UFPPC (www.ufppc.org) — Digging Deeper CLIX: May 9, 2011, 7:00 p.m.
John Gray, Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 2008). Original edition 2007.
[Thesis. Christian apocalypticism has thoroughly
infused modern politics, especially in utopian
movements. In the last generation, centrist forms of
utopianism, neoliberalism and neoconservatism,
have been adopted, and the Iraq war is among the
consequences. A renewal of the realist tradition and
a rejection of "the myth of the End" is urgently
needed in the contemporary world.]
Acknowledgments. Interlocutors, including Bryan
Appleyard and David Rieff, and his Penguin editor.
Ch. 1: The Death of Utopia. "Modern politics is a
chapter in the history of religion" (1; 1-3).
Properly, apocalypse is "a revelation in which
mysteries that are written in heaven are revealed at
the end of time" (4). It is a chiefly Christian idea
(5-9) with deeper roots (10-11). "Christianity
injected eschatology into the heart of western
civilization" (12). The Reformation (13-14).
Modernity politicized utopia (15-17). "Repression
flowed from the [communist] ideal itself" (18). It is
not Marx's perspicacious analysis of capitalism that
was utopian, but rather his vision of an alternative
society (18-19). Fantastical denial of the danger of
utopianism is widespread (19-20). "All dreams of a
society from which coercion and power have been
for ever removed . . . are utopian" (20).
Progressivism's roots are in Christianity (21-26).
With the Jacobins, "utopianism became a
revolutionary movement and modern secular
religion a political force" (28; 26-28). During the
past generation, the Right has embraced utopianism
(28-35).
Ch. 2: Enlightenment and Terror in the
Twentieth Century. "The role of the
Enlightenment in twentieth-century terror remains a
blind spot in western perception" (36). The term
"totalitarian" (37-39). Soviet Communism: "Lenin's
policies were genuine attempts to realize Marxian
communism," a vision that was "thoroughly
utopian" despite "Marx's repudiation of utopian
thinking" (52;40-55). Nazism combined
"eschatological myth and perverted science" (65;
55-69). Radical Islam—Qtub in particular—is also
a product of the modern West (69-70). Islam's
relation to the West is commonly misunderstood;
they share deep roots and connections (70-73).
Ch. 3: Utopia Enters the Mainstream. The notion
that the world is moving toward a single economic
and political system is "[a]s damagingly utopian as
any earlier grand design for humanity" (75; 74-75).
Margaret Thatcher's politics ultimately resulted in
the "destruction of conservatism" and the embrace
of a "centrist version of utopianism" (81; 84; 75-
84). New Labor embraced a neoliberalism derived
from Hayek (84-93). Tony Blair methodically
disregarded truth in a time of ascending utopianism
(93-106).
Ch. 4: The Americanization of the Apocalypse.
The myth of a new beginning that runs through
American history is a form of millenarian
utopianism (107-14). George W. Bush as
exemplifying this tradition (115-20).
Neoconservatism's origins: Irving Kristol, Daniel
Bell, Melvin Lasky, Nathan Glazer, Seymour
Martin Lipset, Patrick Moynihan (121-23). Francis
Fukuyama (123-25). Jeanne Kirkpatrick (126-27).
Ironically, Leo Strauss, neoconservativism's
intellectual progenitor, did not share the believe that
liberal democracy could be exported (128-31).
Strauss and nihilism (131-34). Albert Wohlstetter,
Team B, and the disregard for truth (135-44). The
neoconservative mindset recalls Dostoevsky's
analysis of Russian terrorists (144-45).
Ch. 5: Armed Missionaries. The Iraq war shows
that American policymaking has become "delusive"
(146-48). The Iraq war (149-61). In addition to the
currents of thought already analyzed in this book, "a
type of 'liberal imperialism' based on human rights"
was also a factor (161-64). But no Western powers,
and especially the U.S., can now pursue a large-
scale imperial project; it lacks the ideological
underpinnings and the economic means (164-66).
"Liberal imperialism has also resulted in a retreat
from liberal values in the US"—cf. torture, habeas
corpus, the fostering of illiberal public opinion
(167-74). Al-Qaeda: "The danger of Islamist
terrorism is real, but declaring war on it is not a
sensible way to deal with it"; the War on Terror is
symptomatic of thinking grounded in myths of
apocalyptic religion (178; 174-83).
Ch. 6: Post-Apocalypse. "The faith in Utopia . . .
is dead," and Iraq may be the last utopian
experiment of the 21st century (184). Religions are
essential to "the mass of humankind" (186; 185-87;
cf. "Religions are not claims to knowledge but ways
of living with what cannot be known" [207]).
History shows no sign of being progressive and
beliefs to the contrary are grounded in religion
(187-88). "Contemporary atheism is a [crude]
Christian heresy" (189). "[S]ecular creeds are
formed from religious concepts" (190). "Liberalism
is a lineal descendant from Christianity and shares
the militancy of its parent faith" (191). We must
shun utopianism and "attempt to cope with reality"
(192). Realism must be renewed (193-96). Moral
conflicts are "permanent features in the relations of
states" (196). Realists accept the inevitability of
realpolitik (196-97). Realism need not be
conservative (198). It should recognized that
"human beings have needs that cannot be satisfied
by any rational means" (199). It must face the
"insoluble dilemmas" posed by environmental crisis
(203; 200-04). People feel a "need for an
overarching human narrative," but "[s]eeing one's
life as an episode in a universal narrative is a
fantasy" (204; 205; 204-05). We should aspire to a
"freedom from narrative" of the kind described by
mystics, poets, and epicureans (206). Myths can be
"more or less truthful," and we should abandon the
belief that science and religion must be about belief
(207). "The most necessary task of the present time
is to accept the irreducible reality of religion,"
which the Enlightenment denied (207; 207-08).
The renewal of apocalyptic belief poses dangers:
"The myth of the End has caused untold suffering
and is now as dangerous as it has ever been" (210;
209-10). What we need is "the courage to cope
with recurring evils," such as "the opaque state of
war into which we have stumbled" (210).
Notes. 19 pp.
Index. 13 pp.
About the Author. John Gray is professor of
European thought at the London School of
Economics. He is the author of Straw Dogs:
Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2003), a
critique of philosophical humanism, Al Qaeda and
What It Means to Be Modern (2003). He writes
regularly for the New York Review of Books.
[Additional information. Not to be confused with
John Gray, the American author of Men Are from
Mars, Women Are from Venus (1992), John N.
Gray is the author of two dozen books on ideas and
politics. He was born on April 17, 1948, in South
Shields, Tyne & Wear, in the north of England.
Before LSE, he taught at the U. of Essex; Jesus
College, Oxford; U. of Oxford. He has visited at
Harvard, Bowling Green, Tulane, and Yale. Gray's
thought is dark and austere. He regards volition and
morality as illusions and humanity as a predatory
species. He is known for his thoroughgoing
rejection of Rawlsian liberalism and for rejecting
humanism as a form of utopianism. He has come to
reject the left-right dichotomy as no longer viable.
He advocates a politics of "devising temporary
remedies for recurring evils." He rejects a
progressive conception of history. He is admired by
J.G. Ballard, Will Self, Don Cupitt, Bryan
Appleyard, Jason Cowley, James Lovelock, and
Nassim Nicholas Taleb.]
[Critique. Black Mass is principally a critique of
the ideological proclivities that produced the Iraq
war and an exhortation to learn from the disaster.
Chapters 1 and 2 are intellectually adventurous,
drawing on Gray's earlier work to offer a clear
argument that religious thinking underlies modern
secularism. Chapter 6 is an eloquent sermon
exhorting readers to turn away from "the myth of
the End."]