John Gray (1) (1948–)

If there ever was a creature that was torn between its own nature and limitations and apparent unlimited creativity it is human being. Imagine a creature so involved with itself that it tries to hide all its faults by inventing such an imaginative worlds and concepts to explain itself to itself (instead of just looking in the mirror) that it ends up in constant turmoil, always aware of its faults and always unable to admit them and driven by this constant turmoil creates magnificent things.

Author gives us overview of the ways humans paint themselves for themselves so they can live with themselves, various myths starting from how we generally describe ourselves as civilized (chapter about Naples was horrifying), and how we flirt with our divine role on this world. We live with so many noise in our heads that very way of handling this static is what actually makes human a human. Though sometimes unbearable this noise is what drives us forward and enables us to create beautiful and amazing things but also forces us to come up as so unintelligent at times it is unbelievable.

It is constant search for meaning of life. While rest of the living world (even non-living if we are to allow for some of the philosophies) lives in peace satisfied with their own existence (or at least they are living their existence without constant attempts to reinvent themselves) humans are in essence incapable of such a feat. Humans want to find the meaning of life because it seems that living the life for life's sake is just not enough. And of course this causes so many short circuits in the brain that people do things that range from wonderful to deeply terrifying and disturbing.
Take religion for example. It always had its place in human life (again this constant strive for purpose and meaning) and we can never remove it, it is part of human psyche and required for normal functioning of humans that every replacement, be it science, sociological theories or various theories on human past, present and future only ends up being revered as a new religion (in standard fashion of out with the old, in with the new). As author states we say to ourselves (and thus we build myths) we do not need it but we constantly create new religions to which we want to devote our lives to. We do not call them religion but approach it with same zeal that for objective outside observer (if such thing was possible) would see no difference at all.

I especially liked chapters on Freud and Jung, author managed to capture the very essence of their disagreement and it is not surprising that Jung became the more famous one while Freud was shunned away - his thesis and approach was too close to the target.... and that hurts.

What permeates the entire book is the notion that no matter how far we think we have come we are still only an advanced animal and I mean this not in some romantic but pure biological sense. We need to come to terms with that if we want to progress and actually level up scientific/technological and social achievements. We need to change our own behavior. Unfortunately same as the author I am skeptical that this will happen any time soon. If anything this year proved maxim that remains true and unfortunately will remain true for a long time - humans are and will remain irrational and incapable of common sense behavior, they want drama and chaos because then they can find the meaning of life at least as martyrs in forced hard conditions of life. And that is one very sad fact.

I cannot but chuckle whenever I hear how we will conquer the space:) it seems like 1960's happened in parallel universe. Short episode in human history, time of enlightenment that was cut short because only small number of people was involved - for majority this was something that happened at the edge of their perception and this is where this breakthrough period withered and died. Reality and survival will always prevail over something that for majority is unreachable and in the end does not have immediate practical value.

Very interesting book, author's style is great and draws you in a way that you are glued to the book till the very end - you will find yourself constantly saying just one more page. And this is quite an achievement for the the philosophical/sociological work.

Highly recommended.… (more)

Although I never knowingly avoided philosophical works it takes an author who writes in interesting way without looking down to the rest of us readers, lacking full knowledge of various philosophical and sociological main and side streams, for me to pick up the book. Basics are required I agree but you can differentiate between a good author from any specialized field and the one writing to a specialized community at any time - good writer tries to intrigue you to pick up the basic works and go through them seeking additional information. And this is where this book shines.

Author tries to present ever changing ideal of freedom by going through the [as expected] comments on ancient world (Greeks, Romans, Middle East, early Christianity) but also through popular books through decades of 19th and 20th century. By doing this author tries to give as wide picture of the evolution of what almost everyone might think to be the greatest of ideas - human freedom - how human freedom was perceived through ages and how we look at it in modern times.

Is it not weird that in time and place where no human being ever lived better, had a chance to have a long and productive life did people chose to relinquish their own personal freedom while chasing dreams and trying to emulate and live lives of people that would not think twice if rest of population got thrown into the sun.

As author explains, and I agree with him, is that people mold everything into pre-existing concepts. Basically nothing actually changes, core ideas and approaches remain the same but technology and influence get better and more .... invasive you might say. Every new principle is based on the ones from before. Some parts of old approach might be thrown away, some modified in smaller or greater way but the essence remains the same. In retrospective we are more than capable of figuring what went wrong but in now we are not capable to figure out what is going on. That is why every progressive approach need to be carefully handled because when compared to the past it might look like a wonderful solution but it is rarely critically checked against contemporary conditions.

We can work on technology progress, new inventions, old/new social approaches to achieve our ideal of freedom but while these are progressing in giant steps forward (and may look excellent in theory and paper) main driving force behind it, one to use it and one to run it, human nature, is about couple of hundred years (if not millennia or two) behind it. We want to say that humans are destined for a greater role in the world (or universe) but we constantly forget that we are result of millions of years of evolution, we carry certain instincts and internal (you might even say subconscious) knowledge and view of the world that needs to be first of all acknowledged and then improved before we can leap forward to make the actual use of the latest and best we built or can create. As long as we portray ourselves as better than we actually are no new idea will come to true fruition (which is greatest issue when it comes to social challenges and evolution).

We aim to create artificial life as a way of getting free of biological limitations - but what are we to do with it? If anything this year proved that entire world can be paralyzed to a complete standstill because of a simple virus. We are not capable of handling simple situation that happened hundreds of times in our recorded history in an organized way without panic and falling into complete disarray.

As centuries go by author states it is obvious that ideas of freedom, what it is and what does it mean, change. We have come to the point where we have surrendered almost all of our privacy to external factors (which would be unimaginable even only few decades before). New generations wont even know what privacy means. Freedom from bad interference in everyday relations is now past time for all of us. Everybody will shush down and let the bully walk over them because of fears for ones future, there is no way of fighting the slander without first being dragged through mud in multiple passes (and what was the point then?). Freedom from biological limitations will bring out other questions (if we create artificial life what would be its role except for us to say - look how smart we are!) and maybe doom humanity (because are we sure that we will remain human?). So far it seems that we shed more freedom than we obtain. Which is a paradox, is it not?

Right now we need to build our own inner refuge to be able to say we are free. Inner self (thoughts and emotions) remains so far safely hidden and only place we can remain truly free. I am more skeptic about this than the author because in my opinion people want to be lead [because (again) of the human nature - and let me note that while being lead majority does not want to think] instead of being self governed. But hope always lives. I think that giant mistake was made somewhere in last century or so when majority relinquished the greatest freedom of all - freedom to think - and instead started to rely on external sources to tell us what is right and wrong. Hopefully we will manage to regain this.

For a humanity as a species to become truly free greater effort is required. We need to acknowledge that we cannot change over night and that we need to first overcome some of our basic instincts in order to be truly free (basically we need to identify that that makes us human in the first place, and lots of people don't want to go that deep because of conflict with existing concepts they built their life on) - we need to accept that we are on living on Earth but we are not special on this very planet from any other form of life. We need to learn first to walk and know ourselves before we try to soar into the sky. Otherwise we will forever be chasing the ideal of freedom while constantly blatantly lying to ourselves that we are actually only an inch from the true freedom [while making whole bunch of potentially catastrophic errors].

Very intriguing book, highly recommended.… (more)

As always with Gray, keen observation, a realistic/pessimistic outlook, and a consistent, convincing synthesis. But many of the essays, taken together in book form, are heavily repetitive. And since this is a time-slice of essays, a first time reader (which I am not) of Gray would likely not get the development of the ideas; they would just come from nowhere, as mere assertions.

The narrowness of the time, too, from 1999 to 2004, also makes for a bit of repetition; though the number of unresolved issues from the turn of the millennium and first Bush Jr. term that I am reminded of is a bit shocking. Definitely several moments of, "Oh, yeah... what the hell?"… (more)