John Gray

John Gray (b. 1948) is a British political philosopher and essayist, formerly Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics, with prior posts at Oxford, Harvard, and Yale. Initially associated with classical liberalism and New Right thought in the 1980s, Gray progressively repudiated free-market triumphalism and the doctrine of progress, developing a pessimistic, anti-humanist outlook indebted to Schopenhauer, Isaiah Berlin's value pluralism, and the Taoist and Christian mystical traditions. In 'Straw Dogs' (2002) he attacks secular humanism as a residue of Christian eschatology, arguing that humans are not exceptional among animals and that progress is an illusion. 'Black Mass' (2007) extends this thesis to political utopianism, reading neoconservatism and revolutionary politics as secular millenarianism. 'Seven Types of Atheism' (2018) catalogues atheist traditions and argues that most—Enlightenment rationalism, evolutionary humanism, political religions—remain parasitic on monotheist categories; Gray favours Schopenhauerian and mystical atheisms that abandon teleology altogether. He is a sharp critic of New Atheists, particularly Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Steven Pinker, accusing them of crude scientism and unwitting religiosity. Critics including A.C. Grayling and Terry Eagleton have charged him with caricature, despair, and inconsistency, while admirers value his genealogical critique of liberal progressivism. His position is best described as a tragic, naturalistic atheism opposed equally to militant unbelief and religious apologetics.