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

john ralston saul

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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.

656 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1992

This edition

Format
656 pages, Paperback
Published
November 30, 1993 by Vintage
ISBN
9780679748199
ASIN
0679748199
Language
English

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john ralston saul

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Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 98 votes)
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98 reviews All reviews
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That_Cat_Dude
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I rarely stop reading books halfway through, but I just couldn't finish this one. Although a good critique -- which almost reads as a satire --, on how bloated bureaucracies and state technocrats are running the show, Saul spent too much time in the abstract.
And although I understand and agree with a lot, 600 pages of such a diatribe is just too much. It feels repetitive at time and I often felt like he was beating the same dead horse again and again. I reckon that he could have distilled the exposé down to 200 pages and the message would have been just as efficient, if not more.
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eggrollSource
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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A dense and nuanced attack on rationalism as the cause of modern malaise. The book is imperfect, to be sure. It is obtuse to a fault, with the polemicist’s penchant for massaging everything into the service of the narrative, a tendency that is if anything exacerbated by the erudition of the author. Much, especially recent military history, is warped or casually read in order to support his point, and his judgment of important historical personages like Haig and Grant is boiled down to a few facile, uncharitable judgments. Or in Jefferson’s case, to an equally obtuse sunny judgment.

But the book is more ambitious than this, and despite three decades of intervening history its central points have held up pretty well. Its predictive powers are imperfect; the tech boom saw the emergence of some true entrepreneurs (people who do and who risk rather than simply peddling figures), inflation was “tamed” and the solution - low interest rates - proved as susceptible to bubbles as the inflationary period, and much of the former Eastern Bloc has seen considerable and real growth.

But the notion of the technocrat as the sine qua non of contemporary Western society is dead on, and the notion of the fundamental emptiness of the rationalist project in contemporary form, with the eclipse of religion, the demise of purpose, and the multi-pronged attack on communal ties (via atomization) and communal obligations (through a bastardized form of hyperindividualism) has proven not only durable but remarkably prescient. 2008, deaths of despair, identity politics, and the role of the “military-industrial complex” in prolonging and shaping GWOT conflicts, all would slide easily into a postscript without necessitating an amendment of his central tenets.
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denji83
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Some excellent passages, but a lot of other stuff to be endured in order to get to them.
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Engrishlol16
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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One of the early modern books to question the possible throat hold that reason has on our culture...arguably reason has an insufficient grip but that is the tension and the argument that this book provokes. Though nearly 20 years old this is a must read starting point for any investigation of the argument that may reign for the next twenty years as well.
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willBeTheKing
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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One of those books that smack you in the face and you dont know what hit you. Brilliant, dense and important to make some sense of today's absurd self destructive western "progress". Im a big fan of Saul.
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OtakuNamedMarc
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Another one I'm so glad I got to in my early 20's, when I had time & focus & the memory impairment was still relatively minimal.

It's like if War and Peace met Chomsky, but like, by a Canadian... one reviewer called it "a hand grenade disguised as a book." Definitely a sanity-anchor in a despairing "what the actual fuck is wrong with this shit" world, then for sure and now more than ever.
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manok
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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John Ralston Saul argues that society has been barking up the wrong tree for ages. Forever really. Nice insights into Loyola and the Jesuits, Rob McNamara and other people in history. Gives you a sense that we are doing really well at going nowhere but doesn't offer anything to correct it. Our process orientated, bureaucratic, "reason" underpinned society constantly talks double speak and fails to take many worthwhile actions. Read it before taking an ITIL course and try to keep your mouth shut through training. I dare you.
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