Black Mass by John Gray

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About John Gray

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Black Mass

Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia

» John Gray

Penguin
Paperback : 24 Apr 2008

£9.99

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Synopsis

Our conventional view of history and human progress is wrong. It is founded on a pernicious myth of an acheivable utopia that in the last century alone caused the murder of tens of millions. In Black Mass John Gray tears down the religious, political and secular beliefs that we insist are fundamental to the human project and shows us how a misplaced faith in our ability to improve the world has actually made it far worse.

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Interview

Interview with John Gray, author of Black Mass

Why is your new book called Black Mass?
There are two main reasons. I wanted a title that expressed the central theme of the book, which is also a key theme of modern history - the political perversion of religion. A black mass is the Christian Mass performed backwards, and the most destructive movements of the last few centuries have been political religions that exploit a Christian myth of Apocalypse to promote a utopian vision of heaven on earth. From the Jacobins to the Bolsheviks, Russian anarchists to American neo-conservatives, radical Islamists to neo-liberal evangelists for a global free market - modern politics has been ruled by repressed or inverted versions of apocalyptic religion.

The other reason is a piece of music. I am a great fan of the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915), whose Ninth Piano Sonata (opus 68) "Black Mass" must be one of the most unnerving musical compositions ever. It has a dark, demonic energy of a kind I imagine animated Lenin, Hitler and Mao. The idea of calling the book after it came from conversations with Simon Winder, my Editor at Penguin, who is also an admirer of Scriabin.

Do you see this book as building directly on your previous, highly successful books or is it a new departure?
There are continuities with my earlier books, but Black Mass moves into new territory. In False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism, I presented a view of globalisation that was radically different from the rosy picture presented by most politicians and many business-oriented writers, arguing that while it made the world more interconnected it did not make it any freer or safer: we had to be prepared for high levels of conflict. In Al Qaeda and What It Means To Be Modern I suggested that, far from being a throwback to medieval times, Al Qaeda was actually a by-product of globalisation — and thereby uniquely modern.

In Black Mass I take this analysis much further, suggesting that the shift from mythical thinking to a rational world-view, which most people think occurred in modern times with the triumph of the Enlightenment, never actually happened. In its most radical forms, Enlightenment thinking embodies myths that go back to the origins of Christianity and beyond. Though they claim to be based in science, the belief in Utopia and the ideas of human progress that fuel modern politics are secular versions of religious faith - for example, the current belief in unlimited growth is a by-product of a monotheist conception of humans as masters of the planet. At the start of the twenty-first century these secular myths are dead or dying, and in many parts of the world people are turning to fundamentalist versions of religion. In this connection the war in Iraq has been a crossover point, since while it began as a secular project — partly a crusade for democracy, partly an oil grab — it has turned into an intractable sectarian conflict.

If there was one thing which you would like Black Mass's readers to have lodged permanently in their brain, what would that be?
Perhaps I can answer by mentioning a story I tell in the second chapter. In the mid-1920s Stalin commissioned a Russian scientist — actually he was not much of a scientist; he was a horse-breeder by trade — to develop a new type of human being through experiments in crossbreeding humans and apes. Stalin wanted a new type of soldier that needed less food and sleep than any human and lacked normal human feelings. Once this new type of human had been created, Stalin believed, it could be used to entrench and extend his power.

Of course the experiments failed, but they illustrate the most important idea in Black Mass: with the advance of knowledge humanity does not become more reasonable, or more benevolent. The growth of knowledge simply enables humans to pursue their goals — good and bad — more effectively. The growth of knowledge is at the back of our current prosperity and increased lifespan, but growing knowledge is also the ultimate source of climate change and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. This duality will always be with us, for it reflects a conflict in ourselves.

Straw Dogs has been your bestselling book to date. How do you see Black Mass relating to Straw Dogs?
The core of Straw Dogs is the thought that the humanist belief in progress is as irrational as any of the myths of traditional religions — more so, in fact, since religious myths are closer to the enduring realities of human life than secular myths. Black Mass develops this thought, and uses it to analyse the mass political movements of the last century, the rise of neo-conservatism in America, the varieties of terrorism and the return of classical geopolitics. Like Straw Dogs, Black Mass presents a view of the world different from any that most readers will be familiar with.

The success of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion shows that there is a huge potential audience for books on 'the meaning of being human'. Black Mass makes many forceful points on this issue. Do you feel The God Delusion is a useful book?
The God Delusion is useful in exposing the Christian origins of evangelical atheism. Dawkins understands religion as a theory that science has rendered redundant, and accuses religious believers of being irrational. However, as I explain when I discuss his views in the last chapter of Black Mass, religions are not primitive scientific theories. They are myths, which are not true or false in the way scientific theories can be true or false. But myths can be more or less truthful in their rendition of human experience, and in this sense religious myths are truer than those of humanism. Though he thinks of himself as a follower of Darwin, Dawkins subscribes to a humanist myth when he maintains that humans alone among animals can be masters of their destiny. This is not a conclusion that can be derived from science. It is an article of faith, whose origins are in the Christianity Dawkins vehemently attacks. Like other evangelical unbelievers Dawkins cannot account for the universality of myth, and it never occurs to him to question his own myths.

Would readers of The God Delusion enjoy Black Mass?
I think many readers of The God Delusion will enjoy Black Mass. Anyone who suspects that Dawkins’ hostility to religion is unreasonable will find a great deal of interest in my book. At the same time, those who share Dawkins’ hostility to traditional religions may be challenged by my attack on the secular faith in human progress.

Black Mass is clearly very concerned by events in The Middle East. Are there other areas of the world which cause you anxiety at the moment?
The Middle East is only the most obvious example of the way in which the geopolitical struggle between the world’s great powers for access to energy is being tangled up with wars of religion. The same process is at work in central Asia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other parts of the world. This is not just a conflict between Islam and the West but among all industrial societies. China and India are adopting a western-style, energy-intensive way of life that — at least in its present form — is not viable. The spread of industrialism has many benefits, but it also triggers resource wars and climate change. Already we can see that these are affecting the entire planet.

Following what would have to be some, admittedly rather complicated, disaster, what one Penguin Classic would you want to survive the catastrophe and why?
The Penguin Classic I’d like to survive after a universal catastrophe is Joseph Conrad’s Victory. It’s the last of his great novels, and while not perhaps as perfectly contrived as Lord Jim, The Secret Agent or The Heart of Darkness it seems to me more intriguing than these better known books. It’s a marvellous adventure story as well as a profound fable. Every human illusion is unsparingly explored — including the illusion that anyone can attain complete disillusion — and the hero or anti-hero comes to a disastrous end. Yet the final feeling the book conveys is a kind of triumph.

What do you think you would like to write next?
I’m interested in the borderline between philosophy and fiction. Supposing we found out that a great philosopher had written his works as novels and short stories — how would we view these philosophical texts? Isn’t philosophy itself a type of fiction?

I’m also interested in writing something about science. We tend to think that every problem — intellectual or ethical — can, in principle, be solved with the help of science. But is this true? Might not the ultimate result of science be to generate new kinds of insoluble problem?