An obsession with the nature of death lies at the heart of the human experience, but have the technological advances and scientific discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries led us to believe we can somehow cheat it?
Join John Gray and Will Self as they discuss the great implication of Darwin’s ideas - that natural selection makes humans into animals like any other.
Tagged with john gray will self rsa straw dogs
Speaker: Professor John Gray
Chair: Dr Simon Glendinning
This event was recorded on 19 February 2011 in Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
During the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century science became the vehicle for an assault on death. The power of knowledge was summoned to free humans of their mortality. Science was used against science and became a channel for faith. John Gray is most recently the acclaimed author of Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia, and Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals.
http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/podcasts/publicLecturesAndEvents.htm
The Silence of Animals: On progress and other modern myths - RSA Keynote (4th Mar 2013)
Are we all just ‘deluded animals’?
John Gray, one of Britain’s most provocative philosophers, visits the RSA to discuss the ideas raised in ‘The Silence of Animals’ - the much-anticipated sequel to ‘Straw Dogs’.
Gray will discuss the religious origins of modern ideas of progress in civilisation and suggest that the prevailing belief in gradual improvement is a myth. Examining the lives of people who abandoned or never subscribed to it, he will ask what might replace the ruling myth.
Along the way he will consider Naples in 1944 and flying saucers…
Speaker: John Gray, political philosopher and author.
Chair: Jonathan Derbyshire, culture editor, New Statesman
Tagged with rsa philosophy ideas religion civilisation medicine myths
5 War Dogs of History — Dogs have been used in war for a long time and are still used today. In this episode, Sarah and Deblina look at five war dogs known for their strength, loyalty and intelligence. Tune in to learn more about war dogs from World War I through Vietnam.