Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

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We think our actions express our decisions. But in nearly all of our life, willing decides nothing. We cannot wake up or fall asleep, remember or forget our dreams, summon or banish our thoughts, by deciding to do so. When we greet someone on the street we just act, and there is no actor standing behind what we do. Our acts are end points in long sequences of unconscious responses. They arise from a structure of habits and skills that is almost infinitely complicated. Most of our life in enacted without conscious awareness. Nor can it be made conscious. No degree of self-awareness can make us self-transparent.”

Straw Dogs - Macmillan

Das Tragische als Weltgesetz und der Humor als ästhetische Gestalt des Metaphysischen ( Julius Bahnsen) John Gray, σαφώς ένα τέτοιο αιρετικό μυαλό, σύγχρονος φιλόσοφος με αξιόλογη πορεία, πετσοκόβει χωρίς το γάντι τις παραφυάδες αισιοδοξίας που φυτρώνουν στο ανθρώπινο μυαλό, το γεμάτο ψευδαισθήσεις για να καταφέρνει να την βγάζει καθαρή. Ο αισιόδοξος αναγνώστης δε θα βρει απάνεμο καταφύγιο. Ο απαισιόδοξος -η υποφαινόμενη ανήκει σε αυτούς- θα δεχτεί με ευχαρίστηση την ενδοφλέβια αυτή ένεση επιβεβαίωσης των κατά βάση κακών οιωνών για το ανθρώπινο είδος. The cuts made for American distribution, which were made to reduce the duration of the sequence, therefore tended paradoxically to compound the difficulty with the first rape, leaving the audience with the impression that Amy enjoyed the experience. The Board took the view in 1999 that the pre-cut version eroticised the rape and therefore raised concerns with the Video Recordings Act about promoting harmful activity. The version considered in 2002 is substantially the original uncut version of the film, restoring much of the unambiguously unpleasant second rape. The ambiguity of the first rape is given context by the second rape, which now makes it quite clear that sexual assault is not something that Amy ultimately welcomes. —The British Board of Film ClassificationGray, John; Pelczynski, Zbigniew, eds. (1984). Conceptions of Liberty. London: Athlone Press. ISBN 978-0485112368. When times are desperate they act to protect their offspring, to revenge themselves on enemies, or simply to give vent to their feelings.

Straw Dogs (1972) - Turner Classic Movies Straw Dogs (1972) - Turner Classic Movies

The truth that Dostoevsky puts in the mouth of the Grand Inquisitor is that humankind has never sought freedom, and never will. The secular religions of modern times tell us that humans yearn to be free; and it is true that they find restraint of any kind irksome. Yet it is rare that individuals value their freedom more than the comfort that comes with servility, and rarer still for whole peoples to do so. Although all the interiors were filmed in London studios, the location shots for Straw Dogs were all shot in freezing conditions in St Buryan in the early part of 1971. But there is something about the way he does it that turns me off. He wants to survey the history of ideas, as well as every new age movement on the horizon, and say, “See where that got us? What’s the point of doing that?” He’s down on secular humanism as well as traditional religions, and he seems opposed to anyone who ever had an original thought in the history of philosophy. “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!” What’s the point of even trying? Better to be like the other animals and passively accept whatever comes our way. For people in thrall to ‘morality’, the good life means perpetual striving. For Taoists it means living effortlessly, according to our natures. The freest human being is not one who acts on reasons he has chosen for himself, but one who never has to choose.

Furthermore, he argues that this belief in progress, commonly imagined to be secular and liberal, is in fact derived from an erroneous Christian notion of humans as morally autonomous beings categorically different from other animals. This belief, and the corresponding idea that history makes sense, or is progressing towards something, is in Gray's view merely a Christian prejudice. [11] Gray, John (1993). Post-Liberalism: Studies in Political Thought. London & New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415088732. a b c Postel, Danny (22 December 2003). "Gray's Anatomy". The Nation. New York . Retrieved 25 April 2013. Yes, there is a danger in blind faith in progress or undue veneration of science. But all Gray has to offer as an alternative seems to be an even more unreliable amalgam of Eastern philosophy and Gaia theory. It's not enough. The apocalyptic romance of his vision is itself more akin to mysticism than rationality. And so the leaps in logic pile up. It is worth stressing (though hardly a new idea) that we are animals like any other species. But it takes some effort to go on to say that we are therefore in no way unusual in our accomplishments both good and bad. Similarly, Gray is right to show that morality breaks down in extreme circumstances. But he is wrong to conclude from this that it has no value. Today we have made a fetish of choice; but a chosen death is forbidden. Perhaps what distinguishes humans from other animals is that humans have learnt to cling more abjectly to life.”

Straw Dogs : Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals - Google Books

If anything about the present century is certain, it is that the power conferred on ‘humanity’ by new technologies will be used to commit atrocious crimes against it. a b c "Straw Dogs (1971)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 29 May 2017 . Retrieved 31 August 2017. The human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth. To think otherwise is to resurrect the pre-Darwinian error that humans are different from all other animals.” It is a most un-British experiment, owing more in influence and ambition to the great continental tradition of the philosophical aphorism and gnomic utterance, as perfected by Pascal, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus and the French-Romanian nihilist EM Cioran, than it does to the arid language games of the Anglo-American tradition. Gray, John (2002). Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans & Other Animals. London: Granta Books. ISBN 978-1862075122.He identifies the Enlightenment as the point at which the Christian doctrine of salvation was taken over by secular idealism and became a political religion with universal emancipation as its aim. [11] Communism, fascism and "global democratic capitalism" are characterised by Gray as Enlightenment "projects" which have led to needless suffering, in Gray's view, as a result of their ideological allegiance to this religion. [14] Agonistic liberalism [ edit ] The studio edited the first rape scene before releasing the film in the United States, to earn an R rating from the MPAA. [37] Central to the doctrine of humanism, in Gray's view, is the inherently utopian belief in meliorism; that is, that humans are not limited by their biological natures and that advances in ethics and politics are cumulative and that they can alter or improve the human condition, in the same way that advances in science and technology have altered or improved living standards. [11] Gray, John (2004). Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions. London: Granta Books. ISBN 978-1862077188.

John Gray (philosopher) - Wikipedia John Gray (philosopher) - Wikipedia

The atheist Gray, who rejects the assumptions of Christianity, here targets the contemporary consensus of humanism. In ridding itself of theistic illusions, Gray believes, secular humanism didn’t go nearly far enough. Gray, John (2021). Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0141988429. Friedrich Hayek described Gray's 1984 book Hayek on Liberty as "The first survey of my work which not only fully understands but is able to carry on my ideas beyond the point at which I left off." [22]He says, “It is scarcely possible to imagine a philosophy such as Platonism emerging in an oral culture.” (p. 57) Hello. What we know of Plato’s philosophy comes from dialogues, an oral medium and art form. It’s not hard to imagine; Plato makes it completely explicit. Here are eight of my favorite passages: * * * * * The destruction of the natural world is not the result of global capitalism, industrialisation, 'Western civilisation' or any flaw in human institutions. It is a consequence of the evolutionary success of an exceptionally rapacious primate. Throughout all of history and prehistory, human advance has coincided with ecological devastation. Over the past 200 years, philosophy has shaken off Christian faith. It has not given up Christianity's cardinal error — the belief that humans are radically different from all other animals.