Book Reviews

Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
John Gray
Granta Books, 2002

Review By: Preacher

The more one knows about something, the less romantic of a view they are granted of it. The statement ‘Ignorance is Bliss’ becomes more central with each passing day; in the wake of the new obsession of being constantly informed about the excruciating minutiae of everything, with a thousand experts all giving their personal viewpoints via blog or video feed.

There is the resounding question, ‘Why?’ Some folks enjoy asking the question ‘why?’ and then sit around sipping an overpriced cup of coffee and dragging off a clove cigarette and rejecting every sort of explanation one could offer, until one admits there are no standards and life is horrible and disillusioned and these clove-smoking caffeine junkies are negative Messiahs.

Better to read John Gray’s Straw Dogs. Don’t half-hate humanity for the production of wry humor and entertainment. Find out exactly why people suck, or at least consider the viewpoint of this particular expert, whose aim isn’t self-glorification, but rather an unapologetic attack on what Gray considers to be an erroneous evaluation of the human being; that evaluation summed in a statement by Protagoras: ‘Man is the measure of all things.’

I am confident in recommending the book, because it is not written in the high-handed rhetoric of philosophical tomes designed to guard itself against argument. One need only be functionally literate; the author avails his ideas to the reader with ease. Gray’s purpose throughout the book is to debunk popular humanist conclusions (Humanism being the science of Protagoras’ statement) in statements like these:

‘An interest in truth is not needed for survival or reproduction. More often it is a disadvantage.’ Potent romantic advice if I ever heard it.

‘The greatest scientists have never been bound by what are now regarded as the rules of scientific method.’

‘Religious fundamentalists see themselves as having remedies for the maladies of the modern world. In reality they are symptoms of the disease they would pretend to cure.’

Gray’s writing is fluid, cogent, well-sourced, and god damn it, entertaining. He combines review of academic dogma with historical anecdotes, and he appears to be delivering the mass of his conclusions as punchlines to the varied cosmic jokes of existence. Every individual who thinks will have some influence of theirs attacked (Over 75% of my own personal beliefs and moral imperatives are diametrically opposed). Having read the book, I came to a better awareness of my own personal responsibility to my existence and its consequences. I dare say, at the very least, most folks who already contemplate questions of this nature at some level will find great value in the aphorisms.

Lastly:

His closing remark in the foreword ultimately sums what this text will offer to prospective readers:

‘Humans cannot save the world, but this is no reason for despair. It does not need saving. Happily, humans will never live in a world of their own making.’

If that statement resonates to you, then this is a text you need to engage.

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