Jun

24

John Gray

June 24, 2007 |

“I had been puzzled by the intensity and systematic and methodical character of the violence of the 20th century, because that century was dominated not by religious belief, but by secular belief in progress or the capacity of human beings to create a better world. It also featured unprecedented levels of mass murder.

“But I was even more puzzled by how quickly the memory of the 20th century began to fade; that, with the threat of religious-linked terrorism, the lesson of that secular fanaticism that had cost tens of millions of lives in Russia and China – and continues to do so in Sri Lanka and Nepal – seemed to be completely forgotten. And the reason those terrors have gone into the memory hole is that they illuminate cracks and absurdities in the beliefs of the secular humanist faith in progress.” sunday times

I knew Gray a little when I was at the UofT. We’d go for beers and I was always astonished at his breadth of knowledge, his work habits (three closely reasoned books a year was not out of the question) and his gimlet eyed realism. At the time his bête noire was largely the utopian left; but he was and is equally skeptical about the claims of the socon and neo-con right.

The Time article is a solid introduction to a man who might, in an odd sort of way, be our generations’ Oakeshott despite his long friendship with Isiah Berlin.


Comments

1 Comment so far

  1. Ron Good on June 29, 2007 8:11 am

    Essentially every one of the large mass murder spectacles John Gray alludes to was accompanied by a specific cult of personality attached to an “ism; although some/most of these horror shows were nominally atheistic, I don’t see them as “secular” or “non-religious” at all.

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