western paradigm that sees humans as special, as exceptions to nature. We are animals, he argues. Where we excel is in our knowledge that grows, but "the human animal will remain the same" and seek to survive just like all other life forms. That is the most powerful observation in his book. We typically equate our capacity for knowledge, which is our distinctive trait, with the power to transform ourselves into anything we want ourselves to be. Gray separates these concepts and reminds us that in spite of all of our knowing, we are still motivated for good or bad by the same animal nature that we have always had. Knowing evolves; our animal nature does not. We think knowledge controls our animal nature, but Gray believes our animal nature largely controls what we know and how we use what we know. If the reader accepts Gray's alternative paradigm, then most of this book will resonate.

Gray is not convincing in his argument that we have no core self. If we are animal, we have an animal self, and particular animals have particular animal selves. If we are to live, as he writes, "according to our natures," this implies some sort of core self. Gray calls the philosophical interest in equality a fad, but an argument could be made that our interest in equality is anchored in our very biology, reflecting, as is seen in the Golden Rule and its variations around the world, the balance between the organism and the environment and between self and other, that is the underlying rational principle necessary for there to be order (and survival for all).

While clearly biologically based, Gray does not develop his own alternative theory. It is more implied than explicitly stated. While the last third of the book seems to lose its force, Gray deserves much credit for sticking his thoughts "out there" and challenging us to seriously reflect whether we are more animal than human, and what that might mean about how we live our lives and how we ought to live our lives.
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Aug 30, 2010 Jon Stout rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fatalists and misanthropes

The irony is that I agree with John Gray on most of his large points, that we have reason for pessimism, that mankind will fail to handle some of the larger crises of our day such as population growth, that human history is replete with gratuitous savagery and violence in the name of religion and/or humanistic ideals, that we would do better to be aware of our animal natures, and so forth.

But there is something about the way he does it that turns me off. He wants to survey the history of ideas,...more The irony is that I agree with John Gray on most of his large points, that we have reason for pessimism, that mankind will fail to handle some of the larger crises of our day such as population growth, that human history is replete with gratuitous savagery and violence in the name of religion and/or humanistic ideals, that we would do better to be aware of our animal natures, and so forth.

But there is something about the way he does it that turns me off. He wants to survey the history of ideas, as well as every new age movement on the horizon, and say, “See where that got us? What’s the point of doing that?” He’s down on secular humanism as well as traditional religions, and he seems opposed to anyone who ever had an original thought in the history of philosophy. “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!” What’s the point of even trying? Better to be like the other animals and passively accept whatever comes our way.

He does have his favorites. He likes Taoism and Schopenhauer. But with most other thinkers, he takes a two-sentence shot and dismisses them without trying to understand. It’s as though he’s saying, “So much for that one! I don’t have to think about him any more! There goes another one!” Potshots are fun, but they are no substitute for engagement.

He says, “According to the most influential twentieth-century philosopher of science, Karl Popper, a theory is scientific only in so far as it is falsifiable, and should be given up as soon as it is falsified. By this standard, the theories of Darwin and Einstein should never have been accepted.” (p. 22) No kidding. I guess I missed that the theories of evolution and relativity had been falsified. The hard part was finding circumstances in which they could be falsified. Anyhow, the most influential twentieth-century philosopher of science is Thomas Kuhn (even though he’s a historian), who might have buttressed Gray’s arguments if Gray were interested.

Gray says, “Wittgenstein believed that his later thought had transcended traditional philosophy, but at bottom it is not much more than another version of the oldest of philosophies – Idealism.” (p. 53) To that I ask: How can behaviorism be idealism? Wittgenstein discusses where he stands with respect to realism and idealism. Gray should have checked it out.

He says, “It is scarcely possible to imagine a philosophy such as Platonism emerging in an oral culture.” (p. 57) Hello. What we know of Plato’s philosophy comes from dialogues, an oral medium and art form. It’s not hard to imagine; Plato makes it completely explicit.

On a more substantive point, Gray bashes Socrates for using his mind to discern values, the same idea for which he praises Taoism. With regard to Socrates, he says:

“… reason cannot be the guide of life. Euripides rejected the belief that Socrates made the basis of philosophy: that. As Dodds puts it, ‘moral, like intellectual error, can arise only from a failure to use the reason we possess; and that when it does arise it must, like intellectual error, be curable by intellectual process’.” (p. 98)

But then he quotes A.C. Graham on the Taoist as saying:

“He does not have to make decisions based on standards of good and bad because, granted only that enlightenment is better than ignorance, it is self-evident that among spontaneous inclinations the one prevailing in greatest clarity of mind, other things being equal, will be best, the one in accord with the Way.” (p. 114)

I could go on and on, but I would just take up space on rebutting things that annoy me. If John Gray wants to sit passively and appreciate the pleasures of the senses, more power to him. Just give some respect to those of us who may at some point prefer thinking or acting.
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Apr 11, 2012 Lee Simmons rated it 2 of 5 stars

The book contains many interesting ideas but none of them were explored satisfactorily. It seemed like a stream of one or two page pronouncements with no real explanation as to how the conclusions had been reached or why those arguments dismissed are wrong.

For example, Gray claims that humanism is a religion as much as Christianity or Islam. Salvation is provided by science and inescapable human progress which is a linear process. I do not know any humanist, on a personal level at least, who hav...more

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Aug 07, 2011 Alex added it

If you're ever tempted to read Straw Dogs, by John Gray, don't.

I've read through (most of) it (I skipped parts that were run on sentences, after the first few times reading them through to the end taught me they had nothing interesting to say), and I can wholeheartedly recommend against anyone else repeating the experience.

I tried ignoring the poor quality of the science behind the book, ignoring the poor quality of the support for what seems to be the intended point, and even ignoring the thinl...more

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Sep 13, 2012 Aras rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy

Read this mostly on the raves by J.G. Ballard on the cover. Lesson to be learned is that often those are probably on there because of personal friendship or some sort of industry obligation, rather than an honest appraisal.

From religion to psychology to the hard sciences, the author can barely get a grasp on any field he touches, and yet believes he is the master of them all. This is the worst sort of shallow, mass-market pop philosphy, so dismissive of its audience the text doesn't even provide...more

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Aug 09, 2010 Dpdwyer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Line by line there is much to think about here. I don't know enough philosophy to know if his short takes on a number of major schools have validity. He does not believe that history and evolution progress in the long run, and he feels the world would be less volatile if we did away with utopian ideals and promises in general and just set our sights lower. Endless harm is being done and has been done in the name of great goals. He also takes on the major religions and finds little to like, espec...more

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Apr 29, 2013 Richard Newton rated it 4 of 5 stars

I feel this is one of those books you are either going to like to hate. If you are open to quite challenging ideas, presented in a fairly passionate and opinionated style then you may well like this book. If you want to see full arguments, no assumptions, and no jumps in logic then you may not. But given that these are thoughts (see title) - the flaws in his arguments are forgiveable.

This is a book which is pretty pessimistic about humanity, but at the same time has a positive tone - well positi...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Kaput rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, really-enjoyed, non-fiction

The format and style of this book reminded me a little of Nietzsche's 'Beyond Good and Evil'. It's a general, very personal, irate philosophy that cannot help taking sneery potshots at anything it disagrees with (including Nietzsche funnily enough). Which is fine by me, I love sneering and I've been disappointed with how any modern philosophy book I've come across still clings desperately to enlightenment ideals of truth, justice and morality as if these things are somehow inflexible aspirations...more The format and style of this book reminded me a little of Nietzsche's 'Beyond Good and Evil'. It's a general, very personal, irate philosophy that cannot help taking sneery potshots at anything it disagrees with (including Nietzsche funnily enough). Which is fine by me, I love sneering and I've been disappointed with how any modern philosophy book I've come across still clings desperately to enlightenment ideals of truth, justice and morality as if these things are somehow inflexible aspirations that will lead to our salvation.

Gray believes that Western secularism deludes itself into thinking it is any different from Christianity by still believing we have the power to save ourselves. Our salvation is now in the progress of humankind but really we are still the same rag tag of feelings, thoughts and emotions that humans have been since they first appeared on the planet. So we're marking our progression by the changes we make to our environment say, which isn't really the same as progressing as humans, we'll always be the way we are and we should stop pretending otherwise.

Phew.

I'm down with determinism. For me free will is an illusion that feels real because we have imperfect information about how our 'choices' will turn out. Gray takes this to unsettling lengths. Not only that our idea of self is an illusion but that ideas of sin, guilt and morality don't really exist as logical enterprises. 'Morality' occurs in many instances where animals co-operate and coexist, there is nothing uniquely human or rational about it. Our sense of self comes from our pattern seeking instincts, we see the fragmented piece meal way we act as some sort of whole

So I think he makes some interesting points, he also makes some dodgy ones, his understanding of what science is about seems shaky to say the least and does nothing to prop up his argument. He quotes at least one person who is pretty discredited (Thomas Malthus). His attack on 'humanists' doesn't really take into account that peoples beliefs these days are more of a mish mash of various things, pick and mix, rather than rigidly defined.

He's a total pessimist but he still made me laugh. He points out not only that Buddhism is another form of salvation but if the self is an illusion then they are trying to escape from something that doesn't exist!

A really interesting thinker who does occasionally overreach. I can totally see why people thing he makes grand claims without doing much to back them up but I still really appreciated some of his ideas.(less)

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Feb 01, 2010 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

Humans think they are free, conscious beings, when in truth they are deluded animals. At the same time they never cease trying to escape from what they imagine themselves to be. Their religions are attempts to be rid of a freedom they have never possessed. In the twentieth century, the utopias of Right and Left served the same function. Today, when politics is unconvincing even as entertainment, science has taken on the role of mankind's deliverer.

The above quote from Straw Dogs serves as a dece...more Humans think they are free, conscious beings, when in truth they are deluded animals. At the same time they never cease trying to escape from what they imagine themselves to be. Their religions are attempts to be rid of a freedom they have never possessed. In the twentieth century, the utopias of Right and Left served the same function. Today, when politics is unconvincing even as entertainment, science has taken on the role of mankind's deliverer.

The above quote from Straw Dogs serves as a decent summary of John Gray's disturbing, unpredictable, and relentless look at human folly at the dawn of the new century. Another Goodreads member advised me that Gray was like a man walking through a balloon store with a long pin, and the description is apt: the Englishman wields his pleasing, bracing prose like a semantic sledgehammer in shattering one edifice of conventional wisdom after another. Philosophy, religion, totalitarianism, the modern Right and Left wings of capitalist democracies, the War on Terrorism, the globalization of free markets, man's contingency: all are fair game for the one-man demolition crew. Gray questions how conscious and rational humans actually are, and are capable of being; he paints in clear strokes a picture of how mythology and utopianism - focussed through the prism of Christianity - have underpinned virtually all of the political movements of the past three centuries, all in the name of perfervid belief in the chimera called Progress.

Gray tackles so many cherished truths that he occasionally ends up contradicting himself - such as exploding the belief that man is free, only to base subsequent criticisms upon progress reducing man's freedom. It also brings one to question where Gray believes his ubersceptical route will lead: despite his summational plea to humanity to abandon its endless need for purpose - Can we not think of the aim of life as being simply to see? - it is difficult to envision such illusion-free existence driving the masses towards aught but despair. Nevertheless, the book is a brisk, wonderful, and eye-opening read, casting enough doubts upon the solidity of perceived wisdom to keep the reader questioning and ruminating for days afterwards. Working from the same vein of thoughtful polemic as that other great doubter of progress, Christopher Lasch - see the brilliant The True and Only Heaven for the definitive summation of the latter's critique - Straw Dogs is a cogent and illuminating - if uncomfortable - read.(less)

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Mar 30, 2013 girl rated it 3 of 5 stars

I did it! I finished!
I cannot find the words to express how pleased I am to meet the back cover of this book.
It took me longer than usual to finish this book, and I am drained. Appropriately so might I add. This isn't a book you come out of feeling empowered, or 'happy'.
You reach the end and then you ask, “What then? What am I to do? What is anyone to do? And, good sir, what do you propose we do about our apparent meaninglessness?”

My introduction to John Gray was at a public lecture at the Londo...more

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Feb 20, 2013 Tony61 rated it 3 of 5 stars

Gray gives a cogent synopsis of the major philosophical thinkers from Plato and Socrates to Heidegger and Hegel and provides a critique of the human-centered sentiments imbued in all these schools of thought.

He is controversial in eschewing theism and salvation and likening morality to a disease, and pretty much calling humanism a scourge on the earth. Gray recognizes that science has been co-opted to serve humanity instead of the pure pursuit of knowledge.

The problem I had with the book is the...more

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Oct 16, 2011 Alexander rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bibliophagy, biophilia, cognitive-noir, ecognosis, zeitgeist, leviathan, psy-ops, chronomancer

A bit too breezily aphoristic and dismissive at times, Gray's book is still an impressive nail-bomb of neo-Schopenhauerian polemic, veering between scorched earth and Taoist serenity, stoic good humor under reddening skies.

STRAW DOGS is a brazen "remix" of many familiar memes, but woven so artfully in barbed-wire fashion, covering so many rich topics and controversies, that it does what the best philosophical commentary does: provokes and stimulates both sympathizers and antagonists into enrichi...more

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Jul 17, 2011 Rob rated it 1 of 5 stars

Just awful. A rambling, unconvincing argument by a terribly self-satisfied misanthrope.

Pretty disappointing, as I picked up the book hoping for a decent discussion on many of the ideas presented. The non-separateness of humans from the natural world, the illusory nature of the self and consciousness... these are ideas I care about. Indeed, if you have never spent time thinking about them, this book may serve valuable as a devil's advocate and catalyst. That's about the only value I found in it.

G...more Just awful. A rambling, unconvincing argument by a terribly self-satisfied misanthrope.

Pretty disappointing, as I picked up the book hoping for a decent discussion on many of the ideas presented. The non-separateness of humans from the natural world, the illusory nature of the self and consciousness... these are ideas I care about. Indeed, if you have never spent time thinking about them, this book may serve valuable as a devil's advocate and catalyst. That's about the only value I found in it.

Gray's book is set up as a series of tiny attacks on much of present-day thinking. However, instead of attacking arguments head-on, Gray prefers to simplify the complexity of whatever argument he approaches. After this reduction, he then proceeds to refute the simplification. If that is not enough, he will then make several unsubstantiated declarative statements, presenting them as either time-tested truths, or as being so obvious they should go without saying. You think by naming his book Straw Dogs, Gray would have gone to greater lengths to avoid making such transparent straw man arguments.

The research Gray put into his arguments is also pretty suspect. His understanding of the psychology and neuroscience of self seems pretty cursory. He comes across as not having a too firm grasp of any of it. His discussion of hunter-gatherer societies and their transition to agriculture is also very poor. I suspect he read a few books and then jammed both of those cultures into the pre-formed mental model he had been working with.

I think Gray should probably spend less time reading his own arguments and spend more time talking with those who actually work in the areas he so casually dismisses. His ideas are not new, and have been discussed ad nauseum in any journal worth its salt.

At the very least, Gray should have shown his book to at least a few people who disagree with it. He might have at least noticed a few of the instances of cognitive dissonance he had written out. If humans are not separate from other species, why does Gray give them such special accord? Animals that lack consciousness (as Gray defines it), can not be anything else other than what they are. However, Gray argues that humans also lack this consciousness, and yet they are still to be excoriated?

Like I said, I care about many of the ideas Gray presents in Straw Dogs, it's just that Gray is so ineffective and unlikable. Rather than coming across as an innovative thinker, he clumsily attacks the page with an imperiousness he has not earned. This is the book one would expect from a angry teenager who is discovering for the first time that the world may be, surprise, somewhat hypocritical.(less)

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Jul 19, 2010 Matthew rated it 4 of 5 stars

You get the sense reading Straw Dogs that if John Gray were ever to meet a nihilist he'd chide him for being unjustifiably optimistic. Unremittingly grim. A philosphical overview of the human condition that concludes it all started to go wrong for us somewhere around the invention of agriculture. Progress is measured only in the novelty of the tools we use for mass murder. Secular humanism is just Christianity-lite and scientific rationalism exhibits all the key features of a cult. We set oursel...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Martin Rowe rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is the second time I've read John Gray's book, and it's as shockingly clear-eyed and pungent this time around. STRAW DOGS is an evisceration of the complacent Western assumptions about so-called progress and liberal democracy that have marked the post-World War II world. It is also a demolition of ideas of human exceptionalism, our dreams of God, and our faith in science (paradox intended). The book came out in 2002 and a few elements (i.e. Al Qaeda's world-historical role) are dated, but t...more

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Jan 13, 2009 Joshuacitrak rated it 5 of 5 stars

do not read this book! it will destroy your egocentric, small minded, action-oriented, "modern" view of the actuality of existence. go back to mindlessly consuming, seeking salvation through your christs (be it jesus, coca-cola, NFL football, technology, the environment, your career, whatever) and stand firm in your belief that humans are the most important species to ever exist. they are, they really are!!!

"The aim of life isn't the change the world, but to see it rightly."

however, if you have...more

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Oct 09, 2012 John Prevost rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was advised to me by one of my former philosophy professors, so I ordered it. I read many online reviews before reading the book; on amazon, here, a couple "professional reviews." A lot of people had negative things to say usually with the general complaints of how ridiculous Nihilism and Anti-Humanism are. (The author never calls his views Nihilism. That is my description). I really enjoyed the book. It was very thought provoking for me. There were some new ideas presented here that I...more

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Sep 26, 2012 Alnoory. rated it 4 of 5 stars

I think this is an important book of modern philosophy. I found this book both liberating and scary in its message, maybe a little pessimistic about human conduct and motivation and brutally honest if painful to accept.

Gray seems more intent on tearing things down than in offering any sort of conclusion. He finds it ironic, as do I, that humans, though otherwise like other animals in every respect, seem to crave meaning in life. Yet he has no solution, of course. I have to say, Gray deserves mu...more

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Oct 14, 2012 Declan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Persevered and found some interesting tidbits in this book, despite a desire to fling it across the room after the first few chapters.

I disagree profoundly with some of its major tenets, so it was difficult to read further. His idea that humanism is a leftover legacy from Christianity is the most specious idea in it.

He seems to take at face value Christianity's claim that it alone invented the idea of loving your neighbour and caring about your fellow man. It is true that such sentiments can b...more

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