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Anybody read John Gray? I'm enjoying reading this crusty old bastard. If you like Chinese philosophy, you may like him also. If you like...uh...just about anything else, you might not.
Related links:
http://www.spiked-online.com/review_of_books/article/the-shallow-nihilism-of-john-gray/15999#.WMbx60ud7wI
https://www.ft.com/content/b7f10bdc-7a92-11e2-9c88-00144feabdc0
On Progress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuWi-TU_sFE
On Hobbes and McCarthy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oUypxGUD7M
tl;dr nihilistic English philosopher uses a Chuang Tzu stance, kicks humanism in the balls, contemplates butterflies, accrues flak.
So while the Taoist disarmament of gnostic fantasies is probably warranted, if you listen closely you can hear Jordan Peterson's teeth grinding together at this idea. This, however, is one of those situations where I don't think Peterson's thought aligns with what he is fighting against. JP might be inclined to dismiss Gray as just another washed-out nihilist, but if that were the case this might be uncharitable; Gray is actually criticizing people who have taken gnosticism too far, where they begin translating Sort Yourself Out into political theatre, which is where things get messy and bloody. Which is a thing Peterson also understands.
So JP would probably not like Chuang-Tzu, because little there is going to involve the mythic journey Peterson urges; but this is exactly the reason for caution, since how do we know we aren't deceiving ourselves, or others, when we begin these mythic journeys?
Maybe it seems crazy to even involve Peterson here, but basically I just have a hard time dismissing the man outright. Or maybe it's as simple as: West, suffering for your individualism; East, not suffering for your individualism. And never the 'twain shall meet. Could be. The point here is not that one is better than the other, but that *both* are going to criticize the *bogus* individualism that comes from collectivism and ideology; Peterson by focusing on the gnostic, and Gray by disavowing the gnostic. That's how I think I see it, anyways.
>nice blogpost, scrotum-head
>thx
>esp that reductive east-west bit at the end
>*salutes*
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>>9233670
I picked up a copy of Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia at a booksale recently, might just check out his other work
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>>9233670
Read this recently
Great if you want to better appreciate Conrad.
I like the bit about the daisy planet and it's moral implications re: Gaia - read: forget the planet, it'll be fine in the end, it's us that are fugged. Great if you want to feel indifferent about pandas and worry more about Bangladesh.
He's only very subtly humanist in that way and I love him despite my very humanist sjw sensibilities. He's very European - like I can't imagine these insights coming from amerigoround any time soon and I don't know enough about Chinese philosophy to really penetrate your post.
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>>9233670
I enjoyed him as well. He's like a less pessimistic Ligotti.
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>I liek strawdogs
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I'm going to order Straw Dogs soon, I'll let you know how I like it in a couple of months.
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>>9234319
I won't be here. I plan on sorting my life or before then
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>>9233785
Haven't read that one yet, but I've been rolling through his other stuff. That one is next.
>>9234184
>amerigoround
Kek. And yes, I could perhaps see a subtle humanism - as in, don't fuck yourself up believing in romance. If that's what you mean.
I usually live on a diet of French and German guys, so perhaps it's just reading a contemporary British philosopher who isn't an analytic which is part of the charm. I also love the ancient Chinese, so Gray works for me.
Interesting also: the Tao is not humane, but this question of 'humanism' w/regards to the Chinese is interesting and worth thinking about. It's close (I think?) to virtue ethics, which is perhaps what I have been thinking about the most these days after OD'ing on all things capitalism and Marx-related. Basically my thought is that if desire really is the whole enchilada and that not only should a person not compromise themselves, but perhaps nobody else really can tell them what to do either, then what are you left with, how do you make up your mind, follow through? Maybe with a kind of skepticism about the nature of these arbitrary desires, which make things in the world happen but at the same time produce an inescapably contingent and squishy social universe.
So rather than attempt to tell other people what they should do (a bad habit of mine), I've found the Chinese sensibility about desires and epistemology more fulfilling to contemplate. Granted, it's not like the Chinese don't have an authoritarian tendency of their own...but taking some care of yourself, not becoming an object of capital or of universal politics...it's not as sexy as some other ways I have thought, but it feels perhaps slightly more sane, like I'm not stuck within a religion I don't understand and secretly trying to convert other people to...also for reasons I don't understand.
I was basically formed by poststructuralism (who isn't?), so I get where JP is coming from. But there are different ways of dealing with the resultant nihilism and fallout. One is politics, but I seem to prefer political disengagement to engagement, if only because the two sides seem more alike than different to me. I want to be this cozy bastard.
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>>9233670
John Gray is the best pop philosopher around, but still a pop philosopher.
He's the poor man's Rorty
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