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 PrintableVersion Straw dogs - Thoughts on human and other animalsStrangely edifyingSTRAW DOGS More a collection of thoughts than a closely argued thesis, in the style of Pascal's Pensees (but most definitely not the content!), John Gray's book Straw dogs - Thoughts on humans and other animals, certainly makes for provocative reading. And although many of his musings have a strong internal logic about them, they fall rather badly at the first hurdle - plausibility. For Gray, we are fundamentally no different in our essence from 'other animals', and we are deluding ourselves in thinking otherwise. But what I would credit Gray with is having a consistency of thought not commonly found in even fairly thoughtful secular people. Gray accepts as fact the theory of evolution, as it is widely held by most Western people, and is willing to draw some of the logical conclusions. Man is a mere animal, no freer or more responsible or 'moral' than the pond scum from which he arose. Moral philosophy he brands a branch of fiction, and contends 'Ideas of justice are as timeless as fashion in hats' (p.103). Unthinking liberalismGray is aiming his criticism mainly at liberal humanism, what he calls the unthinking beliefs of thinking people. These include a belief in man's uniqueness and potential, and the humanist doctrine of progress - that people and society are getting or even could get better. 'The prevailing secular worldview is a pastiche of current scientific orthodoxy and pious hopes. Darwin has shown that we are animals; but - as humanists never tire of preaching - how we live is "up to us". Unlike any other animal, we are told, we are free to live as we choose. Yet the idea of free will does not come from science. Its origins are in religion - not just any religion, but the Christian faith against which humanists rail so obsessively' (p. xi-xii). So ironically Gray chastises humanists for holding to an irrational faith in human potential which is grounded in Christian ideas of man's unique place in the world. These he sees as thoroughly discredited by Darwin. Logical conclusionThis is a valuable book, because Gray draws conclusions which naturally flow if there is no God and we are just a cosmic accident - or incident. Although committed to Darwinism, secular humanists draw back from making these conclusions, and thereby attempt to live in a logical half-way house that does not exist. While preferring the idea that existence is born of random acts of chance as somehow more scientific and logical than creation by God, they shrink back from the logical implications - and these Gray almost seems to celebrate. We are fundamentally the same as all other animals, there is no meaning, and even our sense of self-hood is an illusion. Morality is shifting sand - there is no right and wrong. But like an Ionesco play that pushes us to an absurd place when we contemplate life without meaning, John Gray's book provides a most compelling argument in favour of theism (not intentionally, of course!). We cannot believe it; we cannot live as if it were true. Christians can find it hard to convince a modern person about the prevalence and seriousness of sin. But even more so, even with all the moral relativism that pervades our society's way of thinking, it is harder to convince most people that there really is no right and wrong, if you are willing to push them far and hard enough. In its starkest expression, very few people can accept the belief that there is no real morality. And even fewer can live as though it were true. Is genocide or paedophilia just a life style choice, not dissimilar in importance to a penchant for fishing or a preference for coffee over tea? Gray tells a few stories to shock us out of our belief in morality, but does it work? These gross breaches of the right, such as the complete genocide of the indigenous people of Tasmania by European settlers, do show us man's fallen nature. But they fail to convince us that no law has been broken. It is in fact the emphasis on these two truths - 1) there is a law, and 2) we break it - that supports the Christian in what they believe (as C. S. Lewis pointed out in Mere Christianity). The chilling stories Gray tells about Nazi collaborators and prisoners caught in horrible moral dilemmas fail to extinguish these deeply felt truths. InconsistentAnd even Gray himself lets his belief slip at times. His book contains value judgements (which are nonsensical in his world view). He often refers to man's unchangeably destructive nature in pejorative terms and even lets the cat out of the bag a few times with statements like this: 'The biblical myth of the Fall of Man contains forbidden truth. Knowledge does not make us free. It leaves us as we have always been, prey to every kind of folly' (p.xiv). Humans are 'crooked', flawed, and irrational (p.28). Even his contention that progress is impossible implies some meaning to the word 'progress'. There is another key inconsistency Gray falls into without seeming to notice. In a chapter entitled 'Truth and Consequences' he argues, correctly I believe, that if Darwin's theory of natural selection is right, knowledge of the truth is impossible. 'Only someone miraculously innocent of history could believe that competition among ideas could result in the triumph of truth . . . winners [ideas] are normally those with power and human folly on their side . . . Darwinian theory tells us that an interest in truth is not needed for survival or reproduction . . . Truth has no systematic evolutionary advantage over error . . . evolution favours useful error' (p.26-27). The only thing you can know in Darwin's scheme is that your brain function helps you to survive - not much else can be said for it. We have no 'reason' to trust our reason, our perception, our senses, any thought, anything as a purveyor of truth. This would leave us well and truly stranded! But Gray's whole enterprise in writing this book and thinking though issues and logical conclusions is a refutation of this very idea. He is pulling the chair out beneath his own argument! Not for faint-heartedIt is obvious from the accolades this book has received by journalists such as Andrew Marr and Will Self that not everyone who reads it is as unconvinced as I've been. It is not a book for the faint-hearted and would perhaps unsettle some Christians. But, for the most part, Christians will see the inconsistencies and unconvincing nature of Gray's ideas. His whole thesis rests on the premise that atheistic evolution is true; and, if it is true, we may as well not bother thinking or reading about anything for all our brains will help us! Really, I found this book strangely edifying. Alicia Felce© Evangelicals Now - March 2005 |
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