I just got the latest book from my old dissertation supervisor at Oxford University, John Gray. It’s called Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals. Here’s an important passage:
“We think of the Stone Age as an age of poverty and the Neolithic as a great leap forward. In fact the move from hunter-gathering to farming brought no overall gain in human well-being or freedom. It enabled larger numbers to live poorer lives. Almost certainly, Paleolithic humanity was better off.”
Well, over the past twenty-five years or so John has occupied almost every position on the political spectrum, each time with unconcealed contempt for anyone who still held the view that he had held two years earlier. In each case, it seems that the changes have been occasioned by John’s noticing problems or anomalies in the position he’s in process of abandoning. If it’s not perfect and can’t answer every question with no residue of doubt of uncertainty, then it’s worthless and must be completely abandoned. Now he’s given up on civilization altogether, because it, too, is imperfect, as is humanity itself.