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Death by Dogma : The biological reason why the Left is leading us to extinction, and the solution
'Death by Dogma' is a companion to 'The Interview', the transcript of biologist Jeremy Griffith's ground-breaking interview that solves the human condition and saves the world—an interview described by Professor Harry Prosen, a former president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, as "the most important interview of all time"!
In 'Death by Dogma', Griffith explains that the Left's dogmatic insistence that everyone behave in a cooperative and loving way makes its advocates feel good, but it oppresses and stifles the freedom of expression needed to find knowledge, ultimately self-knowledge, the redeeming understanding of the human condition that actually brings about a cooperative and loving world. Dogma is not the cure; it's the poison, because it blocks the search for the rehabilitating understanding of ourselves that's needed to actually save the world.
George Orwell's famous prediction that "if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face [the human mind] for ever" was about to come true—but mercifully, science has finally made it possible to explain the human condition and save us from this makes-you-feel-good-but-is-actually-horrifically-selfish-and-deluded left-wing threat of the Death by Dogma extinction of our species!
In 'Death by Dogma', Griffith explains that the Left's dogmatic insistence that everyone behave in a cooperative and loving way makes its advocates feel good, but it oppresses and stifles the freedom of expression needed to find knowledge, ultimately self-knowledge, the redeeming understanding of the human condition that actually brings about a cooperative and loving world. Dogma is not the cure; it's the poison, because it blocks the search for the rehabilitating understanding of ourselves that's needed to actually save the world.
George Orwell's famous prediction that "if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face [the human mind] for ever" was about to come true—but mercifully, science has finally made it possible to explain the human condition and save us from this makes-you-feel-good-but-is-actually-horrifically-selfish-and-deluded left-wing threat of the Death by Dogma extinction of our species!
- GenresPolitics
56 pages, Paperback
Published October 22, 2021
About the author
Jeremy Griffith
14 books273 followersJeremy Griffith (1945-) is an Australian biologist who has dedicated his life to bringing fully accountable, biological understanding to the dilemma of the human condition–the underlying issue in all human life of our species’ extraordinary capacity for what has been called ‘good’ and ‘evil’.
Born on December 1, 1945, and raised on a sheep station in rural New South Wales, Australia, Jeremy was educated at Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, a school whose visionary approach to education has produced such notable alumni as Rupert Murdoch and HRH The Prince of Wales. He matriculated with first class honors in biology and in 1965 began a science degree at the University of New England in northern New South Wales. While there, Jeremy played representative rugby union football, making the 1966 trials for the national team, the Wallabies. Deferring his studies in 1967, Jeremy undertook the most thorough investigation ever into the plight of the Tasmanian Tiger (thylacine) — a search that was to last more than six years, before concluding the ‘Tiger’ was indeed extinct. His findings were internationally reported, with articles appearing in the American Museum of Natural History’s journal, Natural History, and Australian Geographic. His search also featured in an episode of the national television series A Big Country.
In 1971 Jeremy completed his Bachelor of Science degree in zoology at the University of Sydney and the following year, in the same self-sufficient spirit with which he had undertaken the ‘Tiger’ search, he established Griffith Tablecraft, a highly successful furniture manufacturing business based on his own simple and natural designs, which pioneered the use of bark-to-bark slabs of timber. It was during this time that, at age 27, Jeremy realised that trying to save animals from extinction or trying to build ideal furniture wasn’t addressing the real issue behind the extraordinary imperfection in human life, which is our behaviour, and that what was really needed in the world was a deeper understanding of ourselves — so it was to this issue of our species’ less-than-ideal behaviour that Jeremy turned his attention.
Since 1975 Jeremy has spent the first, often pre-dawn, hours of each day thinking and writing about the human condition, and in 1983 he established the non-profit organisation FIX THE WORLD, which is dedicated to the study and amelioration of the human condition. The result of that dedication are his many articles and over 20 books about the human condition: including A Species In Denial (2003), which was a bestseller in Australia and New Zealand, and in 2016, his summa masterpiece book, FREEDOM: The End of the Human Condition. In 2020 he presented the one-hour video explanation of the human condition, the transcript of which is provided in the booklet, THE Interview; and in 2021 Jeremy wrote Death by Dogma to explain the extreme danger Marxist Critical Theory presents. 2025 brought The Human Condition, which is one of Jeremy Griffith’s three most important presentations, serving as a powerful short-in-length bridge between THE Interview and FREEDOM. It takes his human-race-saving insights to a new depth of clarity, so is a MUST READ!
You can learn more about Jeremy Griffith's work on the Fix The World website at www.humancondition.com.
Born on December 1, 1945, and raised on a sheep station in rural New South Wales, Australia, Jeremy was educated at Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, a school whose visionary approach to education has produced such notable alumni as Rupert Murdoch and HRH The Prince of Wales. He matriculated with first class honors in biology and in 1965 began a science degree at the University of New England in northern New South Wales. While there, Jeremy played representative rugby union football, making the 1966 trials for the national team, the Wallabies. Deferring his studies in 1967, Jeremy undertook the most thorough investigation ever into the plight of the Tasmanian Tiger (thylacine) — a search that was to last more than six years, before concluding the ‘Tiger’ was indeed extinct. His findings were internationally reported, with articles appearing in the American Museum of Natural History’s journal, Natural History, and Australian Geographic. His search also featured in an episode of the national television series A Big Country.
In 1971 Jeremy completed his Bachelor of Science degree in zoology at the University of Sydney and the following year, in the same self-sufficient spirit with which he had undertaken the ‘Tiger’ search, he established Griffith Tablecraft, a highly successful furniture manufacturing business based on his own simple and natural designs, which pioneered the use of bark-to-bark slabs of timber. It was during this time that, at age 27, Jeremy realised that trying to save animals from extinction or trying to build ideal furniture wasn’t addressing the real issue behind the extraordinary imperfection in human life, which is our behaviour, and that what was really needed in the world was a deeper understanding of ourselves — so it was to this issue of our species’ less-than-ideal behaviour that Jeremy turned his attention.
Since 1975 Jeremy has spent the first, often pre-dawn, hours of each day thinking and writing about the human condition, and in 1983 he established the non-profit organisation FIX THE WORLD, which is dedicated to the study and amelioration of the human condition. The result of that dedication are his many articles and over 20 books about the human condition: including A Species In Denial (2003), which was a bestseller in Australia and New Zealand, and in 2016, his summa masterpiece book, FREEDOM: The End of the Human Condition. In 2020 he presented the one-hour video explanation of the human condition, the transcript of which is provided in the booklet, THE Interview; and in 2021 Jeremy wrote Death by Dogma to explain the extreme danger Marxist Critical Theory presents. 2025 brought The Human Condition, which is one of Jeremy Griffith’s three most important presentations, serving as a powerful short-in-length bridge between THE Interview and FREEDOM. It takes his human-race-saving insights to a new depth of clarity, so is a MUST READ!
You can learn more about Jeremy Griffith's work on the Fix The World website at www.humancondition.com.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
May 5, 2022
This booklet is a follow up to Jeremy Griffith's introductory booklet THE Interview That Solves The Human Condition And Saves The World! which itself provides a succinct summary of the key tenets presented in his 2016 magnum opus Freedom: The End of the Human Condition.
This is a critical development on Griffith's treatise, and what a breath of fresh air it is...
Since FREEDOM was published (in 2016), we have seen an increasingly fragmented and divisive society, and the rise of social movements demanding change and freedom from oppression.
And it's fair enough that people are fed up, but as Griffith explains throughout his work, "the dogmatic imposition of ideality on our upset reality just added more denial/alienation/unconscious bias—and worse still, it kills the freedom we need to be able to continue the upsetting search for knowledge in order to find the psychologically redeeming and relieving understanding of ourselves."
He assiduously points out that only the "psychologically redeeming and relieving understanding of ourselves" can bring about the change we all strive for and deserve. He explains that only in understanding the source of our collective 'upset', can we be relieved of that condition, thus bringing an end to our 'human condition'. Will we break the shackles and be liberated to our full potential? I believe in time and with a growing awareness of our true nature as humans, which Griffith provides through his accountable biological explanation of the human condition, we will.
The elucidation of Critical Theory and its derivatives in 'Death by Dogma' couldn't come soon enough, and as I said, is a breath of fresh air. Humanity has reached a tipping point, and a profound explanation of our divided nature is critical. Jeremy Griffith's words have never been more important, and thus 'Death by Dogma' — being the latest of his works — should be read and understood by all.
This is a critical development on Griffith's treatise, and what a breath of fresh air it is...
Since FREEDOM was published (in 2016), we have seen an increasingly fragmented and divisive society, and the rise of social movements demanding change and freedom from oppression.
And it's fair enough that people are fed up, but as Griffith explains throughout his work, "the dogmatic imposition of ideality on our upset reality just added more denial/alienation/unconscious bias—and worse still, it kills the freedom we need to be able to continue the upsetting search for knowledge in order to find the psychologically redeeming and relieving understanding of ourselves."
He assiduously points out that only the "psychologically redeeming and relieving understanding of ourselves" can bring about the change we all strive for and deserve. He explains that only in understanding the source of our collective 'upset', can we be relieved of that condition, thus bringing an end to our 'human condition'. Will we break the shackles and be liberated to our full potential? I believe in time and with a growing awareness of our true nature as humans, which Griffith provides through his accountable biological explanation of the human condition, we will.
The elucidation of Critical Theory and its derivatives in 'Death by Dogma' couldn't come soon enough, and as I said, is a breath of fresh air. Humanity has reached a tipping point, and a profound explanation of our divided nature is critical. Jeremy Griffith's words have never been more important, and thus 'Death by Dogma' — being the latest of his works — should be read and understood by all.
October 8, 2022
Books have saved and changed my life in countless ways - and no book, or no series of books, have saved and changed my life like Jeremy Griffith's ones.
From the moment I read Death By Dogma - my life has never been the same! What was revealed to me in that book was so shocking and concise - I found myself taking a few moments to stand up every couple of minutes, to put my hands on my head, because I immediately recognized the truth in it. I was blown away, more especially considering that when covid started, I went down the political rabbit hole with an obsession.
I wanted to understand what was going on in the world, and so I watched and researched American politics like a madman. And if there was one thing that never made sense to me - it was Liberalism and the politics of the Left.
All the virtue signaling, all the holier-than-thou stances they took, all the cries for what they considered "decency", all the relentless identity politics being shoved down everyone's thoats, all the deconstructionist ideas of there being no truth in the world, all the Great Reset ideas, all the socialist ideas that were being pushed by most Western, Left leaning countries didn't make any sense. It all seemed so forceful and angry, so dogmatic and pushy.
It was either you followed what the Left said - or you were a racist, a fascist, a Nazi, a bigot, an Uncle Tom sellout, an "uneducated" fool, an inhumane monster that lacked "decency" and deserved to be canceled and shunned by society as a result. I'd watch people like AOC, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Justin Trudeau and other "progressive" Democrats go around like self proclaimed saints, telling everyone who didn't follow their ideas that they were evil, backwards, deplorables and dumb - and the Left leaning media lapped it all up with absolute glee.
All of it didn't make sense to me. I couldn't understand how the Left couldn't see their own hypocrisy. I'd watch videos of Conservative students going to American universities to debate Liberals on their views, only to be literally chased away by mobs of Leftist students, who were supposed to be "tolerant" to other people's ideas. At that point - I was convinced the world had gone completely mad, that something had been fundamentally broken in the world and people's minds, especially in the West, and especially in universities. Like Elon Musk - I was convinced that Liberalism was a "woke mind virus" that was destroying the world and people's ability to question and think.
Then I read Death By Dogma - and it felt like a whole treasure trove of understanding had been unlocked inside me! Everything made immediate sense. I kept hearing myself saying - "whaaaaat?!" - as I read the book. I read it in one sitting, and only got up when the shock of the information forced me to take a few steps around my room, in sheer shock and amazement, like I was having a eureka moment. And it was a eureka moment - because it was then that I realized that I'd found the truth!
Not only did the book break down how the Left was leading us to complete destruction, it also broke down our psychological upset and how that led to religion being formed, and how, as we got more and more upset - we came up with ways to cope with that upset, by creating all sorts of movements, like The New Age movement, the Green Peace movement with people like Greta Thunberg spearheading it, the Critical Race Theory movement, the Critical Gender Theory movement, the Feminist movement and many others.
It was like a veil had been lifted - and I could finally see and understand! By the time I was done reading Death By Dogma - I knew that this man named Jeremy Griffith, was one hell of a man! The fact that he summed up everything in so few pages rocked my world.
I understood that Liberals were deeply upset, that they were profoundly angry, and alienated, and it reminded me of a research paper I'd read, which, if memory serves me well, was published in The Gateway Pundit, and the paper documented how Liberals take more anti-depressants and are more prone to mental disorders than Conservatives, and it made complete sense to me, because the level of anger Liberals had was mindblowing to say the least, and it seeped into everything: the media, movies, universities, governments...
But not only that, the book highlighted how humans in general, were upset, and how we came up with different strategies to cope with that upset, and that all those strategies were falling short as we became more and more upset. Moreover, the graph that highlighted "the crescendo of upset that has developed in the last 50 years" was also very shocking and made me further understand why things are the way they are. It also made me understand why the latest generation born here in South Africa, called "ama 2000" (which simply means children born after the year 2000) are so upset and why they do the things they do.
I'm profoundly grateful for having read Death By Dogma - because it completely changed my life! And it did it in less than a hundred pages. It was the first book I'd read by Jeremy, and it opened up a whole new world of understanding that I wasn't yet privy to at that point. I've since gone on to read all of Jeremy’s books, and I cherish them all, but Death By Dogma will always have a special place in my heart - because it was the one that first opened the doors to true understanding, it was the one that showed me the light!
Malcolm X was definitely right - "a man's whole life can be changed by one book."
From the moment I read Death By Dogma - my life has never been the same! What was revealed to me in that book was so shocking and concise - I found myself taking a few moments to stand up every couple of minutes, to put my hands on my head, because I immediately recognized the truth in it. I was blown away, more especially considering that when covid started, I went down the political rabbit hole with an obsession.
I wanted to understand what was going on in the world, and so I watched and researched American politics like a madman. And if there was one thing that never made sense to me - it was Liberalism and the politics of the Left.
All the virtue signaling, all the holier-than-thou stances they took, all the cries for what they considered "decency", all the relentless identity politics being shoved down everyone's thoats, all the deconstructionist ideas of there being no truth in the world, all the Great Reset ideas, all the socialist ideas that were being pushed by most Western, Left leaning countries didn't make any sense. It all seemed so forceful and angry, so dogmatic and pushy.
It was either you followed what the Left said - or you were a racist, a fascist, a Nazi, a bigot, an Uncle Tom sellout, an "uneducated" fool, an inhumane monster that lacked "decency" and deserved to be canceled and shunned by society as a result. I'd watch people like AOC, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Justin Trudeau and other "progressive" Democrats go around like self proclaimed saints, telling everyone who didn't follow their ideas that they were evil, backwards, deplorables and dumb - and the Left leaning media lapped it all up with absolute glee.
All of it didn't make sense to me. I couldn't understand how the Left couldn't see their own hypocrisy. I'd watch videos of Conservative students going to American universities to debate Liberals on their views, only to be literally chased away by mobs of Leftist students, who were supposed to be "tolerant" to other people's ideas. At that point - I was convinced the world had gone completely mad, that something had been fundamentally broken in the world and people's minds, especially in the West, and especially in universities. Like Elon Musk - I was convinced that Liberalism was a "woke mind virus" that was destroying the world and people's ability to question and think.
Then I read Death By Dogma - and it felt like a whole treasure trove of understanding had been unlocked inside me! Everything made immediate sense. I kept hearing myself saying - "whaaaaat?!" - as I read the book. I read it in one sitting, and only got up when the shock of the information forced me to take a few steps around my room, in sheer shock and amazement, like I was having a eureka moment. And it was a eureka moment - because it was then that I realized that I'd found the truth!
Not only did the book break down how the Left was leading us to complete destruction, it also broke down our psychological upset and how that led to religion being formed, and how, as we got more and more upset - we came up with ways to cope with that upset, by creating all sorts of movements, like The New Age movement, the Green Peace movement with people like Greta Thunberg spearheading it, the Critical Race Theory movement, the Critical Gender Theory movement, the Feminist movement and many others.
It was like a veil had been lifted - and I could finally see and understand! By the time I was done reading Death By Dogma - I knew that this man named Jeremy Griffith, was one hell of a man! The fact that he summed up everything in so few pages rocked my world.
I understood that Liberals were deeply upset, that they were profoundly angry, and alienated, and it reminded me of a research paper I'd read, which, if memory serves me well, was published in The Gateway Pundit, and the paper documented how Liberals take more anti-depressants and are more prone to mental disorders than Conservatives, and it made complete sense to me, because the level of anger Liberals had was mindblowing to say the least, and it seeped into everything: the media, movies, universities, governments...
But not only that, the book highlighted how humans in general, were upset, and how we came up with different strategies to cope with that upset, and that all those strategies were falling short as we became more and more upset. Moreover, the graph that highlighted "the crescendo of upset that has developed in the last 50 years" was also very shocking and made me further understand why things are the way they are. It also made me understand why the latest generation born here in South Africa, called "ama 2000" (which simply means children born after the year 2000) are so upset and why they do the things they do.
I'm profoundly grateful for having read Death By Dogma - because it completely changed my life! And it did it in less than a hundred pages. It was the first book I'd read by Jeremy, and it opened up a whole new world of understanding that I wasn't yet privy to at that point. I've since gone on to read all of Jeremy’s books, and I cherish them all, but Death By Dogma will always have a special place in my heart - because it was the one that first opened the doors to true understanding, it was the one that showed me the light!
Malcolm X was definitely right - "a man's whole life can be changed by one book."
July 4, 2022
Wow! The words have been taken out of me. Jeremy griffith exceptionally writes about the dangers of dogma in preventing humanity's freedom.
Jeremy Griffith explains that humanity has fought for 2 million years in the overall search for knowledge to liberate human consciousness. Dogma inhibits this from being fulfilled. And so, through this powerful book, Jeremy explains the importance of keeping this truth alive, the truth of humanity's fundamental goodness, the truth about our species' human condition!
With a compassionate view on both the right and the left wing, Jeremy explains how preventing the search for knowledge through dogma and oppression of thought inevitably stops freedom from being achieved. And so if you have an hour or 2 of spare time, I insist you have a read of Death by Dogma!
Jeremy Griffith explains that humanity has fought for 2 million years in the overall search for knowledge to liberate human consciousness. Dogma inhibits this from being fulfilled. And so, through this powerful book, Jeremy explains the importance of keeping this truth alive, the truth of humanity's fundamental goodness, the truth about our species' human condition!
With a compassionate view on both the right and the left wing, Jeremy explains how preventing the search for knowledge through dogma and oppression of thought inevitably stops freedom from being achieved. And so if you have an hour or 2 of spare time, I insist you have a read of Death by Dogma!
December 15, 2021
Conservative commentators regularly criticise the left wing for shutting down freedom of expression and thought, but this goes to a whole new level of profundity. Griffith considers left wing attempts to impose an ideal world in the context of humanity’s search for knowledge. Paradoxically, the left wing oppress the freedom needed to find the understanding that would actually bring a fair, cooperative and loving world about!
December 20, 2021
Like many people I imagine, I’ve been bewildered by the onrush of Critical Theory over the last few years, unable to comprehend how the negation of reality has become not only commonplace in the world’s collective thinking, but systemically enforced as the only way to behave. So this latest offering by Griffith clarified so much for me. Within the context of his extraordinary, compassionate, biological understanding of our human condition, he outlines the progression of ideologies (from religions right through to Critical Theory) humans have relied upon throughout millennia to cope with the insecure and alienated effects of our species-wide psychosis while we sought understanding of it. In doing so he makes transparent the danger personal agendas pose when influencing political and social change, but when lancing those truths he’s also giving us the healing, reconciling solution we all crave.
April 20, 2024
The political differences and the confrontations that these have entailed between human beings have been one of the many mysteries that we have not been able to understand as long as the human condition was not resolved. But now that Jeremy Griffith has given us enough knowledge to understand ourselves, we can also understand what exactly the left and right are in politics. The point Jeremy makes is tremendously interesting and relates directly to his theory of instincts vs. the intellect and the metaphor of Adam the stork.
Basically the human being should challenge his instincts in order to deploy all the potential that his new conscious mind had to manage the world, to manage change through the understanding of cause and effect. The instincts, which were unaware of the need of the conscious mind to carry out this search for knowledge, condemned it as if it were bad and generated in the human being the psychological disorder that we suffer today and that we know as the human condition.
In this journey of the human being from ignorance to knowledge, which has lasted approximately two million years, the temptation to return to the route marked by our instincts has always been there, and it was very relieving for those people who had reached very high levels of upset. But if we truly wanted to win the battle for knowledge and truly resolve the human condition, we had to remain in defiance of our instincts until that knowledge was found.
While the right in politics has defended the existence of enough freedom to be able to maintain this search in a viable way, the left has always tried to dogmatically impose a return to the route marked by our instincts, but before time.
Intuitively, people who have defended freedom knew that there was something wrong behind Marxist dogma, but lacking an understanding of the human condition, they were almost defenseless to leftist arguments that we should be good and cooperative and not selfish and competitive. The left thus assumed moral superiority when it had never had it.
But now we can understand what had been happening all along, and reconcile both extremes, and end the political struggle once and for all. The goodness of every human being has been demonstrated. Now we can return to the route marked by our instincts, but starting from an understanding of ourselves and the world, not from dogma.
Basically the human being should challenge his instincts in order to deploy all the potential that his new conscious mind had to manage the world, to manage change through the understanding of cause and effect. The instincts, which were unaware of the need of the conscious mind to carry out this search for knowledge, condemned it as if it were bad and generated in the human being the psychological disorder that we suffer today and that we know as the human condition.
In this journey of the human being from ignorance to knowledge, which has lasted approximately two million years, the temptation to return to the route marked by our instincts has always been there, and it was very relieving for those people who had reached very high levels of upset. But if we truly wanted to win the battle for knowledge and truly resolve the human condition, we had to remain in defiance of our instincts until that knowledge was found.
While the right in politics has defended the existence of enough freedom to be able to maintain this search in a viable way, the left has always tried to dogmatically impose a return to the route marked by our instincts, but before time.
Intuitively, people who have defended freedom knew that there was something wrong behind Marxist dogma, but lacking an understanding of the human condition, they were almost defenseless to leftist arguments that we should be good and cooperative and not selfish and competitive. The left thus assumed moral superiority when it had never had it.
But now we can understand what had been happening all along, and reconcile both extremes, and end the political struggle once and for all. The goodness of every human being has been demonstrated. Now we can return to the route marked by our instincts, but starting from an understanding of ourselves and the world, not from dogma.
February 14, 2025
Fascinating book!
It takes a background understanding of Jeremy’s explanation of the human condition to have a good grasp of how it applies to the political stage. But with those insights I found this book to be an extremely revealing and insightful description of global politics and also its approach to maintaining order in society with what is in actually a species that is essentially out of control.
But with the biological understanding of the human condition it can now be understood what politics and society has been trying to achieve based on the false assumptions and knowledge it has taken for granted. And how with truthful biology of humans at the helm it can all be turned around.
A fascinating book. Highly recommended.
It takes a background understanding of Jeremy’s explanation of the human condition to have a good grasp of how it applies to the political stage. But with those insights I found this book to be an extremely revealing and insightful description of global politics and also its approach to maintaining order in society with what is in actually a species that is essentially out of control.
But with the biological understanding of the human condition it can now be understood what politics and society has been trying to achieve based on the false assumptions and knowledge it has taken for granted. And how with truthful biology of humans at the helm it can all be turned around.
A fascinating book. Highly recommended.
September 19, 2022
Must read
July 25, 2025
Confronting. But really worth the read. Brilliant analysis. So much truth.
May 12, 2026
Death by Dogma by Jeremy Griffith gives an in depth analysis for our need to find relief from pseudo idealistic causes. Highly recommend!
April 3, 2026
The tiresome tribalism that dominates the modern political discourse seems to have no end, and goes round and round, getting only more entrenched and divisive. And the under-current of feeling that somehow the Left is the on the “winning” side, and the Right’s is on the “losing” side is also deeply confusing and unsatisfactory. How are we to resolve this weird polarising situation? Thankfully, Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith has gone to the “bottom of the well”, using first principles, and clearly and simple explained why the Left wing’s moralising is in fact, an incredibly dangerous fake-idealism that threatens the freedom of expression needed to have the much-needed discussion of the human condition and it’s freedom-giving implications.
An absolutely essential read if you want to cut-through the noise to understand what it actually is driving both political positions, and take control of your own thoughts and understanding about what you read and hear about politics and what are the underlying forces at play here.
An absolutely essential read if you want to cut-through the noise to understand what it actually is driving both political positions, and take control of your own thoughts and understanding about what you read and hear about politics and what are the underlying forces at play here.
September 2, 2025
Death by Dogma is an absolutely vital read. Jeremy Griffith cuts through the confusion and division of today’s world with a depth of insight I’ve never come across before. What makes this book so powerful is how it goes beyond political sides—it explains the biological roots of the left vs right divide and shows how both sides are actually responses to the deeper, unresolved issue of the human condition.
What stood out most to me was how compassionate and accountable the explanation is. Instead of blame or ideology, Griffith offers understanding. He explains why the Left’s dogma—however well-intentioned—is now actually driving us toward extinction, and how the only real solution lies in facing the truth about ourselves.
It’s confronting, yes—but also incredibly liberating. Once you understand what’s really going on, the world starts to make sense. Highly recommended for anyone who’s tired of the shouting match and is ready for an honest, healing explanation of human behavior.
What stood out most to me was how compassionate and accountable the explanation is. Instead of blame or ideology, Griffith offers understanding. He explains why the Left’s dogma—however well-intentioned—is now actually driving us toward extinction, and how the only real solution lies in facing the truth about ourselves.
It’s confronting, yes—but also incredibly liberating. Once you understand what’s really going on, the world starts to make sense. Highly recommended for anyone who’s tired of the shouting match and is ready for an honest, healing explanation of human behavior.
December 17, 2025
This is a powerful and thought-provoking critique of rigid belief systems that have constrained human understanding and progress. With clarity and intellectual courage, Griffith challenges entrenched dogmas while advocating for open inquiry, reason, and compassion as the path forward. The book is both confronting and liberating, encouraging readers to reconsider long-held assumptions and embrace a more honest, humane, and unifying approach to understanding ourselves and the world.
April 9, 2022
Title of nook should be "2022 The Begining of Extinction"
Great read!! Explains a lot of what Sleepy Joe's administration is doing. Especially his "Buy Back Program". 5 Star book.
Great read!! Explains a lot of what Sleepy Joe's administration is doing. Especially his "Buy Back Program". 5 Star book.
April 5, 2026
We needed to get out of the weeds and find a macro explanation for the origin of the religious, political and pseudo idealistic views that infect todays society. Jeremy Griffith does just that in 'Death by Dogma'.
April 18, 2026
A great insight in to the origin of the politically polarised state we find ourselves in today.
April 4, 2026
"Death by Dogma" by Jeremy Griffith is an incredible piece. He gives a grounded, macro approach in explaining where we began in our belief systems and where we are today with such issues as critical theory, DEI, wokeness and cancel culture. It's like Griffith walked in to a dark room that everyone is terrified to enter and turned the lights on to expose the truth.
April 4, 2026
Death by Dogma by Jeremy Griffith is a bold, eye-opening read that delivers a biological explanation for the human condition and the dangers of dogmatic ideologies. Griffith brilliantly exposes how pseudo idealistic thinking, particularly on the Left, leads to alienation and self-destruction, while offering a compassionate, science based path to genuine reconciliation and transformation.
Insightful, urgent, and profoundly hopeful this book could truly help save humanity. Highly recommended!
Insightful, urgent, and profoundly hopeful this book could truly help save humanity. Highly recommended!
September 17, 2022
Interesting point of view about the cancel culture and how dangerous it is for a society to homogenize emotions, feelings, and opinions of what is fair and right. Still, find it difficult to find the science behind his theories.
April 15, 2026
'Death by Dogma' by Jeremy Griffith is the most exceptional explanation for the political chaos we live in. Tremendous read.
April 19, 2026
I can't explain it better than Jeremy Griffith says in Part 13 of Death by Dogma "How precious is it then that understanding of the human condition has been found and this terrifying imminent prospect of the death-by-dogma end of the human race can be avoided—and the real transformation of the human race from a self-preoccupied, selfish, human-condition-stricken state to a concerned-for-others, selfless, human-condition-understood, psychologically rehabilitated state can finally occur."
April 6, 2026
My first book of Griffith's to read and was mightily impressed with ability to explain the right wing as I've mean wanting to understand and lead me to read all/most of Griffith's other books which haven't yet disappointed.
April 5, 2026
Death by Dogma by Jeremy Griffith explains humanity's journey through the earliest forms of religion right up to today's political madness. Essential reading.
April 13, 2026
'Death by Dogma' by Jeremy Griffith is wonderfully thought through, balanced and scientifically evidenced reasoning for the origin of politics and religion, and where we are today.
April 6, 2026
Death by Dogma by Jeremy Griffith is an outstanding, eye opening analysis of our current predicament.
Read
December 15, 2021I've tended to give Griffith's books a one star rating not because there is little of value in them but because they claim to be the ultimate truth which liberates humanity. I've judged them for promising so much more than they can deliver. Once again, with this new booklet, I would rate it a 5 if it were presented as one man's attempt to make sense of things. It's the claim at absolute scientific truth which I have a problem with. This time I think I'll respond to the dilemma by simply not rating it at all.
This will be a drastically abridged version of my review. You can find the complete version on my blog.
I’ve been wrestling with the ideas of Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith for over thirty years
What’s the problem? Why not simply accept them or reject them?
I agree with him that the human race suffers from a psychological condition which threatens our future. We are prone to forms of selfishness, aggression and irrationality which have brought us great suffering and squandered opportunities throughout history. And, now, there are so many more of us, we are beset by new forms of irrationality, we seem more miserable than ever, even though our lives are longer and more comfortable, our ecosystems are threatened and we have weapons that could make the world uninhabitable in minutes.
I see it as a psychological problem through observation of myself and others. My behaviour is dependent on the insecurity of my ego in different situations, and I can observe the same to be true of others. If my ego were secure at all times, I would always be cooperative and loving and clear-thinking. When my ego is wounded by shame at a mistake, by criticism or mistreatment of some kind, I am liable to be angry or depressed, ungenerous, rebellious or withdrawn.
How secure could the ego be? How resilient to the vagaries of human existence? Could we all be so secure that love and reason would rule our lives?
That’s what I want - A human race made up of rational loving individuals living peacefully and creatively together in a healthy ecological system.
We clearly can’t get there by force, or by discipline. Whatever is wrong with our psyches, which makes us so prone to feelings of insecurity, needs to heal through self-understanding.
So here is Jeremy Griffith claiming to have the solution. He has a grand narrative to explain what he calls “the human condition”. This is the thing. No-one else that I know of has a grand narrative so all-encompassing.
When I first encountered this narrative, in his first book Free: The End of the Human Condition: The Biological Reason Why Humans Have Had to Be Individual, Competitive, Egocentric and Aggressive, I felt divided. On the one hand, it was reassuring that someone recognised that there was a problem of this kind and claimed to have the explanation which would solve it. On the other hand, his book was so drenched in an extreme idealist’s vision of the world that it felt more like torture than liberation to read it. He would deny that it was idealistic, because it is a defence for why our behaviour is not ideal. But when someone says that “sex is an attack on innocence” or talks about how an ornate spoon represents several starving Ethiopians, these things are dagger wounds to the insecure ego regardless of the context. And I had never even had sex. But here was I conjuring up the image that I was somehow molesting a small child within me by masturbating to lustful fantasies.
Griffith warned that his book was “confronting” and that we usually coped with these things by being “evasive”. So the question always remains as I critique these ideas - am I following reason or am I evasively fooling myself in order to escape from a reality I find oppressive?
The way it is supposed to work is that the “defence for humanity” is supposed to give me so much relief that the rest doesn’t matter.
I don’t buy that defence. I did at first, but I don’t think it survives close examination.
The problem with presenting a defence within the context of confronting material is that it can lead to the “cripple them and then give them a wheelchair” problem. You don’t want to be too ruthless in your assessment of a defence if its collapse is liable to dump you undefended into the briar patch where “sex is an attack on innocence” and your cutlery drawer is full of dead Ethiopians,
Griffith claims that we have an instinctive orientation toward selflessness. He identifies this with our conscience. He believes we acquired it through something he calls “love indoctrination”. Our ape-like ancestors had an extended nurturing period made possible by a food-rich and predator-scarce environment. The mothers' nurturing of their offspring was a genetically selfish process in the sense that the offspring were repositories of their own genes. But to the infants this looked like selfless behaviour. So the infants learned that selflessness was meaningful. Somehow what was learned by their minds became encoded in their genes. I’m not sure how this works.
Griffith views this instinctive orientation as something dictatorial and unforgiving of deviation. I’m not sure how love can be dictatorial or unforgiving.
When we began to develop our intellects we needed to experiment with different kinds of behaviour. Griffith says we began to feel criticised by our instincts when we deviated from selfless behaviour. Clearly he doesn’t mean literally criticised, as only the conscious mind can criticise. Presumably he means that we felt like we were doing something wrong and thus became insecure, leading to anger, egocentricity and alienation.
Griffith says that we are born with instincts which expect a perfect world and we are deeply wounded when we discover that it is so imperfect. But surely only the conscious mind can have expectations.
If, on the other hand, we have a loving all-forgiving core then we won’t mind that the world isn’t perfect. We’ll just want to do our bit to make it better.
With this booklet Griffith is playing catch-up. The justified backlash against Critical Theory had not really got started when his major work Freedom: The End of the Human Condition was released in 2016. It is no secret to those of us who've read Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsay that Critical Theory is a threat to our society and our ability to practice science, and thus advance our understanding of ourselves. Pluckrose and Lindsay have an advantage over Griffith in their ability to investigate the topic and make it understandable to the rest of us. They don’t have to make the facts fit a pre-existing explanatory structure. They can approach the topic in a scientific rather than propagandistic manner.
Griffith says that Moses was an exceptionally sound individual who gave us the Ten Commandments. Most Biblical scholars agree that Moses was not a real person, that he is a mythical composite for a number of other figures. When it comes to the Ten Commandments, would it really take an exceptionally sound individual to compile a list of dos and don’ts based on the complaints that people in their tribe had about each other? Who wouldn’t be able to identify not killing each other, not stealing from each other and not sleeping with each other’s wives as important principals for maintaining peace in the tribe based on the experience of things which had caused fights in the past? To read the words of Jesus in the Gospels is to be awestruck at the clarity of vision and purity of nature of their source. The Ten Commandments, not so much. Griffith claims that they are still the basis of our law today. Are they? Sure we have laws against killing and theft, but would a person not be punished for those offences in Ancient Greece or Egypt? In most countries it is not against the law to covet one's neighbour’s wife or property. Graven images aren't illegal. Even adultery goes unpunished in many societies. Christopher Hitchens pointed out that it might have been better to forget the coveting laws and put in something against rape and the molestation (or mistreatment in other ways) of children. I think a truly sound individual would have put in laws against those things. Their absence is no mystery if the commandments arose as a reflection of what had caused conflict amongst the men in the tribe. It was a patriarchal society where crimes against women and children could easily be ignored.
Griffith uses the example of Christianity as his primary example of a religion centred around a uniquely sound prophet. He doesn’t mention Islam, although one of his illustrations includes the crescent moon symbol amongst the symbols of other religions. Leaving it out is a good way of avoiding controversy. Where does this religion fit into his progression? Anyone who knows much about the life of the Prophet Mohammad knows that he was very different from Jesus. He hardly conforms to my concept of a sound individual.
Griffith sees Communism as a form of “pseudo-idealism” for people who found the concept of a potentially judgemental God too disturbing. He presents it as being aimed at imposing a cooperative and selfless society. This he sees as a betrayal of our obligation to pursue understanding (through science) of our selfish psyche and thus achieve liberation from it. I think it works better to conceive of Communism as an idealistic thought virus. It provides an excuse for people to unleash their resentment against those more successful than themselves. This is one of the sources of its bloodshed. It also encourages dishonesty to cover for the misalignment between behaviour and espoused ideals, on the part of the rulers or the ruled. Of course violent oppression is also brought on by the imposed nature of the experiment, which Griffith is acknowledging. The reason I see a thought virus as a better way of describing these forms of dogma is that a virus can affect different parts of an organism in different ways and can lead to a progression of different symptoms.
Griffith gives an account of conflict between the left and right in evolutionary theory. He also talks about how easy it has been to defend left wing ideas politically and how hard it has been to defend right wing political ideas. He ends with “the ideology of the Left was wrong while the ideology of the Right was correct”. But surely the social system which was working its way toward self-understanding needed a balance of cooperative behaviour and competitive behaviour, some arguing for more assistance for those falling behind and some arguing for progress at all costs. The whole enterprise could be sabotaged by too much insistence on group interests but also by too much individualism without responsibility. If the right were always correct, then slavery would have been O.K. Surely the ideology of the Right was correct when it didn’t go too far, and the ideology of the Left was O.K. when it didn’t go too far.
Griffith feels that now we can all become left-wing (in the sense of desirous of and practicing loving and cooperative behaviour) and we can all give up being selfish or aggressive. It may be a little hard to imagine : “I’m selling my yacht and giving the money to the poor because some dude in Australia wrote a book saying I’m really a hero.”
Regarding Critical Race Theory Griffith says : “To impose a new world of love and kindness between ethnic groups or races, it was simply asserted that it was philosophically sound to claim that there is no difference between races; and further that any contention that there were differences was just a dishonest, manipulative, racist, artificially invented device used to oppress and ill-treat certain races.” Griffith believes that different races differ in their level of alienation dependant on how long they have been involved in the battle to find knowledge. Hence, Asians are more alienated than blacks. While it is true that one can make statistical comparisons, e.g. seeing that Asians tend to perform better academically, it isn’t clear to me that that is not a matter of culture rather than genes. Would an Asian child who was adopted by a family which didn’t place such a strong emphasis on academic achievement still have an advantage? It’s wrong to make the assumption which Critical Race Theory makes that all variation in success is evidence of racial prejudice. But Martin Luther King’s principle that we should not assess people based on the colour of their skin is the answer to it. If everyone is allowed to proceed on the basis of their merits, then, if some groups have an inherent advantage, that will manifest as it will. But if we were to operate on the belief that such an advantage exists, we might make unfair decisions on its basis.
Griffith leaves out all mention of one of the key offshoots of Critical Theory or “wokeness” - Queer Theory. Queer Theory is based around subverting the concept of normal especially with regard to sexuality. So, for instance, it sees our society as “hetero-normative”, i.e. oppressively imposing the judgement that one is not normal if not heterosexual. One of the dangers of Queer Theory is that some of its adherents want to “normalise” sex with children.
The concept of an idealistic thought virus, appealing to the intellect while sowing seeds of greater insecurity in the psyche or providing tools for gaining power or wealth or providing an excuse or justification for the cathartic unleashing of aggressive behaviour, seems to me to better fit the complexity of the different ideological dogmas which face us in the world today.
It is the divided self which makes us prone to thought viruses. We have a dark side where our resentment dwells. Then we have our “good persona” which needs to have a positive self-perception and which may be sensitive to criticism. The thought virus may take hold with the idea “if you don’t adopt me you’ll be bad”, e.g. “if you don’t support BLM you are racist.” Or such a hook may sometimes not be necessary. The “good persona” is necessarily sensitive to criticism, because it is a precarious barrier against encounter with the dark side. This generalised sensitivity explains the call for “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces”. The sense of righteousness of the “good persona” is at the opposite end of the spectrum from knowledge. Knowledge is precisely that which can stand in the face of all criticism.
The divided person who has been infected by the thought virus for some form of idealism, projects their own dark side onto the enemy of that ideal. If anti-racism is the ideal, then white supremacists are all around. The hostile resentment and entitlement he sees in them is that which lurks in his own subconscious.
What often causes the worst behaviour is when the conscience aligns with full expression of aggressive resentment. That conscience is our ideas of what is right or wrong. If we believe that it is right to torture or murder people because this is just punishment for something they have done, the dark side pours out through the “good persona”. In a somewhat milder form this is what we see when “social justice warriors” send death or rape threats to those who challenge their dogma.
The cure for thought viruses is individuation - the owning and reintegration of the dark side. Individuality is the state and practice of not being internally divided. This can also be described as having integrity, i.e. the parts of one’s psyche are integrated. Such an individual is authentic and substantial, not an empty vessel to be filled by whatever intellectual contagion may come along.
Honesty is inseparable from individuality. It means being guided by our own individual perception of reality. Then the question arises as to how accurate that perception is. But it will not be accurate unless it is our own. We must be guided by our own senses and our own reason. Others can provide ideas and data, but it must be sifted and integrated by our own reason if are not to be false.
Griffith believes we are doomed if his message doesn’t reach a broad audience quickly. I don’t think his explanation is correct, but I do find engaging with it is a stimulus to potentially productive insights. Most of what hope I have for the human race comes from my own experience that a breakdown can also be a breakthrough. If there is an answer which will arise from the debates going on in the world, it could spread like wildfire if it works to unlock the mind-prisons of dogma. When we run out of lies, there is nowhere to go but into the truth. Whatever that proves to be.
I take some comfort from the prophecy : “For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” Matthew 24:27
This suggests that when an answer arrives we will know it because it will effortlessly race throughout the whole of humanity as if instantaneously. We see this with new technology, so why not with knowledge which unlocks what William Blake called “the mind-forg’d manacles.”
This will be a drastically abridged version of my review. You can find the complete version on my blog.
I’ve been wrestling with the ideas of Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith for over thirty years
What’s the problem? Why not simply accept them or reject them?
I agree with him that the human race suffers from a psychological condition which threatens our future. We are prone to forms of selfishness, aggression and irrationality which have brought us great suffering and squandered opportunities throughout history. And, now, there are so many more of us, we are beset by new forms of irrationality, we seem more miserable than ever, even though our lives are longer and more comfortable, our ecosystems are threatened and we have weapons that could make the world uninhabitable in minutes.
I see it as a psychological problem through observation of myself and others. My behaviour is dependent on the insecurity of my ego in different situations, and I can observe the same to be true of others. If my ego were secure at all times, I would always be cooperative and loving and clear-thinking. When my ego is wounded by shame at a mistake, by criticism or mistreatment of some kind, I am liable to be angry or depressed, ungenerous, rebellious or withdrawn.
How secure could the ego be? How resilient to the vagaries of human existence? Could we all be so secure that love and reason would rule our lives?
That’s what I want - A human race made up of rational loving individuals living peacefully and creatively together in a healthy ecological system.
We clearly can’t get there by force, or by discipline. Whatever is wrong with our psyches, which makes us so prone to feelings of insecurity, needs to heal through self-understanding.
So here is Jeremy Griffith claiming to have the solution. He has a grand narrative to explain what he calls “the human condition”. This is the thing. No-one else that I know of has a grand narrative so all-encompassing.
When I first encountered this narrative, in his first book Free: The End of the Human Condition: The Biological Reason Why Humans Have Had to Be Individual, Competitive, Egocentric and Aggressive, I felt divided. On the one hand, it was reassuring that someone recognised that there was a problem of this kind and claimed to have the explanation which would solve it. On the other hand, his book was so drenched in an extreme idealist’s vision of the world that it felt more like torture than liberation to read it. He would deny that it was idealistic, because it is a defence for why our behaviour is not ideal. But when someone says that “sex is an attack on innocence” or talks about how an ornate spoon represents several starving Ethiopians, these things are dagger wounds to the insecure ego regardless of the context. And I had never even had sex. But here was I conjuring up the image that I was somehow molesting a small child within me by masturbating to lustful fantasies.
Griffith warned that his book was “confronting” and that we usually coped with these things by being “evasive”. So the question always remains as I critique these ideas - am I following reason or am I evasively fooling myself in order to escape from a reality I find oppressive?
The way it is supposed to work is that the “defence for humanity” is supposed to give me so much relief that the rest doesn’t matter.
I don’t buy that defence. I did at first, but I don’t think it survives close examination.
The problem with presenting a defence within the context of confronting material is that it can lead to the “cripple them and then give them a wheelchair” problem. You don’t want to be too ruthless in your assessment of a defence if its collapse is liable to dump you undefended into the briar patch where “sex is an attack on innocence” and your cutlery drawer is full of dead Ethiopians,
Griffith claims that we have an instinctive orientation toward selflessness. He identifies this with our conscience. He believes we acquired it through something he calls “love indoctrination”. Our ape-like ancestors had an extended nurturing period made possible by a food-rich and predator-scarce environment. The mothers' nurturing of their offspring was a genetically selfish process in the sense that the offspring were repositories of their own genes. But to the infants this looked like selfless behaviour. So the infants learned that selflessness was meaningful. Somehow what was learned by their minds became encoded in their genes. I’m not sure how this works.
Griffith views this instinctive orientation as something dictatorial and unforgiving of deviation. I’m not sure how love can be dictatorial or unforgiving.
When we began to develop our intellects we needed to experiment with different kinds of behaviour. Griffith says we began to feel criticised by our instincts when we deviated from selfless behaviour. Clearly he doesn’t mean literally criticised, as only the conscious mind can criticise. Presumably he means that we felt like we were doing something wrong and thus became insecure, leading to anger, egocentricity and alienation.
Griffith says that we are born with instincts which expect a perfect world and we are deeply wounded when we discover that it is so imperfect. But surely only the conscious mind can have expectations.
If, on the other hand, we have a loving all-forgiving core then we won’t mind that the world isn’t perfect. We’ll just want to do our bit to make it better.
With this booklet Griffith is playing catch-up. The justified backlash against Critical Theory had not really got started when his major work Freedom: The End of the Human Condition was released in 2016. It is no secret to those of us who've read Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsay that Critical Theory is a threat to our society and our ability to practice science, and thus advance our understanding of ourselves. Pluckrose and Lindsay have an advantage over Griffith in their ability to investigate the topic and make it understandable to the rest of us. They don’t have to make the facts fit a pre-existing explanatory structure. They can approach the topic in a scientific rather than propagandistic manner.
Griffith says that Moses was an exceptionally sound individual who gave us the Ten Commandments. Most Biblical scholars agree that Moses was not a real person, that he is a mythical composite for a number of other figures. When it comes to the Ten Commandments, would it really take an exceptionally sound individual to compile a list of dos and don’ts based on the complaints that people in their tribe had about each other? Who wouldn’t be able to identify not killing each other, not stealing from each other and not sleeping with each other’s wives as important principals for maintaining peace in the tribe based on the experience of things which had caused fights in the past? To read the words of Jesus in the Gospels is to be awestruck at the clarity of vision and purity of nature of their source. The Ten Commandments, not so much. Griffith claims that they are still the basis of our law today. Are they? Sure we have laws against killing and theft, but would a person not be punished for those offences in Ancient Greece or Egypt? In most countries it is not against the law to covet one's neighbour’s wife or property. Graven images aren't illegal. Even adultery goes unpunished in many societies. Christopher Hitchens pointed out that it might have been better to forget the coveting laws and put in something against rape and the molestation (or mistreatment in other ways) of children. I think a truly sound individual would have put in laws against those things. Their absence is no mystery if the commandments arose as a reflection of what had caused conflict amongst the men in the tribe. It was a patriarchal society where crimes against women and children could easily be ignored.
Griffith uses the example of Christianity as his primary example of a religion centred around a uniquely sound prophet. He doesn’t mention Islam, although one of his illustrations includes the crescent moon symbol amongst the symbols of other religions. Leaving it out is a good way of avoiding controversy. Where does this religion fit into his progression? Anyone who knows much about the life of the Prophet Mohammad knows that he was very different from Jesus. He hardly conforms to my concept of a sound individual.
Griffith sees Communism as a form of “pseudo-idealism” for people who found the concept of a potentially judgemental God too disturbing. He presents it as being aimed at imposing a cooperative and selfless society. This he sees as a betrayal of our obligation to pursue understanding (through science) of our selfish psyche and thus achieve liberation from it. I think it works better to conceive of Communism as an idealistic thought virus. It provides an excuse for people to unleash their resentment against those more successful than themselves. This is one of the sources of its bloodshed. It also encourages dishonesty to cover for the misalignment between behaviour and espoused ideals, on the part of the rulers or the ruled. Of course violent oppression is also brought on by the imposed nature of the experiment, which Griffith is acknowledging. The reason I see a thought virus as a better way of describing these forms of dogma is that a virus can affect different parts of an organism in different ways and can lead to a progression of different symptoms.
Griffith gives an account of conflict between the left and right in evolutionary theory. He also talks about how easy it has been to defend left wing ideas politically and how hard it has been to defend right wing political ideas. He ends with “the ideology of the Left was wrong while the ideology of the Right was correct”. But surely the social system which was working its way toward self-understanding needed a balance of cooperative behaviour and competitive behaviour, some arguing for more assistance for those falling behind and some arguing for progress at all costs. The whole enterprise could be sabotaged by too much insistence on group interests but also by too much individualism without responsibility. If the right were always correct, then slavery would have been O.K. Surely the ideology of the Right was correct when it didn’t go too far, and the ideology of the Left was O.K. when it didn’t go too far.
Griffith feels that now we can all become left-wing (in the sense of desirous of and practicing loving and cooperative behaviour) and we can all give up being selfish or aggressive. It may be a little hard to imagine : “I’m selling my yacht and giving the money to the poor because some dude in Australia wrote a book saying I’m really a hero.”
Regarding Critical Race Theory Griffith says : “To impose a new world of love and kindness between ethnic groups or races, it was simply asserted that it was philosophically sound to claim that there is no difference between races; and further that any contention that there were differences was just a dishonest, manipulative, racist, artificially invented device used to oppress and ill-treat certain races.” Griffith believes that different races differ in their level of alienation dependant on how long they have been involved in the battle to find knowledge. Hence, Asians are more alienated than blacks. While it is true that one can make statistical comparisons, e.g. seeing that Asians tend to perform better academically, it isn’t clear to me that that is not a matter of culture rather than genes. Would an Asian child who was adopted by a family which didn’t place such a strong emphasis on academic achievement still have an advantage? It’s wrong to make the assumption which Critical Race Theory makes that all variation in success is evidence of racial prejudice. But Martin Luther King’s principle that we should not assess people based on the colour of their skin is the answer to it. If everyone is allowed to proceed on the basis of their merits, then, if some groups have an inherent advantage, that will manifest as it will. But if we were to operate on the belief that such an advantage exists, we might make unfair decisions on its basis.
Griffith leaves out all mention of one of the key offshoots of Critical Theory or “wokeness” - Queer Theory. Queer Theory is based around subverting the concept of normal especially with regard to sexuality. So, for instance, it sees our society as “hetero-normative”, i.e. oppressively imposing the judgement that one is not normal if not heterosexual. One of the dangers of Queer Theory is that some of its adherents want to “normalise” sex with children.
The concept of an idealistic thought virus, appealing to the intellect while sowing seeds of greater insecurity in the psyche or providing tools for gaining power or wealth or providing an excuse or justification for the cathartic unleashing of aggressive behaviour, seems to me to better fit the complexity of the different ideological dogmas which face us in the world today.
It is the divided self which makes us prone to thought viruses. We have a dark side where our resentment dwells. Then we have our “good persona” which needs to have a positive self-perception and which may be sensitive to criticism. The thought virus may take hold with the idea “if you don’t adopt me you’ll be bad”, e.g. “if you don’t support BLM you are racist.” Or such a hook may sometimes not be necessary. The “good persona” is necessarily sensitive to criticism, because it is a precarious barrier against encounter with the dark side. This generalised sensitivity explains the call for “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces”. The sense of righteousness of the “good persona” is at the opposite end of the spectrum from knowledge. Knowledge is precisely that which can stand in the face of all criticism.
The divided person who has been infected by the thought virus for some form of idealism, projects their own dark side onto the enemy of that ideal. If anti-racism is the ideal, then white supremacists are all around. The hostile resentment and entitlement he sees in them is that which lurks in his own subconscious.
What often causes the worst behaviour is when the conscience aligns with full expression of aggressive resentment. That conscience is our ideas of what is right or wrong. If we believe that it is right to torture or murder people because this is just punishment for something they have done, the dark side pours out through the “good persona”. In a somewhat milder form this is what we see when “social justice warriors” send death or rape threats to those who challenge their dogma.
The cure for thought viruses is individuation - the owning and reintegration of the dark side. Individuality is the state and practice of not being internally divided. This can also be described as having integrity, i.e. the parts of one’s psyche are integrated. Such an individual is authentic and substantial, not an empty vessel to be filled by whatever intellectual contagion may come along.
Honesty is inseparable from individuality. It means being guided by our own individual perception of reality. Then the question arises as to how accurate that perception is. But it will not be accurate unless it is our own. We must be guided by our own senses and our own reason. Others can provide ideas and data, but it must be sifted and integrated by our own reason if are not to be false.
Griffith believes we are doomed if his message doesn’t reach a broad audience quickly. I don’t think his explanation is correct, but I do find engaging with it is a stimulus to potentially productive insights. Most of what hope I have for the human race comes from my own experience that a breakdown can also be a breakthrough. If there is an answer which will arise from the debates going on in the world, it could spread like wildfire if it works to unlock the mind-prisons of dogma. When we run out of lies, there is nowhere to go but into the truth. Whatever that proves to be.
I take some comfort from the prophecy : “For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” Matthew 24:27
This suggests that when an answer arrives we will know it because it will effortlessly race throughout the whole of humanity as if instantaneously. We see this with new technology, so why not with knowledge which unlocks what William Blake called “the mind-forg’d manacles.”
April 11, 2026
Essential reading for a deeper understanding of today's polarised world of politics.
April 11, 2026
The insight Jeremy Griffith brings in explaining the political morass we live in is stunning. Anyone who wants genuine answers should read 'Death by Dogma'
April 13, 2026
'Death by Dogma' takes us back to the beginning of human thought and how dogma has developed and how through the honest evaluation Griffith gives, we can free ourselves from it. Outstanding.
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