The Unconscious Civilization

I have read his book Voltaire's Bastards and cant say I understood much of the intellectual philosophising it contained. This book is transcribed from a series of speeches the author did in 1995, called the Massey Series, and reads a little easier.

I was very impressed with the authors ability to take popular political arguments and remove them from the left/right standpoints. He manages to take a step back from this sometimes pointless argument, and talk about societal issues in general philosophical terms. It is a big step back too, right back to Socrates and Plato. We are talking democracy, basic right and wrongs and society here. And it is all linked to the now all pervasive phenomena of corporate supremacy.

He managed to articulate show more so nicely the moral argument for unions, for doing what is best for all rather than what is just best for some, for open governments and for the necessity of public sector jobs. He gave options, or at least starting points for discussion, on alternatives to the way we live these modern lives that we do. (ie: the packing in of education and race to employment that we do in our early lives, to leave until retirement the time to choose, to relax and to volunteer.) There is a lot of discussion on language, and how it is used to gain power- to exclude sections of the population from gaining the information that is supposed to be so available nowdays.

All very interesting and useful stuff, presented in a palatable, if intellectual, way. show less

A concise and precise diagnosis of the fundamental ills of modern civilisation. (Yes, I know how hyperbolic that sounds.) Urgent and, from the vantage point of today's post September 11/Irag War/GFC world, thoroughly prescient.

This is a book of Massey lectures about the lack of real progress and the interface of economic policy and intellectual stagnation since 1980. Smoothly written and fairly penetrating. Sort of backup for my theories on 1980 as the end of Western Civilization's growth.

Saul's arguments on the state of our society depend too much on inappropriate literary connections, and some of his facts (for instance, on Mexico) are wrong and biased.

Our society, John Ralston Saul argues, is only superficially based on the individual and democracy.

Increasingly it is conformist and corporatist, a society in which legitimacy lies with specialist or interest groups and decisions are made through constant negotiations between these groups.

http://www.anansi.ca/titles.cfm?pub_id=44