Free Ebook The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths, by John Gray
Sooner you get guide The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray, earlier you could appreciate reading the publication. It will certainly be your resort to keep downloading and install guide The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray in given link. In this way, you can actually making a decision that is served to obtain your own e-book on-line. Right here, be the initial to get the book entitled The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray and be the very first to understand how the author indicates the notification and knowledge for you.
The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths, by John Gray
Free Ebook The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths, by John Gray
The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray. It is the time to enhance and also revitalize your ability, knowledge and also encounter consisted of some amusement for you after long time with monotone things. Working in the office, going to examine, picking up from exam and also more activities could be completed as well as you have to begin brand-new points. If you really feel so worn down, why do not you try new thing? A really easy thing? Checking out The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray is what we offer to you will certainly recognize. As well as the book with the title The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray is the referral now.
The reason of why you could get and also get this The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray sooner is that this is the book in soft documents type. You could read the books The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray anywhere you want also you are in the bus, office, home, and also other areas. Yet, you might not have to relocate or bring guide The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray print any place you go. So, you will not have much heavier bag to lug. This is why your selection making far better concept of reading The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray is actually valuable from this case.
Understanding the method how you can get this book The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray is additionally important. You have actually been in appropriate site to begin getting this info. Get the The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray web link that we supply right here as well as see the web link. You could purchase guide The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray or get it as soon as possible. You can quickly download this The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray after getting bargain. So, when you require guide quickly, you can directly obtain it. It's so simple therefore fats, right? You have to like to by doing this.
Merely connect your gadget computer system or gadget to the internet connecting. Obtain the contemporary innovation making your downloading and install The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray completed. Even you do not wish to read, you could directly close guide soft file as well as open The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray it later. You can additionally quickly get the book anywhere, since The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray it is in your device. Or when being in the office, this The Silence Of Animals: On Progress And Other Modern Myths, By John Gray is likewise advised to review in your computer system gadget.
A searching, captivating look at the persistence of myth in our modern world
"By nature volatile and discordant, the human animal looks to silence for relief from being itself while other creatures enjoy silence as their birthright."
In a book by turns chilling and beautiful, John Gray continues the thinking that made his Straw Dogs such a cult classic.
Gray draws on an extraordinary array of memoirs, poems, fiction, and philosophy to re-imagine our place in the world. Writers as varied as Ballard, Borges, Conrad, and Freud have been mesmerized by forms of human extremity—experiences that are on the outer edge of the possible or that tip into fantasy and myth. What happens to us when we starve, when we fight, when we are imprisoned? And how do our imaginations leap into worlds way beyond our real experiences?
The Silence of Animals is consistently fascinating, filled with unforgettable images and a delight in the conundrum of human existence—an existence that we decorate with countless myths and ideas, where we twist and turn to avoid acknowledging that we too are animals, separated from the others perhaps only by our self-conceit. In the Babel we have created for ourselves, it is the silence of animals that both reproaches and bewitches us.
- Sales Rank: #492306 in eBooks
- Published on: 2013-06-04
- Released on: 2013-06-04
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
The Silence of Animals is a new kind of book from Gray, a sort of poetic reverie on the human state, on the state, that is, of the human animal ... He blends lyricism with wisdom, humour with admonition, nay-saying with affirmation, making in the process a marvellous statement of what it is to be both an animal and a human in the strange, terrifying and exquisite world into which we straw dogs find ourselves thrown -- John Banville Guardian Interesting, original and memorable ... The Silence of Animals is a beautifully written book, the product of a strongly questioning mind. It is effectively an anthology with detailed commentary, setting out one rich and suggestive episode after another -- Philip Hensher Spectator
About the Author
John Gray has been Professor of Politics at Oxford University, Visiting Professor at Harvard and Yale and Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics. He now writes full time. His books include False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals and The Immortalization Commission: The Strange Quest to Cheat Death. His selected writings, Gray's Anatomy, was published in 2009.
Most helpful customer reviews
46 of 47 people found the following review helpful.
What to do when faith deserts us?
By Acorn
This new book by John Gray is a meditation on how we deal with the world when our faith in progress and human betterment deserts us. It explores the theme through the prisms of literature, art, philosophy, and to a lesser extent, psychology rather than being a scientific or historical study. As with all of Gray's work, it has some telling insights and observations, and ranges over a fascinating mix of the familiar and obscure to give depth and substance to his ideas.
The Silence of Animals is arranged in three parts. The first looks at the idea of progress and how people's belief in it has disintegrated when faced with human barbarity. The two world wars left ruin in their wake and Gray looks at the reactions of writers such as J G Ballard, Norman Lewis and Stefan Zweig to the rapid disappearance of civilised behaviour in the brutality of war. Barbarism can also emerge from economic crisis: the Great Depression and the inflation in inter-war Germany, and the financial crash of 2008, each destroyed the wealth of countless families. They rendered years of faith in saving and building a future utterly meaningless, even as the alchemists of finance breathed a sigh of relief over their canapés at finding their own fortunes unscathed.
Gray was previously an academic political theorist and he sees authoritarian politics, whether of the left or right, as an attempt to deny the chaos of reality and to fake a sense of order. People like certainty and the dream of a better day to come, and therein perhaps lies the appeal of those charlatans who would have us believe that they can plan and control our future.
In the end, progress is a myth because evolution is about survival, not about constant improvement. Gray characterises evolution as a process of drift rather than a rise to ever greater heights of rationality, peace and order.
In the second part of the book Gray looks at the ideas of Sigmund Freud and in particular his views on myth creation. Freud saw the internal self as forever at war between the forces of Eros (love, creativity) and Thanatos (hatred, destruction). Psychoanalysis can be seen as a process of coming to terms with this perpetual disorder. We might be driven by unconscious forces over which we have no control, but by accepting and trying to recognise them we can attain some degree of autonomy in our lives.
All our constructions of the world are myths of one kind or another. Gray rejects Jung's idea of universal myths and notes that museums are full of old gods that people once thought were eternal and immortal. Our stories about the world change all the time, as do we, and part of Freud's work was to reconcile us with our ever-emergent selves.
Science appears to be different and Gray makes a neat distinction between scientific method, which tests our beliefs against facts, and the way we usually operate which is to select the facts that reinforce our beliefs. We are an incorrigibly irrational lot. But even science is myth-like: any scientific theory only works for a certain period of time before being replaced by another or being rendered irrelevant by a new paradigm. Our understanding of the world is thus made up of changing theories and stories, often inconsistent and sometimes plain barmy, and none of them ever fully explains everything. Spending your days searching for a theory of everything? Get a life.
Given that the world is chaotic and that our stories and theories about it are patchy and ephemeral, how can we best engage with the world? This is the theme of the final section of the book. Here Gray investigates how people have sought to look at the world from different perspectives and analyses two extraordinary books by J A Baker, who tried to see the world through the eyes of animals. He also looks at how people have pursued silence and used meditation, exercises that try to take us out of the hubbub of the world and the manic chatter in our heads. The value of these activities is that they change us and our perceptions of (and enjoyment of) the world.
The world view depicted by Gray might seem to presume pessimism and often Gray's thoughts appear this way, but accepting the chaos of the world and our inability to fully grasp it can also be refreshing and liberating, and can heighten our enjoyment of ourselves, other people and the world about us. Being alive becomes interesting in itself.
There is no discussion of the French existentialist philosophers, and surprisingly no discussion of Buddhism, even though these two have a lot in common with Gray's perspective. The final section of the book felt incomplete as a result. There is also far too little about the human need for certainty in life and how this blinds us to the greater joys of the world. In the first part of the book he consigns the progress myth to the rubbish bin, but if we have to live by myths is the progress one so bad? Public policy, education systems and charitable aid are all built on the lie of progress but they have produced some positive social results. Gray never considers whether some myths might be preferable to others and how we might decide that.
There is a wealth of engrossing detail in this book, supplemented by extensive notes. His exploration of some of the lesser known byways in literature whetted my appetite to pursue them further. Even if you find Gray's views unconvincing, the journey with him is well informed and never dull. This work will inspire you to reflect on how you understand yourself and the world in which you have randomly arrived.
48 of 52 people found the following review helpful.
Gray's Anatomy of Civilizationj
By Cotton Mather
That Gray puts to bed the rationalist's love affair with humanism is less important than the fact that he euthanizes what is left of faith as well.
Ignore Thomas Nagel's NY Times book review. As much as I like Nagel's work, his review is off considerably. He claims that Gray inserts far too much secondary quotation from other books. This is not really even a matter of opinion. It is simply false. Gray uses what is necessary to convey his ideas within an intellectual's context. Nagel also claims that Gray hammers away for no reason as there are many examples of progress available. Well, Nagel just walks into the trap here as Gray explains why such examples are part of a greater myth.
Gray has carefully explained the nature of our wishful thinking and, without ideological bias or academic rancor, he has done his part for disenchantment. Yet, he has not, in any way, attempted to create a nihilist's playbook. He allows much for the advance of meaning.
Really--a marvelous book. It deserves much more attention than it seems to be getting.
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
"The surface is everything, below that there is nothing."
By VampireCowboy
That's a quote from Llewellyn Powys, younger brother of better known writer John Cowper Powys (Porius, which is on my 2014 reading list). Llewellyn is just one of the many writers and thinkers, most of them obscure (oh, to spend some time in John Gray's library), profiled and sampled and pressed into something new and original and wonderful: The Silence of Animals, on Progress and other Modern Myths.
I love this book. To be fair, I'm a huge John Gray fan, so I pretty much knew I was going to love it from the outset. I was right. By using the lives and words of others to build his arguments and illuminate his world view, Gray creates a haunting, moving dreamscape of thought, a ghostly fortress of logic, that carries readers along to his inescapable conclusions: progress is a myth, humans are animals (and unexceptional animals at that) and we do ourselves a disservice by hiding behind religion and other myths which prevent us from just being ... and therefore being happy.
It's not for everyone. If you enjoy having your belief systems shaken like a martini, or relish in seeing atheism called into question for falling short of the mark, or wonder if faith in science and progress is really just the recycled and misguided faith of the religious, this short, epic, sad, funny, tragic, exasperating, ultimately uplifting book is for you.
Some of my favorite lines:
"According to some historians, inequality in America at the start of the twenty-first century is greater than in the slave-based economy of imperial Rome in the second century. Of course there are differences. Contemporary America is probably less stable than imperial Rome."
"Denying reality in order to preserve a view of the world is not a practice confined to cults. Cognitive dissonance is the normal human condition."
"If there is anything unique about the human animal it is that it has the ability to grow knowledge at an accelerating rate while being chronically incapable of learning from experience."
"A type of atheism that refused to revere humanity would be a genuine advance."
"If you admit your need for silence, you accept that much of your life has been an exercise in distraction."
"Every sentient being is a world-maker."
Don't be fooled by the slender nature of the book, it's packed with enough insights and a-ha moments to remake a dozen worlds, but certainly (hopefully) not in our own image. After all, "there is no redemption from being human. But no redemption is needed."
Gray urges us to look past our mistaken belief in exceptionalism, and past our mistaken certainty that things will get better in some mythical afterlife or in some mythical, distant and never-realized point in the future when science and society finally amend away the bad habits that prevent a utopian existence. The secret, he thinks -- and I agree -- is that those bad habits, and the good ones, ARE us. Always looking to the future prevents us from living fully here and now. Better to understand who we are than to dream impotently about who we could or should be.
A side note: for someone who so ably and vigorously denies the existence of meaning outside of our own existence, his use of and reliance on literature stretching back to early Greek philosophers creates a sort of enveloping sense of meaning that exists outside of and above our own miserable, glorious meaningless lives -- art.
The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths, by John Gray PDF
The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths, by John Gray EPub
The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths, by John Gray Doc
The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths, by John Gray iBooks
The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths, by John Gray rtf
The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths, by John Gray Mobipocket
The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths, by John Gray Kindle
