This anthology of John Gray’s work over the past thirty years enables us to answer a question that has puzzled many people. What went wrong with John Gray?
When I first met him in 1979, he was a forceful and erudite advocate of classical liberalism; Murray Rothbard viewed him fondly, intrigued that an Oxford political theorist sympathized with libertarianism. In the years since then, unfortunately, Gray’s peregrinations have taken him to a position that has little use for human beings. What happened?
The present volume makes it clear that Gray has retained much of his classical liberalism. He provides an outstanding account of Hayek, bringing out the essentials of Hayek’s criticism of socialism and interventionism. FULL ARTICLE
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“How did it come to that? Mostly from the premise If government doesn’t do it, it doesn’t get done. But if we followed that consistently, we’d wind up right back with the “failed model” of socialist state planning of production and everything else, e.g., Stalin and Ceausescu’s prohibition of abortion or the Chinese Communists’ imposition of (even late-term) abortion. It is a premise refuted by an insight from an American Founder….”
FULL ARTICLE
As always, a great article.
I bet Gray is at a comfortable station in life. It seems when people reach that point, they often try and look beyond life with various degrees of spiritualism.
I hold the same view about the earth – or the biosphere, to be specific. To me, it’s obvious that all life is subservient to the biosphere, including us.
The absolute overarching goal is to thrive. Speciation has filled all the nooks and crannys in nearly every reachable place on the planet. Animals either live in a place where food flies into their mouth and they live and die in prolific numbers, or they live in a place where sophisticated skills allow them to exist in a wide-ranging environment.
Against all odds, these animals only have a few offspring, which requires a host of complex behaviors to make it to another generation. Lust to initiate contact. Extreme pleasure as a reward for procreating, and then the chemical of love to root us to the same spot and slice up our ego so that it is always thinking about the survival of dependents or the clan. The biosphere arranged this, and it is very serious about the thriving thing. We will sacrifice ourselves for loved ones… even children we do not know. When everyone else is fed, we feed. It’s a very natural thing.
The biosphere maybe can take us out too. Our contributions to entropy are off the scale compared to every single other species. Somehow they thrive without the large increase in entropy. Will there be a point where our efficiency begins to lower the rate of increase? There is literally bits of it blowing out the back of my computer right now
The biosphere has been around a lot longer than us, and we see what happened to many of the large species of the past. We didn’t kill them off. One little microbe to rule them all. Who knows?
We know man has already inflicted wounds on the planet. We had to change our behavior in a hurry with regards to the ozone layer. I forgot to congratulate us for that. Here’s to us…
If there is anything to global warming, I’m not worried. We will either figure out a solution, or the earth will. We can have a race.
i thought the cfc/ozone-hole causation had been largely discredited?
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070924/full/449382a.html
newson, that is the first I have heard of that. I can’t read the full article because they want money.
I’m a bit surprised though; the chemical process is extremely simple, and easily verifiable. Chlorine acts as a catlyst, turning O3 plus free oxygen into 2 O2 molecules. The levels of clorine in the O3 (ozone) layer are easily measured. When chlorine concentrations are elevated, holes appear.
I think it is important to note that “value pluralism” is self-contradictory, because it denotes tolerance as the highest of values. To say that “we cannot say, e.g., that the life of a monk is either better or worse than that of a soldier” is not to say that it is impossible to do so, but that it is wrong to do so. Moreover, the attempt to evangelize someone else on the ideal of value pluralism will break the very ideal.
If I don’t believe that all systems are equal, then what should it matter to the value pluralist?
I think it is important to note that “value pluralism” is self-contradictory, because it denotes tolerance as the highest of values. To say that “we cannot say, e.g., that the life of a monk is either better or worse than that of a soldier” is not to say that it is impossible to do so, but that it is wrong to do so. Moreover, the attempt to evangelize someone else on the ideal of value pluralism will break the very ideal.
If I don’t believe that all systems are equal, then what should it matter to the value pluralist?
I’m grateful to Brent Railey for his comment, but the value pluralism that John Gray discusses does not say that it possible, but wrong, to say that there is type of life that is better than any other. It denies this. Further, value pluralists need not favor tolerance, much less think that it is the highest value.
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