British philosopher A. C. Grayling’s latest book The Challenge of Things continues the philosophical tradition of Montaigne, Schopenhauer and Adorno, as he writes essays that range from everyday phenomena to abstract conceptualization of life. This book is part of a series of books that began in The Meaning of Things (2001), The Reason of Things (2002), The Mystery of Things (2004), The Heart of Things (2005), and The Form of Things (2006). Clearly Grayling has some fascination with things. I believe he is right to focus on the analysis of things, which his essayistic form of presentation bears resemblance to Adorno’s famous and most intimate Minima Moralia. I will get back to that in the end.

Grayling aim in this book is to take part of what every generation has an obligation to do: “to attempt an interpretation of the time it lives in” (2) and “to explore, and to suggest perspectives upon, different facets of this time in our world” (3). Grayling’s title of the book suggests that he has some fascination with things, while the subtitle suggest we are living in a “troubled times”. Maybe the troubled times are the result of things, and perhaps rectifying them will resolve our problems ushering untroubled times? This question is not answered entirely in this book, and possibly Grayling adheres to what philosopher Theodor W. Adorno’s had to say in the opening of his magnum opus Negative Dialectics: “Philosophy, which once seemed obsolete, lives on because the moment to realize it was missed … Having broken its pledge to be as one with reality or at the point of realization, philosophy is obliged ruthlessly to criticize itself” (Adorno 2004: 3). All we have left now is to criticize existing conditions, and this is our responsibility to past and future generations.

Indeed Grayling is right, we live in troubled times: war is still prevalent throughout the world causing a staggering amount of dead and fleeting refugees that seek haven; women are being oppressed and tortured; Gulags are not a thing of the past as Grayling informs us in his magnificent essays about China’s rising economy towards world domination (36). Part of Grayling’s duty as a public intellectual is to expose the ideologies and misconceptions that obscure our representations of things. Grayling wishes to break the veil of naïve reporting that diminish or neglect to mention China’s disrespect of human rights (42-44), as well as the abundant of poor people, and its irredentism (29-33), which Grayling identifies as one of modern times dangerous evils (13-16). Grayling does so in a sometime beautiful and prosaic phrasing: “Most borders between states are drawn in the blood of wars” (13) — one can imagine the rivers of blood that run and pump in the vein of countries. Troubled times are explored through two major themes: Irredentism and Religion. Irredentism, the constant need of countries to expand and claim other pieces of land as their own regardless of the extend those countries already poses large chunks of land. By Grayling’s depiction of irredentism, which apparently almost no country in the world is not guilty of some irredentism at some point in history, it seems as though it is an a-priori characteristic of countries. I find Grayling’s conceptualization a bit problematic, since I believe a more mediated (in the jargon of Adorno) account of irredentism is needed, one that can attest as to why it emerges, which will then result in a more profound answer to this predicament then arguing “That is why the pressure has to be kept on China to reform its political institutions and human rights record” (47); or when Grayling tackles the Israel-Palestine situation, asking how can we solve this problem and answering that “If there were a Nelson Mandela-like figure on each side of the divide, each big enough of heart and mind to envisage a good future instead of being enslaved to a bad past, things might change” (16). On one hand, I think that Grayling is right and the elites are those who can change our society to the better or for the worse; on the other hand, it would be naïve to think that this bloody relationship can end by an individual, and thus ignore the religious and cultural differences that ignite this conflict and prevent it from ending.  

Another theme that runs throughout the book is that of religion. As an atheist, Grayling does not cover his dismissal of religion and wants us to acknowledge the horrific acts of violence and unfreedom that religions entail. One cannot be more straightforward than that: “the various religions are mutually exclusive, mutually blaspheming, mutually hostile, bitterly and deeply divisive, and thus a rash of open sores in the flesh of humanity” (69). According to Grayling there is one truth regarding faith “all faiths are bunkum” (69). Religion is winning since it took a hold of public funding and has legislation on its behalf (of course Grayling is speaking about the UK and thus about Christian domination of state and institutions), and with that its grip on the minds and souls of people begins at a young age as education in the UK is related to the Church of England colleges (i.e., teachers are getting their training there) (66). Grayling is right to point that our tax money produces and reproduces religious minds; however, his account of religion seems to suggest that if we cut the funding and thus take back education (instill secular education and teach religion as a sociological phenomenon), we can eradicate religion. I believe a more robust theory of religion and its relation to capitalism is needed to understand the role of religion in people’s lives. In another essay, ‘A Christian Nation?”, Grayling humorously, in a somewhat revelational analysis, exposes the Christian belief that Christianity is original and one of a kind, by showing its dull content that only became lively and interesting as Christianity incorporated Greek philosophy and culture (50-55). This is truly revealing and worth reading.

Returning to the notion of the troubled times another subterranean element in Grayling’s philosophy emerges. These troubled times are centered in the Middle East and the far East, however, cleverly, Grayling illustrates how the west is connected to those regions of the world, and in fact had and still had a tremendous and horrific hand in creating some of the problems we face today. In a sense, we might think that Grayling’s opening remarks are somewhat pessimistic, as he writes that “When a war begins, most people hope that it will be brief. Very few people realize that it will almost certainly outlast the actual shooting” (1). Grayling portrays civilization as the movement of barbarism that each in which every generation believes is part of the past, nonetheless, not only the atrocities of the past are our living experiences, but we ourselves have not evolved out of our own barbarism. Grayling writes of the contradictory aspect of war, on the one hand, war is equivocal to destruction of life, on the other hand, “Rebuilding is part of a war — indeed all of a war’s consequences are part of the war” (1). I find a theory of civilization hinged in the subtext of Grayling’s text, one that refers to Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), wherein they write that they are interested “with the reversion of enlightened civilization to barbarism in reality. The not merely theoretical but practical tendency toward self-destruction has been inherent in rationality from the first, not only in the present phase when it is emerging nakedly” (Adorno and Horkheimer, 2002: xix). Both authors focus on barbarism and wish to convey that rationality was always intertwined with barbarism (the will to destroy), which Grayling also pin points as the recurring entities that once were savagely killing people (prior culture) and now manifests themselves in suits and ties (the Nietzschean eternal recurrence). It is something we, unfortunately, cannot avoid: “The barbarians seem always to be at the gate” (1).

The book is divided into two sections: “Destructions and Deconstructions” and “Constructions and Creations”. The first part as the title suggest describes in detail current reality and what ills us as a society. It starts with one of the most awful of all things that society can endure: war. In this essay Grayling depicts how ‘the First World War’ indicates that one of society’s biggest predicaments is that although we are advancing in technology and thus can create a better society for all, we still find ourselves in horrific war. Another problem that we face, according to Grayling, concerns the detachment of language from experience, which renders the breakdown of society in war ineffable for most people, and the only way they can cope with such a tremendous experience is by naming it ‘the Great War’ (7). That brings us to another predicament of society and a major reason Grayling thinks things are the way they are which is that we keep forgetting what happened, and his depictions of the trail of doom war inflict on us — a trail that does not end with the official declaration of the end of the war — should be brought into consciousness and perhaps prevent future wars (10).

Grayling open with manmade Destructions: wars, drone strikes, Guns, Drugs, and ends with other kinds of destructions that are partly out of humanity’s control, ‘Climate Change’ and ‘The Force of Nature’. In ‘Climate Change’, Grayling argues that nature is still within our grasp, and urges us to realize the role we have in the destruction of nature and thus society. Grayling wishes to show that even if one does not accept the thesis of the gradual destruction of nature by human beings, although empirical evidence suggest otherwise, “the collective will to make a difference … can be effective in persuading governments to do better” (108). I agree with him completely: the power to change exists in the hands of those who rule over us, as he writes that “Only concerted international action by governments can really deal with the problem” (107). The last destruction that Grayling brings about is that of the unpredictable forces of nature, and its capacity to reign with brim stones and fire which reminds us of our fragility and mortality. However, Grayling’s bird’s eye view reveals “that the earth is a theatre of immensely powerful forces always at work around us”, and thus is not merely negative from the subjective perspective, but can also mean astonishing forces that are aesthetically enjoyable or prosperous for humanity (109). Grayling raises a very strong point about humanity and nature (and the world), which Descartes in his Meditations referred to in a somewhat different way: in order to survive people must forget. If people would think daily about the possibility of a natural disaster that can eviscerate them, they might turn catatonic, or fall into depression; therefore, forgetting is fundamental for our existence. Nonetheless, Grayling ponders why we keep forgetting the things that are threatening to us even when we can prevent disasters (111).

Grayling’s beautiful maneuver allows him to move from the negativity of nature to the positivity of nature and thus usher the second part of the book which deals with the potential solutions to the current societal and natural predicaments. I do believe it is no coincidence that Grayling opens ‘Constructions and Creations’ with ‘The Public Intellectual’, as he puts a lot of weight on the ‘public intellectual’ as part of the solutions of society’s illness. The public intellectual can invigorate a substantial public debate, by promoting ‘ideas, perspectives, criticism and commentary’ (115). What society profits is the existence of a fruitful and healthy debate. This conclusion seems to me to be a bit flaccid. It obviously neglects to take into account where debates are undertaken in modern society: through mass and social media. Mass media is owned by capitalists and in general can be said to promote certain agenda that drives its dissemination of news and discussions (i.e., certain newspapers have leftist views and aren’t eager to promote ‘other’ opinions); while one cannot refrain from acknowledging that social media is somewhat a replication of mass media revolving around — not entirely but notwithstanding — viral short videos and celebrity news that eagerly ask us to like and share them. Although, Grayling continues in this essay to analyze what it means to be an intellectual, what clearly motivates him is a far deeper understanding of the influence that public intellectuals have on society. Grayling shares Isaiah Berlin’s assertion that “the philosopher sitting in his study might alter the course of events fifty years after his time” (117); however, it seems a bit naïve to me, since it awards intellectuals much more power than they have in reality (Brittan, for example, has some of the most outspoken public intellectuals against religion, such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, but can we truly say that they decreased the amount of religious people. In fact, as Grayling demonstrates the public funding of religion is the UK is significantly high and begins in preschool to the so-called religious universities) (66). It is true that great minds were influential in motivating social transformation; however, social change does not rests solely on discussions of ideas in the public sphere, but on elites that govern and determine the execution of laws and reforms.

This leads me to the last essay in this book ‘Making the World a Better Place’. Grayling sees himself as one of those public intellectuals, and he offers us as a farewell gift his ideas and criticism of existing reality. Grayling directs us to a serious predicament that is a symbol of the oppression and irrationality of society that is prevalent in society and one that we must address in order to make society a better place for all humanity: the suppression of women all over the world. I believe Grayling is right to denote the importance of the oppression of women, and that it is a litmus test for the rationality of society; however, I wish to point out the short coming of this analysis: the public intellectual is impotent in light of the atrocities that are inflicted upon women, and has not much to do in changing people’s minds, but those that make a difference — mainly, the rulers — are the ones that should be questioned in regards to this predicament. In social media there are many pictures and discussions about the oppression of women, nonetheless, legislation can make so much more in a heart bit — and there our efforts should be directed to.

Grayling’s book is a formidable and insightful endeavor to elucidate societies’ irrationality through the examination of things (material and immaterial). If only for the essays on China — Grayling co-wrote a book about China we don’t normally hear about — and his analysis of religion (Grayling is a devoted atheist), I believe one ought to read it. Grayling’s choice of things is right on the money, and I especially like his Benjaminian approach to things as monads that unfold and reveal, often, an intricate web of political and societal power that created them. Without a doubt Grayling’s heart is in the right place and this book attests to his devotion to the misfortunate and miserable trajectory of society. Having said that, I am reminded of the debate between philosophers and good friends Theodor W. Adorno and Walter Benjamin, wherein the former accused the later as being “not dialectical enough” (Adorno and Benjamin, 2000:129), thus theorizing art’s autonomy in an undialectical manner: the form of art is supposed to be opposed to the instrumental logic of existing society, which Adorno thought Benjamin was unaware of. I would argue that although Grayling continues Adorno’s essayistic form — and thus disrupts the appearance of a stable content that work of arts appear to give under some interpretations — he nevertheless fall short in the subject of mediation, and by that I mean Grayling’s things appear to be created in a vacuum, since there is no theory to explain their formation — they appear as unrelated things without history to mediate their coming to be. This an important point: Once we realize what and how things were created we can understand who is responsible for the inverted shape of things, and thus offer a solution, otherwise we simply find things that are unconnected and try like the little Dutch boy to put our finger in the levee just to find other cracks emerging elsewhere.

 

References

Adorno, T.W. (2004). Negative Dialectics. (E.B. Ashton, Trans.). London: Routledge.

Adorno, T.W., & Benjamin, W. (2000). The Complete Correspondence, 1928–1940. (H. Lonitz, Ed., & N. Walker, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Adorno, T.W., & Horkheimer, M. (2002). Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments (E. Jephcott, Trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

 

© 2016 Ben Fulman

 

Ben Fulman, PhD, Israel