[BOOK] Straw Dogs - Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals by John Gray

For anyone raised within western civilisation, growing up taking his or hers social surroundings for granted, reading this book would be infuriating. To me it is exciting and fulfilling in a conscious way.
The british philosopher Gray explains in a very readable way (readable for someone who has never studied philosophy or politics but still wants to know and understand), how the idea of progress is a belief based on faith, like religion, how science has taken the place of religion in collecting high priests and believers, how humans do not deserve the importance they give themselves and the claims to free will and morallity are quite trying for the imagination.
Human animals are not even the only animals that use language to communicate, which has always been a 'scientific observation' of anyone trying to prove why homo rapiens is supposedly above other animals (leftovers from the poison of christian morality).

I just read this little, big book for the third time. There are very few books that I read more than once. It has helped me immensely in gaining further understanding of the why world of civilized humans is as fucked up as it is. I will now start digging into the sequel, The Silence of Animals. [Farrar, Straus and Giroux]
- Sigurður Harðarsson

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