This is the most life-changing book I have ever read. The author traces reason as an ideology since Voltaire and shows how it is used to create a class of systems managers and technocrats who speak in their own deformed logic that enables kleptocrats to bankrupt our countries ("free market" or "invisible hand") and justification of perpetual war. After reading this book, you will be increasingly wary of academics, technocrats, and economists are able to confidently provide simple answers for the problems we face. A must-read.

I will never forget this book--it was among the books I was reading 9/11/2001 and I recall it being extremely prescient at the time. I will warn that it's a bit on the dry side. It really takes an earth-shattering event to make it make sense.

Very lengthy. The prose could have used some pruning—still, I did enjoy it, felt consistently engaged, and read on to the end. I even looked through the notes after completion. So it’s very good and very worth reading. I am satisfied.

There are some standout chapters. 'The Faithful Witness' was to me the most interesting and enlightening chapter. It should really be read by anyone who is educated (in the university sense & especially in languages or literature) and wants to write. The malaise of modern literature is explained, and the bastards who done it are gently reprimanded. 'The Highjacking of Capitism' is also very much worth reading, and rightly identifies that capitalism’s greatest and most vocal supporters were (and continue to be) actually managers and employees. The idea that free markets create free people is undermined by every person living in poverty whose entire participation in the economy is to survive, earn a (minimum) wage, and then to spend it. It’s an analysis that’s still pretty damn true, and now that the highjacking is complete, still relevant.

If you’re going to take this out at the library, and you’re strapped for time, just read those two chapters and as much of the introduction as you can. They’re worth it.

While reading this I was often and strongly reminded of Adam Curtis’s documentaries. From Hypernormisation to All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, I could not kick the crisp English accent that my mind was using to read. This book would have been contemporary with Pandora’s Box, an Adam Curtis documentary about the exact same topic. Finally, I was also reminded a little of Nobrow, a book created by a member of the elite which actually managed to chill my soul. Voltaire’s Bastards did not cheer me up, but like a large bowl of porridge on a cold day, it filled my stomach and warmed me.

This book identifies and traces the serious problems of our era. Essentially Saul's argument is that the dry, inflexible and scholastic logic evolved into reason, which led to real advances for society until it was turned into ideology that reproduced itself and became just as restrictive and controlling as what it had replaced. I guess the idea is that all good and promising movements grow more like tumors once the elite learn to control them. The thesis of this work is not its greatest strength (the wide overview of Western history it informs is), but it’s quite interesting and worth exploring.

Perfect for anyone who wants ideas about how society has evolved to this truly worrying age. Ideal for the person who thinks Marcuse is too much of a Marxist, and for whom C. Wright Mills is too old and irrelevant. Since this book is largely based on history and philosophy it doesn’t say too many things that are particularly new. The author’s interpretations are sometimes novel, sometimes unsurprising, and sometimes unclear or presumptuous, but generally used to great effect.

In the nearly 30 years since this book’s publication, things have certainly not evolved for the better. The world, regardless of which overheated ideology you use to interpret it, is absolutely bonkers, has been absolutely bonkers for centuries, and will continue to be absolutely bonkers for the foreseeable future. We need some kind of diagnosis, and that is why Voltaire’s Bastards is important.

Rather than cure pessimism by lying or reassuring the reader, John Ralston Saul identifies problems and offers the dim hope that we can proceed by solving them or at least highlighting them. We can reclaim language and use it to explain exactly how, under layers of obscuritanism and condescension, the promise of a more equitable and better future was stolen from modern democracies. The dictatorship can be broken up, detached from its instruments of control, and replaced.

Replaced by what, exactly, remains a little unclear, because the book concludes by saying that we should question: “Unify the individual through questions.” But the rational society only allows answers and confidence, not questions and uncertainty… there is no humanism to it, and therefore it won’t swallow the cure. So now what? Don’t ask me.

Nearer to the end of the book I was struck by a heretical thought. Isn’t John Ralston Saul, married to yesteryear’s Canadian Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, and educated at King’s College, with all sorts of privileges, kind of an elite himself? No doubt this helps his perspective and lends credence to his arguments. Anyways, with anti-elitism now grown into a dishonest farce (beneficial, ironically, to actual elites), my observation probably doesn't even matter. Irrelevant. I'll leave it in—and leave it up to you.

One of the ones I reread every few years. It's very hard to argue against his bigger conclusions since they are regularly vindicated the world over. It's a great rant and I'm not concerned with the nitpicking and often wayward negative reviews I have seen from time to time.

For an interesting aside on the issues of the Age of Reason see "'Are We "Voltaire's Bastards?"' John Ralston Saul and Post-Modern Representations of the Enlightenment"

Hey kids, how do you feel about technocrats?

It's a loaded question. All sorts of stuff in society is organized around repeatable processes hitched to narrowly empowered niche experts. We only ever notice them when something goes wrong, and then we briefly decide we despise technocrats.

Voltaire's Bastards is about those moments of villainy. The problem isn't so much the narrow rationalism of technocracy as it is letting it go unmoored from good values and common sense.

For instance, take the word "efficiency". I've treated efficiency as an unimpeachable necessity for much of my working life, ever since having the importance of efficient code drilled into me in freshman-year Computer Programming. But efficiency is just a method, not a virtue.

Lots of things have gone wrong because of structures built around a singular goal like efficiency - a mere "management technique" as Saul calls it - and designed to fortify their structural integrity solely on the basis of inching towards improved efficiency, regardless of what actual goal that efficiency supports. That's a narrow, and often net-corrosive, definition of "progress".

Sound abstract? It is, and Saul's writing style often veers towards abstraction. But if you've got at least a modicum of experience in your career, or in higher education, or with complicated large organizations, I guarantee you've come across this crossroads - and been baffled by it.

Voltaire's Bastards is one of (no doubt) many books in the genre of "cranky yet diversely educated academic proposes single unifying theory for What's Wrong With Society Today". According to its subtitle, Western civilization is dwindling under the thumb of a dictatorship of reason.

This seems like a weird complaint, right? When we tell someone to "be reasonable!" we're implying two things: that there is an objectively correct solution to their problem, and that it is within their grasp. Does he really mean to take that away from us?

On an individual basis, perhaps not. But when modern society is built around institutions that pledge objectively correct answers to broad, complex problems, and when jobs depend upon the administration and improvement of those institutions, we always need to be examining carefully lest we fall into the traps of (1) false reassurances, (2) solutions unmoored from our societal values, (3) false reassurances that are also unmoored from our values.

Saul's whirlwind tour (as the "cranky smart explainer" genre must always include) serves up examples of blind, misapplied management techniques in the fields of warfare, arms development, celebrity, authorship, painting, and big business. Some chapters excited me more than others - more on that later - but everything was cogently argued and consistent with his thesis.

Voltaire's Bastards reminded me, at times, of the "paperclip producer" metaphor for rogue AI. Blind ourselves to the question of "does Solution XYZ make holistic sense?" and we wind up producing, well, a lot of useless crap. Which often ends up polluting the ocean.

What I mentioned earlier about "efficiency" also harkened back to the way I'd noticed Joseph Stiglitz writing about the loaded term "innovation" in his great book The Roaring Nineties and elsewhere around 2008. Who doesn't love innovation? We've been told time and again that innovation is what unlocks growth and prosperity, and prevents complacency. I count myself as a big believer in it, in fact.

But innovation, unmoored from a meaningful "so what?" and "in pursuit of what?", isn't a savior. It's not a saint that you pray to. It's just a method. Stiglitz's writings around that time offered painfully sharp examples: credit default swaps were an innovation. No-doc mortgage loans were an innovation. The application of the Gaussian copula to murky financial products was an innovation. Did they serve us well? Or did they, er, almost blow up the entire economy in 2008? Whoops.

"Not a savior" and "not a saint" are phrases I've chosen deliberately here. For, you might be wondering: sounds great, but what does Voltaire have to do with any of this?

Voltaire marked the sea change beyond which state power was no longer married to religion. We generally pat ourselves on the back for that divorce. Saul is here to say "don't get cocky, kid". Elevation of secular talismans, theories, or values - in the case of this book, narrow management methods and their administrators - can accidentally mimic the supposedly-dead state-religion marriage with astonishing accuracy if they aren't kept in check.

In short, our modern age still hasn't learned to give up worship.

Saul's observations are limited by the fact that this book was written in 1992. It would have especially been fascinating to see how his chapter on celebrity idolatry would have kept up with grunge, Seinfeld, Paris Hilton, and Alan Greenspan.

Saul is also quite critical of the way society ingested what was then the first and only Iraq War. In fact, that was my connection to this book: I saw it mentioned in the commentary of Pain Comics artist Tim Kreider as a helpful primer for how and why the second Iraq War was getting so far out of control. (You might not know Kreider by name, but you've almost certainly stumbled across his brilliant "Jesus vs. Jeezus" comic. If not, google it. If so, google it again anyway.)

While this book was about as successful a skeleton key as any in the "cranky unifying theory" genre I've ever read, it's also a slow and thorough read. I'm going to recommend three chapters to the curious, rather than the entire book itself: let it marinate thereafter and don't hesitate to tackle it over time and/or out of order.

Saul has background in, and obvious passion for, the production and international selling of state-ordered weaponry. Don't miss Chapter 6, "The Flowering of Armaments" - to me, this was the first "aha" chapter via which his central thesis jumped off the page.

Chapter 16, "The Hijacking of Capitalism", was what first drew me to this book around the 2008-09 financial meltdown, and until recently was the only thing I'd read from it. It will be a trip to the candy store for anyone who finds the ever-more-salacious "socialism vs. capitalism" debate a pedantic and generally useless dichotomy.

Finally, Chapter 20, "The Stars", is a riveting look at celebrity worship culture. What a missed opportunity that we didn't yet have "social media influencers" in 1992 for Saul to skewer, but the basic principle is all there, and this chapter is one of the strongest in the book.

This noon changed my life. Cliche, I know, but it ought to be required reading for all.

This book contains some good arguments but it was definitely lengthier than it had to be. At times it was hard to follow the author's point because of this. Nonetheless, it was an interesting read that brought up some good points.

Half the book is really good. The parts on economics noam chomsky does better.

Easy to read social criticism with an interesting premise.

Great book! I like the way that this man thinks!

It's difficult to understand the concept of "challenging reason" at first, but once it's understood, one can look anywhere around them and see how Saul's argument can be applied. He ingeniously weaves his narrative through history, culture, military strategy, economics, celebrity, and fine art to illustrate how centuries of thinking inside the box has brought us to where we are today, and how daring to challenge the preconceived norms of our modern rational society is often met with indifference or opposition, usually disguised as disapproval of the unreasonable method.

Most importantly, Voltaire's Bastards poses a challenge to it's reader to wave off conventional thinking and to be critical of the established method, no matter what the field. Critical thinking, diversity in knowledge, and public education are the solutions, he claims, to the modern day problems of standardized reasoning, specialization, and elitism, and practice of these virtues will lead us not to accept them as a core ideology, but to use them as tools to better our understanding and to criticize current existing ideologies and methods.

A book arguing against the use of reason in governance...and it shows. Saul tries to argue against reason, using a definition of reason different from what I know and ambiguous enough that I am not sure I ever understood what he meant by it. From what I could glean, instead of understanding reason as the implementation of logic and evidence, Saul suggests that reason is a systematization of structures for efficiency which will inevitably result in poor results. Honestly, it sounds like he is arguing against Pragmatism, not use of reason. However, I do know that Saul does not use reason since he jumps around subjects and events so much that even he cannot keep track of everything he dislikes or hates, sometimes praising an individual for something a few pages after condemning them for the same ideas or actions.

Now, had Saul proposed an alternative for what he sees as universal flaws in just about everything, I could evaluate his ideas. What occurs is that he tears down everything and doesn't bother to promote any alternative, which is telling of his legitimacy as a philosophical critic. If you are critiquing ideas, you should be critiquing them according to some sort of standard. Saul's standard is apparently "not this". The closest he comes is praising one military leader in 18th century Corsica for creativity and unorthodoxy, but fails to realize that massive implementation of unorthodoxy would throw everything we have out of whack and that we actually do need reasoned systems to live.

The only reason why I give this book a second star is that there were insights few and far between which were interesting, like Saul's criticism of hiding in plain sight the massive dump of funds into military research and development to keep the economy going. It goes unquestioned despite wasting money and resources. However, Saul in true Saulian fashion does not remotely suggest what could replace military spending in helping the economy as a replacement.