Edward Skidelsky

Faith in the future

Black Mass<br />by John Gray

issue 21 July 2007

John Gray’s latest work brings together many themes that will be familiar to fans of this scintillatingly gloomy intellect. It denounces neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism as forms of utopianism, destined like all previous forms to shipwreck upon the hard facts of human existence. It emphasises al-Qa’eda’s roots in Western political extremism rather than Islamic tradition. It envisages a world in which history, far from coming to an end, has resumed its usual bloody course against a background of dwindling oil resources and proliferating weaponry. And it insists that our only escape from this miserable farrago lies in the company of ‘mystics, poets and pleasure-lovers’.

All this is vintage Gray. What is new is a bold attempt to trace the utopian impulse back to the heart of Christianity. Christ and his apostles believed that the kingdom of God was at hand.

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