Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West

In his long and well constructed book John Ralston Saul does much more than critique the rise of reason in Western society. It is a fulsome history of Western society itself, running the gamut of every element that may hold some vestige of power in the Western world today—defence, government and business being obvious examples, but also including art, literature and society in general. Apportioning blame across the system, Saul fires off salvos inditing everyone and everything, but in such a well argued way that you find yourself nodding along in agreement rather than shaking your head in bewilderment.

The heart of the argument that underpins this book is that Western society has developed (or maybe devolved) into a lifeless machine, show more unwilling to reward creativity and that we are now in the grip of rampant bureaucratisation and mediocrity. Saul argues his case well, with his words reading more like an informed if passionate defence, rather than a rant. While the reader may not agree with everything Saul has to say, or even much of it, this is a book of a rare breed—one that presents its arguments well, with clarity and wry humour, while simultaneously informing and challenging the reader. If you read one book this year in attempt to understand why society is the way it is, make it this book. show less

A massive book (although physically the paperback looks deceptively compact), all of 640 pages of closely reasoned academic text. This is because the author roams with gusto over an incredible range of subjects: in the end, some of it looks like showing off his erudition. The books starts off somewhat unpromisingly with an argument against (as far as I can recollect) the use of reason in practical matters. The present day rationalists he calls Voltaire's bastards, probably because it was Voltaire,before anyone else, who was instrumental in destroying the vestiges of royal license, the divine right of kings, and the rule of reason; but his latter-day intellectual descendents have turned reason into an instrument of political and show more financial power, exploiting the masses and amassing unreasonable amounts of wealth. Perhaps his best chapters are those dealing with the current neo-liberal or neo-conservative economic doctrines, as advanced by the Chicago school, pushed by the Reagan-Thatcher axis and the unholy nexus of international financial organisations like the IMF and World Bank, and so on. Another section that really spoke to me was his masterly description and analysis of the compulsions of the professional class, who have surrendered their freedom to criticize as a price for their survival to a comfortable old age on the wealth hey are enabled to save by the rule of law and social stability of financial and legal systems. Thus the modern day professional, or rationalist, has withdrawn from public life and is content to build an island refuge of their own.
However, some of the chapters do not seem to belong together, especially the one on art and literature. Perhaps the book would have been more effective if it had been divided into two slimmer volumes. At the end of the day, the very style of the book itself seems to be at odds with its basic hypothesis, as the author obviously loves, and practices, the rational process of thinking himself, rather than, say, an appeal to emotion or national spirit (jingoism). Merely repeating a tag line ("and all these ills were because of the elevation of the rational spirit") at the end of each section does not really prove his thesis that reason, or the rational spirit, has been the root of all that is wrong with our world after the last two-three centuries of the Enlightenment, just because here re people who, while styling themselves intellectuals, use the system for their personal or class profit. I am sure the author himself would be the last person to suggest a return to the arbitrary rule of divines or kings, however enlightened, or rule by vigilante citizens as against the law enforced by professionally trained police and magistrates. The seed of the idea is intriguing, but the case against reason has not been proved. But the reader is made to slog through a small mountain for this little result. show less

In his long and well constructed book John Ralston Saul does much more than critique the rise of reason in Western society. It is a fulsome history of Western society itself, running the gamut of every element that may hold some vestige of power in the Western world today—defence, government and business being obvious examples, but also including art, literature and society in general. Apportioning blame across the system, Saul fires off salvos inditing everyone and everything, but in such a well argued way that you find yourself nodding along in agreement rather than shaking your head in bewilderment.

The heart of the argument that underpins this book is that Western society has developed (or maybe devolved) into a lifeless machine, show more unwilling to reward creativity and that we are now in the grip of rampant bureaucratisation and mediocrity. Saul argues his case well, with his words reading more like an informed if passionate defence, rather than a rant. While the reader may not agree with everything Saul has to say, or even much of it, this is a book of a rare breed—one that presents its arguments well, with clarity and wry humour, while simultaneously informing and challenging the reader. If you read one book this year in attempt to understand why society is the way it is, make it this book. show less

Saul is a guardian of our society. Fantastic in its scope. The only criticism I could foresee, besides the investment in reading a work of this length, is that the one-sidely critical nature of his writings do not immediately presage the flowering of a visionary path forward. The feeling of groundlessness after reading such a work, it could be argued, is the very dependency that has resulted in such a neurotic profusion of rational thought. The dynamism between realist and idealist approaches is to my knowledge still the exclusive province of classical Indian traditions, specifically Madhyamika and Yogacara, where critical reasoning serves only as a corrective. If you enjoyed Voltaire's Bastards, you can try the no less acerbic writings show more of the late Ivan Illich. But I must add my own word of caution against reading too much of this type of literature - lest it turn sadistic and fatalistic. show less

I just started reading this and it's already one of my favorite books of all time. I can't stop underlining passages.

Easily one of the most important works in social analysis and criticism published in the 1990s. It has proven to have held its validity over the twenty-four years since its publication and remains today one of the most enlightening critiques of our times. This work compares well with Nathan Glazer's, David Reisman's and Reuel Denney's [[The Lonely Crowd]] for its originality and importance.

The pitfalls of rationalism and and the rise of bureaucracy.