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Mini-Decoding: Indulgent Monologuing (Patreon)

Published:
2024-02-28 02:26:06
Edited:
2024-02-28 02:26:33
Imported:
2026-06
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Sometimes we like to focus on a specific rhetorical technique or recurrent feature that we observe in the Gurusphere. Here, Matt and Chris examine a portion of the philosopher John Gray's recent appearance on Sam Harris' Making Sense podcast. Gray was invited to outline his critique of New Atheism, and his response is a remarkable monologue encompassing a vast range of topics and historical periods, from ancient religion to medieval peasants and contemporary philosophers. It is a veritable tour de force of a well-read philosopher's mind palace. So join us for a hike around Gray's mind palace and see if you agree with our assessment that this reflects some common issues in academic, philosophical, and guru discourse. Alternatively, you might find this approach vibes with your interests, and we are simply showcasing our grumpy materialist perspective. We probably can't tell unless we first consider what Spinoza said to Oldenburg in 1665...

Links

Is Moral Progress a Fantasy?: A Conversation with John Gray (Episode #354)

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Comments

Zack

I can say without listening to y’all’s reaction that he reminded me of one of my old phil professors but instead of relating everything back to Leo Strauss, this guy did Isaiah Berlin. I can take it as either obnoxious or endearing depending on my mood. I remember stating out loud to my partner that I feel like 99.9% of people would simply not track this conversation as I’m having trouble tracking some references and I’ve spent years studying the history of western philosophy.

Jarod S

You guys are my favourite comedy podcast when you have episodes like these.

Brian Naas

not sure if you're aware, the interview portion has degraded audio quality

Kit McLean

Sam should have asked ChatGPT, it gives a waaaaaaaaay more cogent response! What is it that philosopher John Gray thinks the new atheists got wrong about religion? John Gray, a British philosopher, has critiqued the "New Atheists" for several key misunderstandings and oversimplifications of religion. His criticism focuses on figures like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett, who are known for their strong opposition to religious belief. According to Gray, the New Atheists got the following wrong about religion: 1. **Misunderstanding the Nature of Religion**: Gray argues that the New Atheists treat religion purely as a set of empirical claims about the world, akin to scientific hypotheses. He contends that this is a fundamental misunderstanding. Religion, in Gray's view, is as much about identity, community, and morality as it is about explanations of the cosmos. It fulfills human needs that are not addressed by science or rationality alone. 2. **Overlooking the Diversity of Religious Experience**: Gray points out that the New Atheists often lump all religions into a single category, failing to appreciate the vast diversity of religious experiences and beliefs across cultures. This homogenization ignores the nuances and the often contradictory nature of religious thought and practice. 3. **Equating Religion with Literalism**: The New Atheists, Gray argues, often engage with the most literal and fundamentalist interpretations of religion, ignoring more sophisticated, allegorical, and mystical dimensions. This approach fails to recognize the depth and complexity of religious thought. 4. **Ignoring the Secular Religions**: Gray has also criticized the New Atheists for failing to recognize that secular ideologies, such as certain forms of nationalism or communism, can function much like religions. These ideologies often carry their own myths, rituals, and moral codes, demonstrating that the human propensity for faith can manifest outside traditional religious structures. 5. **Underestimating the Role of Religion in Human Life**: According to Gray, the New Atheists underestimate the role that religion plays in providing meaning, community, and moral guidance in people's lives. They assume that these needs can be easily met by rationality and science, overlooking the complexity of human nature and the diverse ways in which people find meaning. 6. **Assuming Progressivism in Human Affairs**: Gray criticizes the New Atheists for assuming a form of progressivism, believing that humanity is on a linear trajectory away from superstition and towards reason and science. He argues that this view is historically naive and overlooks the cyclical nature of human societies, where rational and irrational beliefs often coexist and fluctuate in influence. Gray's critique is not an argument for the truth of any religious claims but rather a critique of the New Atheists' approach to understanding religion. He advocates for a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of religious beliefs and practices, one that acknowledges their complexity, diversity, and deep roots in human culture and psychology.

Diane Morrison

Progress is Gray’s general theme which he’s written about in several books..I’ve read a few of them and they’re pretty dense and depressing..but they cover very broad terrain in a very interesting way. I think he’s a brilliant writer but he gets quite repetitive. I loved the live reactions to Gray’s style in this mini decoding, and also I love that Gray is one of the few people that can make Harris shut up for a bit 😜

rooftowel

I opted out of that episode during the mandatory woke complaining. But my favourite part of his book promotion was on BBC when Teresa Bejan explained in the nicest way possible that he got basic facts about Thomas Hobbes wrong in his book (nominally) about Hobbes. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001qmy9

Robert Andrews

I actually enjoy listening to John Gray. It could be his accent which is weirdly posh Geordie. I read Black Mass way back, and remember finding it interesting in its pessimistic way. He did a good job of explaining what neo-conservatism was (as opposed to what the popular view of it was). It was not the philosophy of George W Bush, but rather that of Paul Wolfowitz, and before him of Allan Bloom and Leo Strauss, which he describes as an eschatological philosophy of History's inexorable march towards a better future. Gray thinks that neo-conservatism was just another grand theory similar to Whig history or Marxist history that sees history as having a direction. His favourite debating opponent was and is, neo-conservative Francis Fukuyama who makes explicit references to Marx and Hegel in his book The End of History. The thing is, that Gray is probably right that history does not have some inevitable direction, but most people who argue for moral progress don't necessarily agree with him that there must be some ratchet-like mechanism that prevents things going backwards. Instead it probably makes more sense to invoke something like the heirachy of needs whereby if you can make some progress to fulfill people's most basic needs, then you can move on to other things such as basic human dignity, liberty, the right to participate in democracy etc... Gray sometimes acts as if these advances are nothing, or so fragile as if to not be taken seriously. And yet, in many of his books, including, by the sounds of things, his most recent one, he is forever warning about how we are just about to make things unutterably worse. This recognition that there can be bad and better, or in his words "improvement" but not "progress", suggests he is doing some sleight of hand. One review I read of him noticed it was ironic of him to be a writer who doesn't believe in progress yet bemoaning that the world was going to the dogs.

Jeremy Stewart

I (attempted to) read one of John Grays books years ago and I was left with the feeling that I had really missed the point. I put that down to me being too dumb to get it. After listening to this though, maybe I was wrong.

Jeremy Stewart

Highlight of this episode has to be Chris's continuing reference to Schoppenheimer even after being corrected by Matt.

rooftowel

Listening to the clips it seems he’s retreading the argument he had with Steven Pinker via Gray’s book review of The Better Angels of Our Nature (2012), and Pinker’s follow up, Enlightenment Now. Gray then wrote a book criticizing the New Atheists which was also oddly unspecific. He never seemed to get to what was actually said by New Atheists in that either. Like the current book he’s promoting it was primarily a vehicle to repeat his narrative about the decline of liberalism. The good political theory I’ve read is first about a careful exegesis of the history of ideas in context before any comparative lessons are drawn

Nina Davies

One of my Anthropology lecturers was strongly of the view that Atheism was a subset of Christianity. However, as an Anthropologist, he never argued this Philosophically. How you can ever have a strong opinion about the stuff people may or may not think - and how that may or may not be expressed in culture - is beyond me these days. Perhaps that is the problem for aging Philosophers - there is no point to make so they just have to ramble in the hope they end up somewhere meaningful eventually.

Exai

One of the low points of the podcast's reaction content, frankly. Gray's is a rambling, ineffective, off the cuff answer. If such indulgences were bad (twenty minutes?!*), would imagine the 45 minutes spent on this could be replaced with more or less any single sentence said by Matt. Cognitive scientists talking about Schopenheimer is scraping the barrel in ways I'd imagine you were critical about. *edit: I guess it's closer to ten? God, how many seconds can it take to present a theory of history and time, anyway. New Atheists do it in five!

Níall

The fade out at the end gave me a lol

poodie

Not joking here: he's a 75 year old man; could he possibly be in the early stages of dementia?

Emil Mi

I agree. I was frustrated that Matt didn't seem to get the point that New Atheism is framed as "progress" in an area that lacks a compass pointing towards "better". Matt's framing that "change is not possible" was lazy - I heard "progress in this area is undefined" with a long list of examples that the guest was hoping to drive the point home

Nick Asbury

I also detected an element of a British guy nervously trying to avoid an argument – so retreating into generalities and history lessons instead. I feel like they both knew this was going on and Sam decided not to press it. (I speak as a British guy so I'm allowed to say this.)

john statham

Gray sounds and acts like he’s from another realm and time….and he’s calling directly from there.

Ymirsdreams

Spoiler, this is what Spinoza said: "*COUGH* *COUGH* *COUGH* *GASP* *COUGH***king lenses *COUGH*"

Paul Bowman

Jesus that was painful! Amusingly, when I went to check Grey's wikipedia page, the header para states that 1) he retired from being an active professor in 2008 (so maybe he's out of the habit of being able to reply to students question in clear and concise manner before the lecture bell goes); and 2) he's an atheist. Which was my first question - he never got around to specifying whether his critique (which he also never specified) relates to atheism generally, or New AtheismTM specifically. I think, especially as an atheist who is critical of New Atheism (as I am personally, as it happens) you should clearly open with that distinction - then outline what you see as the specifics of New Atheism, then why you disagree with them. I really have no patience for this performative erudition that is oddly reminiscent of schizophrenic hyper-connecting things across time, space, disciplines, in a highly idiosyncratic way. I don't see the point of following on such a journey, whose only takeaway is that you have for a while knelt at the feet of a true guru of logorrhea. State your model as clearly as possible, so that other people get a chance to play with it and poke holes in it - a much more egalitarian and cooperative approach to theory and discussion

Butler of Dogs

OMG now do people at question segments after talks.

Linda Sears

I like the idea of Schopenheimer the philosopher/physicist.

Robert Andrews

Schoppenheimer: the movie portmanteau we never knew we needed. Voiceover: "This winter, thrill to the real-life blockbuster biography double bill, along with Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, comes the latest Oscar-nominated performance for Anthony Hopkins in a bravura performance as the titular pessismitic miserablist German philsopher in Quentin Tarantino's Schopenhauer...." *cuts to wild-eyed white-haired Hopkins in Teutonic nineteenth century garb raging at the top of a wooden staircase* "Get down those m*****f***** stairs you old b****!". "...and Samuel L Jackson as you've never seen him before as Georg W F Hegel..." *Jackson, in powdered wig looks up from The World as Will and Representation, with a shocked expression: "that's some coldblooded s*** to say to a m*****f*****!"* "...get your tickets now to Schoppenheimer...or you'll wish you'd never been born!" Schopenhauer: Rated X for eXtremely dreary content and not recommended to be watched by anyone.

Michael

Saw an obnoxious post on the subreddit saying this was a bad episode with bad intentions but just wanted you all to know I found it useful and enjoyed it

Alex H

I'd bet that a JG decoding academia episode would be fun! His CWT interview has great material, not least: COWEN: But you would admit that if we go back to, say, Japan in 1950 or South Korea in 1960, it’s a good thing they never had your works to read. In your view, yes or no? GRAY: No, no. They didn’t need my works. COWEN: Well, they believed in progress. They made progress happen. They were pretty focused. GRAY: Did they? COWEN: Oh, absolutely. South Korea in 1960 was as poor as Central Africa. Today, it’s a very nice, pretty wonderful country. GRAY: It’s a very narrow historical perspective, if I may say so.[....]

J

People should listen to the original podcast with Harris. It was fine.

Matt Dear

I read John Gray's book Straw Dogs when I was about 18? I enjoyed it at the time... not sure I should have done. I read it because there was a J G Ballard quote on the back, and I liked him. I would describe it as mega nihilism. In the book he even calls out nihilists as too idealistic, as there belief implies humanity can be saved from meaninglessness. As an 18yo this was about the most cynical, contrary piece of media I'd ever come across, as such I thought it was genius... It also gave me some fun conversational topics in the pub, I imagine to the chagrin of my fellow pubees. It's funny really, because the whole book absolutely spanks of the New Atheist's holier-than-thou/smarter-than-thou attitude, that comes across a lot more like "old man yells at cloud".

Marcus

starting to get real jiggy when the intro music plays these days

Lys

So he puts things in simplest terms possible...I can barely follow him

Martin Pelchat

I just listened to the whole Sam interview with John Gray and for the most part, Gray answers the questions, but he indeed rambles on at the end of the interview where he is asked about new atheism (the clip Chris and Matt picked apart here). Essentially, I just wanted to point out that I listened to the source material and that this segment Chris and Matt cover isn't representative of the whole 2-hour interview (only the last 20-25 minutes).

Mark K

“Sometimes a man writes a short book and a long book. In the short book he tells you what he knows, in the long book he covers up everything he doesn’t know.” - Eric Hoffer We could say the same about verbal responses. And it is a rhetorical gambit as you both point out, since where are you going to start arguing with that mammoth response? It reminds me how Fidel Castro used to give 3+ hour speeches and force his cronies to listen. It’s a dodge and/or a power play.

Jonathan Cano

this episode was hilarious! A+++. or perhaps 7.23119 pluses

mill23

Schopenhauer’s main thesis was that compassion was like the only way to escape suffering, so it’s weird they say he didn’t realize compassion