Mark Bold

In the second section of Straw Dogs, John Gray makes a suggestion that is perhaps the aim of his book: ‘to discover which illusions we can give up, and which we will never shake off’ (p83). It is a fact, he says, that human beings cannot live without illusion. The belief that we can is just one of the illusions we need to shake off, and Gray traces the roots of this misconception through a sustained attack on the over-rational, anthropocentric beliefs of liberal humanism.

Gray quickly reclassifies the conceited primate Homo rapiens, a contemptuous term he has adopted in essays outside Straw Dogs, and seems to distance himself from the species by always referring to it in the third person. The attack on human delusions he breaks into small sections rarely longer than a couple of pages, each a non sequitur of statement, rather than argument. The subjects covered in each of these brief sections are broad, but a singular tone of intolerance soon develops, along with the main themes that tie the breadth of the book together.

First, Gray begins an assault on the anthropocentrism of almost all contemporary beliefs and philosophies. Humans are just another species, he asserts, a breed of primate that has no special place on the planet. Indeed, using James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, he pleads that humankind’s presence on Earth is nothing but a cancer, and global corrections to the exponential population growth of this brainy mammal can only lead to its demise. Our narcissism, however, will mean the species will destroy most other flora and fauna on the planet before it is itself wiped out. Far from being negative, Gray is merely trying to loosen the hold of vanity on our thinking.

This sets the scene for the subtleties and details of Gray’s attacks on humanists’ unfounded beliefs. The unexceptional human animal seems to have a belief that is different to all other animals, that it operates by reason, and that this rational outlook can only lead to the improvement of its species – it can only gain more knowledge, improve the welfare of its fellow human beings and ultimately banish its greatest fear, death. These are the presumed values that underpin most human endeavours in the 21st century, following on from the great ideas of the Enlightenment (or as Gray terms it, ‘nineteenth-century Europeans who mistook their parochial hopes for universal historical laws’ (p174)) that finally freed us from the hold of religion and created our new saviour, science. But it is nonsense that humans live according to any rational principles, that scientific truth leads to freedom, or that more knowledge liberates us and that we will master our destiny through technology. Human nature is at best irrational, often rapacious and always only partially understood. Knowledge is almost always used to gain power and control, and technology cannot be confined to simply beneficial ends. By examining the foundations of Enlightenment thinking, Gray explores where the belief in rational behaviour came from, and why we believe in unlimited progress.

These roots he finds in Christianity, and blames the growth of this cult of St Paul for the mistaken belief that salvation awaits us, a misconception that is shared by atheist, fully rational humanist thinkers. Examining Enlightenment thought through the development of philosophy from Kant to Wittgenstein, often throwing in arbitrary biographical details, Gray describes the way the core beliefs of Christianity – that the human is different to the animals, and is destined for salvation through individualistic adherence to an inflexible morality – are also present in the seemingly rational ideas of humanists. Even Darwinism, the momentous idea that supposedly killed religion dead, is usually interpreted with these a priori principles. If Christianity has apparently lessened its influence on modern forward-thinking practical folk, it is simply because, as Gray says, ‘For the men and women of today, an irrational faith in progress may be the only antidote to nihilism’ (p29).

Hunting out the sources of these unfounded ideas, Gray takes on the modern cult of individualism by examining intriguing scientific evidence against free will (a prerequisite of salvation through Christianity and secularism), individual identity and even the self. Other religions and belief systems, especially those of the East like Taoism and Buddhism, have always disregarded the idea of a solitary ego at loose in the world, concentrating instead on the oneness of all things. It is no surprise these philosophies tend to be more eco-friendly, and are not preoccupied with a moral code, as is Christianity and its atheist, improvement-obsessed ideological successors.

The absurdity of morality warrants an entire section to itself in Straw Dogs. Morality and humankind’s animal nature simply do not mix. It is by thinking we are different to other species, somehow chosen to live a rational existence free from animal needs, that the concept of a morality arises. Yet the moralities we have, from the chastisements of the Christian testaments to the quest for self improvement and social health in their humanist guise, are all opposed to our survival needs, especially sexuality. Gray then trawls the history of modernity for examples of human nature ditching morality altogether in its wars and genocides, rapes and murders. The requirements of existence, he is saying, are outside the bounds of any attempt to confine it to a morality. Life finds a way, even if it offends our liberal humanist sentiments.

After shaking his head at the futility of modern morality, Gray then assigns himself the task of uncovering the causes and consequences of the humanist’s belief in its own salvation through progress. Is it the awareness of mortality that torments the human consciousness into creating such fabrications? Gray’s fragmented thoughts dwell on religion, science, drugs (he could have included television) – ways out mankind uses to escape the burden of self-awareness. It is apparent that consciousness is the problem, not death. The ever-rational humanists believe that consciousness brings only understanding and improvement, even though, as one of Gray’s aperçus notes, most activities in the body and indeed the universe are accomplished without the intervention of consciousness. Our clever consciousness, which we believe separates us from and raises us above the animal kingdom, really isn’t all that useful after all, and is in fact a burden to most of us most of the time.

And where is this progress anyway, Gray concludes. Anthropological evidence seems to suggest that the primitive human’s hunter-gatherer lifestyle had a much larger scope for freedom. It seems that all our steps forward are simply increasing the degree to which we are indentured to materialism. The values of ownership and consumer choice are central to us now, and our obsession with economics rather than people has displaced the human being from the equation. Soon, we’ll have technological innovations to return us to a feudal system, and even replace the species altogether.

Gray avoids the note of defeatism that could imbue his diverse ideas, however, by ensuring he does not indulge in the anthropocentric sympathising he criticises humanists of. You can search for meaning, but it is simply a salve for your inquisitive consciousness. There is no meaning. Life just is and will be. To appreciate that is to move beyond the fallacy that man is the measure of all things.

GRAY, John Straw Dogs, Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (London: Granta Books, 2003)