I think John Gray has some interesting ideas. I first ran across his writing when studying Isaiah Berlin. John Gray's thoughts on the inevitability of climate change and the failures of the liberal project, are interesting to ponder if your into pondering things.
His idea that humans are separated from animals in our ability to know (and fear) our inevitable death is interesting since it explains a lot of very irrational behavior on our part. He does make a point that animals do know when they are going to die when the time is near. I experienced that with Edgar the TFT when he was nearing the end and wanted me to walk him down the alley to say goodbye to a neighbor he liked. One of the saddest things I've experienced in a way...but precious things are fragile and in my world dogs are some of our most precious things. One of the many reasons I find this guy so unappealing as a purported human thing.
In this video he talks about the fallacy of human progress. He doesn't deny scientific or medical progress but makes the point that human nature is constant. In other words the idea that "humanity" is moving towards some kinder gentler more ethical way of being, is magical thinking. Humans gotta be human in all the beauty and ugliness that entails. Of course this doesn't mean you, your kids and grandkids, friends etc can't improve your ability to be kinder gentler more ethical souls only that if you are waiting for "humankind" to do that - well it ain't happening.
John Stuart Mill is another interesting philosopher. He lived a couple of hundred years ago. He is known to some as the father of modern liberalism. His book "On Liberty" is short and easy to read if you are so inclined. His history is fascinating. His father was a friend of Jeremy Bentham of the panopticon and utilitarianism fame. Papa Mills and Bentham used John as a test case for injecting all sorts of knowledge into a child. He ended up having a nervous breakdown at a young age and finally recovered when he formed a relationship with Harriet Taylor.
This is a quote from an article in the New Yorker by writer Adam Gopnik that I think expresses the beauty and folly of liberal thought ala John Stuart Mill -
"Mill’s theory of freedom does make an unwarranted assumption—that people want a rich life where knowledge increases, new discoveries are made, and new ideas found, where art flourishes and science advances. If you don’t want that kind of society, you don’t want liberty, in Mill’s sense. Part of what makes him as touching as he is great is that it scarcely occurred to him that anyone would not"
Adam Gopnik The New Yorker
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