The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom, by John Gray

Staff review by Chris Saliba


English philosopher John Gray examines the notion of freedom in an age of technology and progress. 

Gnosticism is the belief that the world was not created by God, but by a demiurge, a malign or incompetent deity. Gnostics also hold great faith in knowledge: once the world is fully understood, humans can emancipate themselves. This is the starting point for philosopher John Gray’s new book The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom. Gray  suggests that many of us today are Gnostics without realising it. We believe scientific knowledge will help us escape the limitations that shape our natural condition. In science’s most ambitious scenarios, Gray says, human beings become marionettes, puppets on genetic strings.

The Soul of the Marionette is very much a freewheeling essay that meditates on freedom, using examples from a broad range of writers, such as Heinrich von Kleist and science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Gray doesn’t hold back on his typical gloominess about technology and progress, suggesting the best way to free ourselves is by accepting our ignorance and simply letting meaning come and go. “A wholly examined life - if such a life were possible - might be wholly worthless,” he writes, perhaps with unintended humour. Despite Gray’s pessimism, this is a book full of unexpected and uncanny insights.

The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom, by John Gray. Published by Allen Lane. ISBN: 9781846144493 RRP: $35 

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The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths, by John Gray

Staff Review by Chris Saliba

John Gray's pessimistic yet ultimately liberating view is that humans think life could be better than it is, and that change is possible. Gray says, like the animals, we should accept life as it is and eschew notions of progress. 

According to British philosopher John Gray, human beings are different from animals in that we have ideas about ourselves and how life should be. Our minds are filled with thousands and thousands of words - ceaseless noise - tormenting us into thinking that life should be better than it is. This has led us as a species to believe in our own human perfectablility.

The philosophy of humanism, which is our own secular religion, insists that we are on an inexorable path to progress. We can expect life to get better, because we are rational, intelligent human beings. John Gray says this is a myth. He insists that while science continues to make advances, human psychology stays hopelessly the same.

Animals, however, are not tortured by words and their own ideology of progress. While they have methods of communication with each other, and ways of interpreting the world around them, their minds are not prey to the distressing cognitive noise that so preoccupies humans. Animals accept the world as it is and don’t mourn an imagined utopia. John Gray suggests we should turn away from our unrealistic myths of progress, try to clear the ceaseless noise in our heads, and try to live like the animals, accepting life as it is.

To illustrate his argument, Gray uses examples from writers and poets such as J.G Ballard, Freud, Wallace Stevens and Arthur Koestler, to name a few. Indeed, the text liberally quotes a wide range of writers. Gray clearly finds literature both inspiring and aesthetically satisfying, giving The Silence of Animals a rich tone that in part reads like literary appreciation.

The Silence of Animals is a both pessimistic and liberating. It liberates the reader from the constant hurly-burly of modern life, with its imperative for change and improvement. It’s also sobering, as it suggests that we are flawed animals that think too much and too well of ourselves.

The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths, by John Gray. Published by Penguin. ISBN: 9780241953914  RRP: $19.99

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