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With a new Introduction by the author, this “erudite and brilliantly readable book” (The Observer, London) expertly dissects the political, economic, and social origins of Western civilization to reveal a culture cripplingly enslaved to crude notions of rationality and expertise.
With a new introduction by the author, this “erudite and brilliantly readable book” (The Observer, London) astutely dissects the political, economic and social origins of Western civilization to reveal a culture cripplingly enslaved to crude notions of rationality and expertise.
The Western world is full of paradoxes. We talk endlessly of individual freedom, yet we’ve never been under more pressure to conform. Our business leaders describe themselves as capitalists, yet most are corporate employees and financial speculators. 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 deteriorating.
All these problems, John Ralston Saul argues, are largely the result of our blind faith in the value of reason. Over the past 400 years, our “rational elites” have turned the modern West into a vast, incomprehensible, directionless machine, run by process-minded experts—“Voltaire’s bastards”—whose cult of scientific management is empty 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 ordinary citizens are increasingly excluded from the decision-making process.
In this wide-ranging anatomy of modern society and its origins—whose “pages explode with insight, style and intellectual rigor” (Camille Paglia, The Washington Post)—Saul presents a shattering critique of the political, economic and cultural establishments of the West.
- Sales Rank: #209131 in eBooks
- Published on: 2012-12-25
- Released on: 2012-12-25
- Format: Kindle eBook
From Publishers Weekly
Known for his novels of international intrigue, Saul in his first work of nonfiction delivers a passionate jeremiad on the follies of our age. Reason, he argues, has run amok; instead of the enlightened utopia envisaged by Voltaire, the modern West is a soulless machine run by technocratic elites that promise efficiency but create disasters. The author targets the insane waste of our "permanent war economy," the perils of nuclear power, the co-optation of democracy by vested interests, the news media's focus on false events and manufactured celebrities, the "personality politics" of presidential campaigns. He critiques the Harvard Business School's management teachings, profiles such figures as Thomas Jefferson, Robert McNamara and Charles de Gaulle, flunks our colleges for failure to reward creativity and imagination. He blames novelists from James Joyce onward for "rendering literature inaccessible" and divorcing fiction from social concerns. He roams freely through history, politics, theology, art and film, challenging his audience on every page. This wonderfully provocative inquiry, a work of bold sweep and originality, may nonetheless leave some readers wondering whether misplaced faith in reason underlies all the ills discussed.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Saul locates the source of many of the contemporary world's problems in a perversion of reason. He argues that while Voltaire had hoped to use reason as a tool to overthrow outmoded and harsh customs, his successors instead employed reason as an instrument of social control. The will of the people was unimportant to such acolytes of reason as Napoleon, who argued that uninformed popular opinion must be regimented through the supposed dictates of reason. The result of these misguided efforts at rational planning have been the horrors of modern warfare and the depredations of industrialism. Saul attributes such varied phenomena as the arms race, the "star system," and the rise of bureaucracy to hyperrationalism. Saul, a popular novelist ( The Paradise Eater , LJ 11/1/88), has a vivid style that makes his book enjoyable reading, but a clear sense of what he means by reason never emerges. Is it anything more than a catchphrase for whatever the author dislikes?-- David Gordon, Bowling Green State Univ., Ohio
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"Voltaire's Bastards is a hand grenade disguised as a book. The pages explode with insight, style, and intellectual rigor. John Ralston Saul challenges virtually all of our received wisdom and makes a compelling case that we must begin to rethink our traditional institutions and notions as we move into a new era. The panorama of ideas and information he surveys will leave you challenged, intrigued, and at times troubled." (Jim Hoagland The Washington Post)
“Saul's work is peopled with villains from four centuries. He compares Cardinal Richelieu to Robert McNamara and the Society of Jesus to the Harvard Business School with considerable appositeness. His character portraits, such as that of James A. Baker, are inspired… The section on the international arms trade alone makes the book worth its weight.” (Boston Globe)
"This book is so welcome, and so necessary. This is, at the very least, an aid to self-examination, and frankly, anyone who chips away at the corporate wall needs a helping hand." (The Guardian)
“Saul has decided to take the axe to the root and to challenge the assumption that our method is one of rational choice.” (Christopher Hitchens Newsday)
“Voltaire’s Bastards may be one of those rare books that changes the way society sees itself…brilliant.” (McLean’s)
"A passionate jeremiad on the follies of our age." (Publishers Weekly)
"An ambitious meditation on modern culture...a rich, rewarding, highly original book that casts a fresh perspective on all aspects of our public life." (Camille Paglia )
"John Ralston Saul takes his readers on a passionate and personal tour of the follies of our age. The banner of Reason, he claims, can as easily lead to disaster as to victory. Scientists are only one of the groups that can readily identify with this argument." (John Polanyi, Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 1986 )
“An important book [that] ought to generate the kind of serious intellectual debate that we’ve been missing in the past five years.” (Russell Banks )
"A wise, civilized, and deeply democratic book... beautifully-argued...a work of variety and scholarship and, of course, some very fine writing." (Jane Kramer, author of The Europeans )
Most helpful customer reviews
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful.
Check More Detailed Reviews on Past Edition!
By Robert David STEELE Vivas
Amazon is failing to carry forward reviews from past editions, no doubt to open up space for new younger reviewers. Their view on this matter is flawed. The best, most detailed reviews, generally including links to other related books, are usually posted to the original edition. If you do not find the reviews here sufficient to your needs, look at the reviews offered for the same book in earlier editions, and you will find a wealth of informed detailed opinion otherwise not visible to those who do not know they have the option of accessing historical reviews of far greater value than the shallow reviews that tend to be the norm today.
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
Insightful post mortem on post modern America.
By Sydney Carton
Must step in and remedy this one bad review. I've read everything by Saul and continue to be disappointed that he's not better known and more widely read. His books, including this one, are right on, and do a wonderful job of giving the reader a thrilling and fascinating analysis of what has gone wrong in the dictatorship of reason. I wish he wrote more. His Unconscious Civilization is one of the best post mortems on modern America I've read...he reminds me a bit of Neil Postman and Morris Berman...but more intellectually challenging.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent explanation of how we ended up here
By DocDerp
Written in clear language, as the author is a advocate of not using jargon. It sums up 400 years of terrible ideology that has led us to the present political mess we struggle in. It's never been so relevant, with every Western political capital now turned into a modern French court by the kleptocrats who run all our countries into the ground. After you read this you will instantly recognize the modern heroic leader and their courtesans, the present day experts who still live in boxes of secrecy, why our elites keep repeating the same ideology regardless of it failing, and interesting observations on how television is basically ritual.
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