Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia [Paperback]

It's not easy categorising John Gray. He's generally listed as a "philosopher", but he rarely delves into the roots of human behaviour. His philosophy is founded on recorded history. Like most modern "philosophers", his arena is the canon of Western European tradition and practice. That approach, at least in Gray's hands, makes him more political commentator than philosopher. The shift of emphasis doesn't erode his thinking prowess nor his ability in expressing what he has derived from it. His prose is clean and unpretentious, almost hiding the power of the thinking behind it. In this exciting little work, Gray examines the history of modern "utopian" ideas - their misconceptions and their persistence.

The idea of utopias has long diverted us from confronting realities, Gray suggests. This self-generated departure tends to hide consequences of our acts until it's too late to deal with them successfully. Naturally, one of his glaring examples of this situation is the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Gray demonstrates how it was planned intentionally long before the causes were manufactured for it. The planning was clearly utopian in that the intentions were delusionary and inappropriate. Both governments declared their intention - based on false pretenses - to "extend democracy into the Middle East". This ambition was expressed without any perception of whether it would be welcomed. It's an underlying principle of utopian thinking, Gray observes, that a society can be re-created from within or imposed from the outside. The failure of such thinking is readily apparent in Iraq - a war that has lasted longer for the US than WWII. Utopian ideas have been seeded on infertile soil.

In explaining how the utopian idea arrived in the Middle East by way of the US-UK "special relationship", Gray skips lightly over Thomas More's original idea to the Enlightenment era. There is a link, however, in that while we are generally taught that the Enlightenment thinkers were building a secular world, they were relying on Christian precepts to expound their ideas. "Improvement" was the means of overcoming disparities in the human condition, and the State could replace the Church in making beneficial change. Among other virtues of this thinking was that it seemed realisable within human timespans. In the 20th Century, a wide variety of such proposals were tried, and Gray brings Marxism, the hippie communes of the 1960s and the Fascist-Nazi movements into the same paddock. Once thought as a "Leftist" ideal, Gray is unsurprised that it is now the policy of choice of the "neo-cons" and their supporters on the "Christian Right". Yet, it seems that no matter where on the political spectrum utopians arise, they continue to commit similar blunders. The goal blinds them to the perils of trying to achieve it and utopia becomes tragedy.

It's easy to peg Gray as grim or dismal. That's a common label pinned on those who seek to have us confront reality and think more deeply about our decisions. In this sense, Gray takes a long view of the role of Christianity in Western thinking. The shift of utopia from heaven to Earth, while seeming to provide improvement, was just as likely to introduce anarchy. He compares two contemporary thinkers, Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza, in their approach to this problem. Modern liberals declare the unrestrained State as the greatest threat to freedom. Hobbes understood that anarchy was an even greater threat and government was needed to quell it. Spinoza, on the other hand, while unwilling to grant the state power to stomp on emerging anarchy, had a different proposal. Humans are part of the natural world, and turning to the state for salvation of any kind was erroneous. His realistic view was that disorder and peace are natural cycles of the human condition. We must approach this situation realistically, without any fixed or unattainable goals to repress the one to gain the other. Such simplistic thinking can never succeed. Gray has offered an exceptionally rational set of pointers on avoiding such single-mindedness. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

At the centre of John Gray's book "Black Mass" is the not unreasonable assertion that grandiose plans to turn the world upside down and reach Utopia overnight have entailed a great deal of human misery and very little Utopia. There is nothing particularly novel in this assertion, though it is a little more palatable from the pen of John Gray, than say Isaiah Berlin (see The Crooked Timber of Humanity) who liked to promote his own particular -ism (Zionism), including spying for them while in British government service.

Some Gray's contentions are interesting, for example the link between the search for Utopia and Christian doctrine. At other times he seems to over egg the pudding, as when he draws a link between the Holy Trinity and the three stages of orthodox Marxism (I thought it was four?), as if there is something particularly important about the number three. The association appears meaningless and asinine, despite the apparent solemnity and objectivity of Gray's tone.

Another problem was the continual flow of questionable generalisations with regard to historical facts and figures. Cuba is categorised as a totalitarian dystopia, but not a word on the circumstances in comparable countries in the US sphere (say Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, or indeed any of the Latin American countries). With regard to Russia, he talks of "when Russian voters repudiated Yeltsin in favour of Putin" when such a choice was never before the Russian electorate. His account of the end of the British post-war consensus is light on historical context and essentially shallow. The assertion that preventive war was a unique Bush doctrine is questionable, and though his administration was a vocal promoter the idea has had a long history in American policy, and no doubt will continue to.

Having said that, the criticisms of the Iraq War are pungent, but again focus on the alleged Utopian dimension of that policy (the US and UK bring liberal democratic capitalism to the Middle East) at the expense of a full appreciation of the factors that played a part in that misadventure. His criticisms of Francis Fukuyama, Milton Friedman, and a number of other ideologues are sharp and reasonable. The sections that deal with Leo Strauss, and the intellectual influence he has had with the American right, was a real - and scary - eye opener, and almost worth the admission price alone.

As far as solutions go, Gray posits that a sense of realism should inform foreign policy, though he admits that the last self-proclaimed realist (Henry Kissinger) contributions were less than ideal in Cambodia. This is being far too modest about Mr Kissinger's contribution to mass murder. With regard to the broader questions of society, the feeling is one of helplessness and pessimism about the advisability of striving for anything that might be regarded as progress. This is the hole in the book, Gray has nothing much to say on how we should live collectively, though he does suggest that we would be better advised spending time with poets and hedonists. Pleasant company I'm sure, and not to be avoided if the chance presents itself, but does this really make him the "the most important living philosopher" as the back page blurb states?

With all those reservations, I still found it interesting, occasionally entertaining, informative, and always provocative reading. It just doesn't seem to me to be as profound, and as comprehensive as some are making it out to be. Read it by all means, but with a pinch of salt and critical faculties at the ready.

I picked this book up having been recommended the authors previous effort "Straw Dogs" by a college. Though I haven't read straw dogs, I was attracted by the discussion of Utopia.

The book is well written and most of the central ideas of Utopia, Religious Apocalyptic History and political ideals are communicated well. The author takes time to develop his ideas and provides well drawn examples supporting his interpretation. In particular, his discussion on the USA's use of "facts" in certain ways to justify means is very interesting and entertaining. In addition to this, the book is enjoyable in that regardless of whether or not you agree with the authors conclusions, he is certainly not overly dogmatic.

For me, what stood out was the books willingness to engage with the reader and get them to think. It is a book that asks many questions, more than it answers and really got me thinking about how to interpret history. For me, though the factual / historical focus of the earlier chapters was hugely entertaining, the final chapter was probably the most engaging. While I disagreed with certain aspects of it, that the author took the time to make conclusions that actually derived from his discussion, rather than simply being a restatement of what he thought, was particularly interesting and rewarding.

My criticism of the book would be that some liberties with interpretation are given. The author is prone to oversimplifying ideas for the sake of expediency and on one or two occasions this seemed to me to be slightly misleading. For example, one of his descriptions of Aristotle's thought is far too reductive to do justice to Aristotle's thought. However, I understand that this was for obvious reasons concerning the flow of the book.

All in all, a very entertaining and thought provoking read which takes time and effort to engage the reader, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone with an interest interested in the world and our interpretation of it.

DD