Straw Dogs by John Gray

[kanzeon_2040]

Occasionally I want to read a book so badly, even though it doesn't have a Kindle version, that I order it in paper. Typically it is then never read at all, and sits around the house for decades. Well, I presume decades, I haven't had my Kindle apps for as long as 4 years yet

Comments

[vicar]

Sad that he'd put a neat series of thoughts out there like that and now follow through with a plan. He's confident and arrogant enough to be sarcastic - ok genius, so what do we do to channel our animal selves into a society that doesn't suck...or conversely how do we secular idealists do the same thing in light of animal selfishness? It's fair for the author to start the ball rolling, hope he took a stab at which direction he suggests and a detailed why.

[kanzeon_2040]

I will let you know if there is a plan in the back of the book later.

Obviously there are social movements and attempts to make things better, but I think he is more about attacking beliefs than attacking actions. Such as the belief in inevitable Progress, or the belief that with the proper policies we can avoid an overpopulation die-off over the next 150 years. The reality, he seems to be saying, is that we simply don't know whether we can avoid a crash landing. He may also be saying that our comforting beliefs are keeping us from acting more decisively to deal with what threatens us.

He refers to a previous book in which he attacks the beliefs in the Market, so he's not simply a conservative poking fun at liberals. He seems to think the future is simply not within our conscious control, that human nature is what it is regardless of our precious beliefs.

[vicar]

I like what I hear about the analyses. Hope prevents action, I can totally see that. I could call it jaded like me, or romantic in the sense that a certain amount of pessimism can help us achieve our romantic ideas more than just wandering around saying pretty things a midst the rubble?

[dreamsinanime]

Snark is cheap these days. My opinion is obvious, you see, so I don't need to explain it, and the fools I'm making fun of won't get it anyway. This comprises 50% of the content of the Internet, and it's something I work to avoid.

Though if what someone snarks about is something you agree with, the rant can be good fun.

[kanzeon_2040]

Sometimes I want someone to snark in a way I disagree with, to shake up my unconscious beliefs and drag them into the light. This is not necessarily fun when uninvited, but I chose to read this book in the hope he would shake me out of some of my unfounded beliefs, and get me to think more clearly about some of my other beliefs :-)

[dreamsinanime]

Not my cup of tea. I do like reading outside my beliefs to check if the opposing ideas have merit, but there'd better be some logic. Snark just tends to stem from a certain smugness of being right and not having to go through much effort to prove it... in other words, there's rarely any meat behind it.