J. G. Ballard mention -- John Gray "Immortality Commission" author

[Extollager]

I read The Immortality Commission and thought that nonfiction book was pretty interesting. Here's an interview that starts with a little about J. G. Ballard.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/books/2013/02/interview-with-a-writer-john-gray/

 

[Sourdust]

Interesting. Presumably you posted this because Gray came up in the immortality thread.

He's become a bit of a public intellectual in Britain in the last decade, writing several variations on the same book. In many ways, his philosophical world view - a sort of 'green conservative' anti-humanism - is antithetical to the traditional hopes of science fiction, refusing to believe in the prospect of significant human progress. 'The idea that humans are by nature free is one of the most harmful fictions that’s ever been promoted anywhere.' That's a sentence that would irk libertarians. I'm personally quite persuaded by his line of argument, although it's one that goes right back to the Greek Cynics and Ecclesiastes.

I can definitely see the kinship with Ballard. It's often noted that the most prominent post-war British sf writers, with their background of post-imperial decline, tended to be more pessimistic than their American counterparts, focussing more on the inevitability of human failure. One thinks of Ballard and Aldiss in particular; it's not true of Wyndham or Clarke. This darker vein has continued down to M. John Harrison, a writer whose conclusions seem similar to Gray's.

(There's a very silly article by Eric S. Raymond - my low post count is preventing me from linking to it - which tries to interpret this as a political division, dismissing the New Wave as a sort of commie conspiracy to subvert the optimistic Campbellian can-do attitude.)

 

[Bick]

Many thanks for bringing John Gray to my attention - he sounds fascinating. Your post also reminds me I have to put some JGB in my TBR pile.

Sourdust - terrific insight into the subject, thank you.

This may be the article you refer to Sourdust: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/sf-history.html

 

[Toby Frost]

Is he the guy who wrote Black Mass? I thought that was a terrible load of nonsense.

(As per another thread, feel free to disagree...)

 

[Sourdust]

Is he the guy who wrote Black Mass?

Yes. I haven't got round to reading that one, but know the gist of it. Out of interest, why do you consider it nonsense? Are you more drawn to the ideas of, say, Richard Dawkins?

 

[Toby Frost]

I've got to admit that I'm not a great fan of Dawkins: partially because I'm not drawn terribly toward popular science, but mainly because he always comes across as rather conceited. I think the real struggle is not between religion and atheism but moderation and extremism, and sometimes Dawkins sounds a little too strident for my tastes.

The reason I disliked Black Mass was because it seemed like an angry jumble of thoughts. I couldn't really wring any sustaining thread out of it except "Everything you think is right is wrong, and the world is ending". It seemed to be missing a central argument, and certainly didn't make any sort of useful suggestions, which is what I'd expect (perhaps unfairly) from a polemic. Gray seemed so pleased that the Western world is about to be annihilated (serve you right for Iraq, horrid Tony Blair!) that I began to suspect that he didn't believe it really was going to happen at all.

In fairness, I should add that I don't share Gray's politics - in as much as anything, I tend vaguely towards the somewhat defunct Euston Manifesto - and I felt that once the rhetoric was done, his argument stopped at "The Iraq war was illegal and Bush is a religious crank". I wanted to ask him "Yes indeed, and now what?". That said, had he been making an argument I liked or agreed with, I'd probably be much more friendly towards the book.