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

by John Ralston Saul

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958621,669 (4.02)22
In a wide-ranging, provocative anatomy of modern society and its origins, novelist and historian John Ralston Saul explores the reason for our deepening sense of crisis and confusion. Throughout the Western world we talk endlessly of individual freedom, yet Saul shows that there has never before been such pressure for conformity. Our business leaders describe themselves as capitalists, yet most are corporate employees and financial speculators. We are obsessed with competition, yet the single largest item of international trade is a subsidized market in armaments. We call our governments democracies, yet few of us participate in politics. We complain about "invasive government," yet our legal, educational, financial, social, cultural and legislative systems are breaking down. While most observers view these problems separately, Saul demonstrates that they are largely manifestations of our blind faith in the value of reason. Over the last 400 years, our "rational elites" have gradually instituted reforms in every phase of social life. But Saul shows that they have also been responsible for most of the difficulties and violence of the same period. This paradox arises from a simple truth which our elites deny: far from being a moral force, reason is no more than an administrative method. Their denial has helped to turn the modern West into a vast, incomprehensible, directionless machine, run by process-minded experts - "Voltaire's bastards"--Whose cult of scientific management is bereft of both sense and morality. Whether in politics, art, business, the military, entertainment, science, finance, academia or journalism, these experts share the same outlook and methods. The result, Saul maintains, is a civilization of immense technological power whose peoples increasingly dwell in a world of illusion. Already known to millions of readers as the author of novels which portray the overwhelming effects of this power on the modern individual by weaving together international finance, the oil and arms business, guerrilla warfare, drug traffic, and the world of art, here Saul lays aside the mask of fiction to speak in his own voice. Only by withdrawing from our addiction to "solutions," he argues, reclaiming the citizens' right to question and participate in public life, and recovering a common sense capacity for intelligent panic, can we find a way out of our permanent crisis.… (more)
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» See also 22 mentions

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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, 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. ( )
  ForrestFamily | Mar 26, 2020 |
I just started reading this and it's already one of my favorite books of all time. I can't stop underlining passages. ( )
  RobVel | Jan 20, 2017 |
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. ( )
1 vote proximity1 | Apr 13, 2016 |
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 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. ( )
1 vote jvalamala | Feb 14, 2011 |
The pitfalls of rationalism and and the rise of bureaucracy. ( )
1 vote zenosbooks | Feb 25, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 6 (next | show all)
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In a wide-ranging, provocative anatomy of modern society and its origins, novelist and historian John Ralston Saul explores the reason for our deepening sense of crisis and confusion. Throughout the Western world we talk endlessly of individual freedom, yet Saul shows that there has never before been such pressure for conformity. Our business leaders describe themselves as capitalists, yet most are corporate employees and financial speculators. We are obsessed with competition, yet the single largest item of international trade is a subsidized market in armaments. We call our governments democracies, yet few of us participate in politics. We complain about "invasive government," yet our legal, educational, financial, social, cultural and legislative systems are breaking down. While most observers view these problems separately, Saul demonstrates that they are largely manifestations of our blind faith in the value of reason. Over the last 400 years, our "rational elites" have gradually instituted reforms in every phase of social life. But Saul shows that they have also been responsible for most of the difficulties and violence of the same period. This paradox arises from a simple truth which our elites deny: far from being a moral force, reason is no more than an administrative method. Their denial has helped to turn the modern West into a vast, incomprehensible, directionless machine, run by process-minded experts - "Voltaire's bastards"--Whose cult of scientific management is bereft of both sense and morality. Whether in politics, art, business, the military, entertainment, science, finance, academia or journalism, these experts share the same outlook and methods. The result, Saul maintains, is a civilization of immense technological power whose peoples increasingly dwell in a world of illusion. Already known to millions of readers as the author of novels which portray the overwhelming effects of this power on the modern individual by weaving together international finance, the oil and arms business, guerrilla warfare, drug traffic, and the world of art, here Saul lays aside the mask of fiction to speak in his own voice. Only by withdrawing from our addiction to "solutions," he argues, reclaiming the citizens' right to question and participate in public life, and recovering a common sense capacity for intelligent panic, can we find a way out of our permanent crisis.

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