I don’t quite agree with Gray that because the idea of Progress was “simply substituted for Providence” [God] by some (e.g., Marx) that it should be abandoned. If, indeed that is what he is trying to say.

What Bury was trying to say in the quote I reproduced (I mainly wanted to give an idea of his writing, happily, available on the web for all to read) is that the idea of Progress, i.e., Improvement, needs to be decoupled from the idea of Providence (Necessity).

Obviously, however, improvement—change in the positive sense—does exist. But it is not inevitable: it is relative, it is fragile, and it may bring unintended negative consequences in its wake.

I am curious also. “Straw Dogs”, “Al Qaeda and What It Means to be Modern”, and “Black Mass” are the works I have read so far. I just started “False Dawn”. I suppose these are his later works.

In particular, I found “Straw Dogs” to be a real eye opener. Not that I quit my job, left my family, or anything, but it quite frankly changed my outlook on life.

Gray does seem to be both heavily criticized and heavily praised. Libertarians are pissed because Gray is an apostate, so I understand why they blast him. But why all the Romanoesque bashing by non-Libertarians? Is it that they don’t like being called deluded animals or something? :-)

Thanks for the info. I didn’t know this.

But it wasn’t just Japanese Kamikazes. Japan used a strategy of suicide in many of the Pacific battles in WWII. Kamikazes or not, I don’t know how much of this willingness to sacrific oneself in battle could be alloted to religion, how much to nationalism, and how much to other other historical and cultural influences.

Was the suicide bomber Chen Ta Erh in Malraux’s Man’s Fate who sacrifices himself to assassinate Chang KaiShek motivated by a religious impulse (Marxist Providence)? Hard to say.

From what I’ve read of Gray, his view is that, in the West, the secular idea of human progress is nothing but a replacement for the idea of salvation that was lost when Christianity was tossed aside. Marxism certainly is like a religion in many ways and I suppose many of the followers of Marxism were driven by ‘religious’ impulses.

Gray views all this belief in human progress as pernicious in that it just causes more suffering when tied to power. Much better to view human history as directionless and try to better our lot without listening to the dictates of some overarching system that promises utopia at the end of all our struggles. This is true whether the utopian system is global communism or global capitalism.

Seeing how simplistic all ideologies are when compared to the complexity and confusion of the real world, I tend to agree with Gray. This doesn’t mean systematic ideologies should have no place in helping guide policy. But they should be our tools, not our masters.

I’m glad to hear that because even with no knowledge of Gray, some or many of Romano’s specific complaints seemed very weak—or just plain dumb—to me.

The name kamikazi means “wind god”

Wikipedia says: “In the Japanese language, kamikaze (Japanese:神風), usually translated as “divine wind” (kami is the word for “God”, “Spirit”, or “Divinity”; and kaze for “wind”). The word kamikaze originated as the name of major typhoons in 1274 and 1281, which dispersed Mongolian invasion fleets.”

Tribute still is paid to the kamikazi pilots in Shinto temples, I believe.

Was the suicide bomber Chen Ta Erh in Malraux’s Man’s Fate who sacrifices himself to assassinate Chang KaiShek motivated by a religious impulse (Marxist Providence)? Hard to say.

In retrospect one might have wished that some of the generals in the failed plot to assassinate a Hitler had shown a little of the same spirit of self sacrifice instead of wasting their time arguing who would get to control what after the Fuhrer’s death.

raises hand

The first is statement is simply true. The second not. And of course it’s not a “pathology,” it’s often just a strategy.

Suicide bombing can be a tactic and it can be a strategy. It may be the only way to destroy a target. It may be the only way to attack an enemy. Also, the display of fervor or fanaticism that is implicit in the suicide attack may itself be a strategy to demoralize, scare, or discombobulate the opponent.

If one wants to use the word pathology then one should also accept that the use of mass violence against strangers is in general a pathology. This is true whether the tool to carry out the violence is a suicide bomber or a cruise missile.
Sadly, looking at human history it’s probably true that it this violence is not pathological at all. To slightly modify something John Gray wrote, mass violence is as normal a human behavior as art or prayer.

Suicide bombing has often been used by groups whose motives were not primarily religious. So the statement that it is not closely connected to religion is true in general. The Tamil Tigers and Japanese are two examples of this.

Human beings do not need a God or Gods in order to sacrifice themselves. Other abstractions (nation, tribe, ethnicity, secular ideology etc.) can serve the same purpose equally well.

40 years of occupation have an effect on people, yes.

Brian Barry’s putdown, on the other hand, is quite memorably brutal – my own snark is (unsurprisingly) completely outclassed.

Another Barry, Brian, wrote in a review of a Nomos volume in the APSR:

“John Gray tells us that he has changed his mind, but scarcely why, and the phenomenon itself occurs too often to be significant.”

I can’t think, offhand, of any societies where suicide terrorism (as opposed to suicide bombing, timed-bomb terrorism, or whatever) is a significant strategy chosen by local elites that are not in a global ‘worst 10 places to live’ list.

At a societal level, that marks it as a pathology. If some of the cells in your body choose the strategy ‘multiply as fast as possible’, you would have to be some kind of joke relativist to try to argue that the person with the consequent terminal cancer was just ‘differently well’.