Raymond Tallis
Happily Ever After?
The Immortalization Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death
By John Gray
Allen Lane/The Penguin Press 273pp £18.99
John Gray, a political philosopher who spent much of his academic career attacking the Enlightenment, has in recent years turned his gaze on his entire species, whom he has renamed Homo rapiens. Since Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, he has held his fellows up to ridicule as deluded self-flatterers whose dreams of progress have had catastrophic consequences not only for mankind but for the planet unfortunate to have been infested by them. Contrary to what they think, humans are ‘not obviously worth preserving’, since ‘human life has no more meaning than the life of slime mould’. No wonder he sees climate change as ‘a mechanism through which the planet eases its human burden’.
His moral revulsion at his fellows is supplemented by mockery of their claims to have objective knowledge, and in his eagerness to prosecute his case he does not shrink from apparent self-contradiction. Darwin, he tells us, has taught us that ‘the human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth’,
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm