John Gray. The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths. London and New York: Allen Lane, 2013 [Book Review]

The futility of human belief systems has long been a favoured topic for John Gray. In Straw Dogs (2003) he challenged the unexamined Socratic faith in the idea of human progress. In Black Mass (2007) he applied his thesis to the ideologies and events surrounding the “War on Terror,” arguing that whilst the campaign was driven by a neoconservative utopianism, its founding ideals were compromised by ensuing violence and a death toll that tarnished any claims for the liberation of a population.