Three Things for Your Sunday

(Well, four actually, but three reads better...not too overwhelming)

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“Most people today think they belong to a species that can be master of its destiny. This is faith, not science. We do not speak of a time when whales or gorillas will be masters of their destinies. Why then do humans?” —John Gray

RARELY DO I READ A BOOK THREE times in a row. But political philosopher John Gray’s book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals got a vice-like grip on my brain this summer, and I couldn’t shake it. Sobriety anyone?

What if we challenged humanity’s notion of progress? Or the idea that things are cyclic but proceed in a spiral-like movement? This is what Gray’s book does. Challenges these assumptions.

Ever since the Enlightenment, humans have considered humanity to be on an ascending arc to more and more, well, enlightenment. All of this upward mobility is akin to living out a personal version of Manifest Destiny.

This experience is inflated to the point of bursting if you’ve ever become involved with any sort of spiritual or metaphysical school. The basic con of the school and the teacher/guru or whatever, is that if you commit and hang in there with the ‘program’ you’re guaranteed a seat on the ascension ride.

After investing 25+ years in a spiritual school, I came to understand, firsthand, that there is no ascending arc. There is no promised land. There’s only this ordinary day that we have before we die. A day that’s already fading as soon as you’ve finished reading this sentence.

Gray (a true blue Aries) forces the reader to rethink the strange gap that exists (in people’s minds) between themselves and animals. The idea that we are more ‘evolved’ than animals is laughable when you consider the cruel behavior that humans enact on other humans. As he says, science and technology create a confused narrative that we are evolving towards more and more rationality. More sane behavior. But are we?

“Those who ignore the destructive potential of new technologies can do so only because they ignore history. Pogroms are as old as Christendom; but without railways, the telegraph and poison gas there could have been no Holocaust. There have always been tyrannies; but without modern means of transport and communication, Stalin and Mao could not have built their gulags. Humanity’s worst crimes were made possible only by modern technology.”

What pulled me into Straw Dogs for the third time was the necessity to re-exam how humanist ideals became part of the puzzle that explains shit like MAGA and Brexit. Not that Gray goes into any Trump effluvia (he published the book in 2002), but he does arrange the argument as to why liberalism ushered in a pandora’s box of geopolitical repercussions. The biggest of course being arrangements like NAFTA and the perceived betrayal of the lower and middle class, which triggers xenophobia.

In her book The Case for God, Jane Armstrong wrote:

“We are meaning-seeking creatures and, unlike other animals, fall very easily into despair if we fail to make sense of our lives.”

Gray suggests that we live without meaning, as one is then free (my take, not his) to do what philosophy’s original intent was about, at least as Plato offered it to us, that being contemplation. Too, one avoids the cycle of hopping from meaning to meaning (as people tend to get bored once they see that their belief system eventually becomes suffocating—so they go shopping for another ism).

I avoid belief, like I do boredom. And life is much more relaxed and enjoyable that way. Too, ‘not knowing’ feels honest. And I like that feeling.

Straw Dogs. Highly recommended. Don’t miss it. Get it here.

Fame Whores

We all know one (or several). We witness them everyday clogging up bandwidth on social media and within politics and entertainment, and especially within modern-day guru culture. If you haven’t subscribed to my Fame Whores podcast, a sort of bi-monthly hot take on pop culturatura, divas of both sexes, self-publishing novels, and, of course, the miracle of Porn Creep, well, we’re waiting for you. I’m joined for each episode by my co-host, novelist

John Calendo

. I think you’ll appreciate our effort to keep political chatter to a minimum. And special thanks to our sponsor

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from Boy Culture.

Music for the (Select) Masses

My 2025 playlist on Spotify, Luigiesque has passed the mid-year point and is clocking in around 37 hours worth of new and old music. Be sure to set to shuffle for maximum surprise and pleasure.

And finally — How to save some money

There’s limited time left to take advantage of my Big Beautiful Death Bill 4th of July discounts on WOODRUFF.

All year-long subscriptions are now 25% off until Sunday night.

And first time astrology sessions with me, are also discounted 25%.

And returning clients can take advantage of this discount, too.

Love,

Opening image: UK Cover of John Gray’s book Straw Dogs.

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