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

But then John Ralston Saul comes face to face with you, removes his glove, and with a gentleman's flourish, whips the leather across your face. Saul is the master of gauntlet-throwing, and after one read of this hefty tome, you will be begging for more.

"The undoubted sign of a society well under control or in decline is that language has ceased to be a means of communication and has become instead a shield for those who master it."

Does this remind you of your country's political process? Or possibly of those ivory-tower publications that you so treasure? How is it that our species has been able to use words to cloak double and triple meanings within the most seemingly innocuous sentences? Is this what we truly want?

"The structures of argument have been co-opted so completely by those who work the system that when an individual reaches for the words and phrases which he senses will express his case, he finds that they are already in active use in the service of power. This now amounts to a virtual dictatorship of vocabulary."

The Inquisition, Machiavellian belief, the Napoleonic Wars, and the Holocaust can be rationally justified, says Saul. The tools of rationality provide the means to any desired end. Men participated in these events of their own free will, and even added their input to make said processes more 'efficient'.

"The Inquisitors were the first to formalize the idea that to every question there is a right answer. The answer is known, but the question must be asked and correctly answered. Relativism, humanism, common sense, and moral beliefs were all irrelevant to this process because they assume doubt. Since the Inquisitors knew the answer, doubt was impossible. Process, however, was essential, for efficient governance and process required that questions be asked in order to produce the correct answer."

Is it worth having the tools of reason if they can be manipulated to cause the deaths of 200 million human beings? We all know the answer, as gut-wrenching as it may be... regardless, we can't disassociate our minds from reason any more than we can live without lungs.

So how do we move forward? How do we evolve with such a legacy behind and such uncertainty ahead? First, says Saul, we must remember:

"Memory is always the enemy of structure. The latter flourishes upon method and is frustrated by content. Our need to deny the amorality of reason ensured that memory would be the first victim of the new structures."

Secondly, we open our eyes. Who is it that truly controls our society and its governance? Saul has correctly identified the "men behind the men", the counselors and courtiers whom our leaders turn to for advice, and the bureaucrats, none of whom are elected or held to accountability by our constitution. These puppeteers, say Saul, are the "technocrats" who co-opt reason for limited ends:

"In the context of the technocratic mind, truth, like history and events, is what suits the interests of the system or the game plan of the man in charge."

Thirdly, we do not allow rationality to freeze our minds and our humanity in the cement of process. We employ skepticism (not cynicism) to constantly keep our eyes fresh. When skepticism reveals doubt, we employ common sense and morality, neither of which can or should be defined by, you guessed it, rationality.

Saul is not an enemy of reason. Quite the opposite, his purpose here is to rescue reason from those who fly its banner upon high while secretly using it to shine their shoes.

And how does Saul go about making his argument without using... argument? His method is brilliant. He has constructed a book that reads like a great speech, an enthralling lecture. Saul is discursive... he introduces literally dozens of seemingly unrelated subjects, draws truth from each, and makes his points without needing to build upon the pages before. Saul doesn't lead you from point A to point Q, as his enemies would; he simply enlightens you on many topics and allows your mind to form the connections... a truly satisfying experience.

This book is a fine wine, with the strong tang of truth. These pages are filled with aphorism and information on the widest variety of topics: national defense, economics, television, the Supreme Court, warfare, Congress, science, and celebrity; all of these cloths are woven with the same fundamental threads. Saul unmasks many clandestine operations, most of which are still being played out today.

Your hunger for knowledge will be greatly satisfied (almost satiated) here. Page one will be distinguished as an important point in your life, and we all know how precious such eye-opening works are.

The first thing you notice is that Saul never defines "reason". Quite an accomplishment given the size of the book. Indeed, at times Saul seems to speak approvingly of reason, for instance when referring to Thomas Jefferson. One is left with the inescapable conclusion that Saul is using "reason" in a non-standard sense. This is all the more ironic for the fact that early in the book Saul claims that the enemies of "good" never speak clearly and always try to obfuscate their point. Saul apparently doesn't think he fits that definition.

Saul continually states claims that a casual reader can't help but think are false. Then he doesn't even attempt to argue or justify his claim. Apparently if you don't believe him apriori, he's not going to be bothered to try to convince you. For instance, his claim that civilizations that cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy are near their end. Apparently he is unaware of the long life of aboriginal societies depite their belief in mythic fantasy.

Saul seems to have a tenuous grasp on both the history of philosophy and contemporary history. His main argument doesn't seem to be with Voltaire, but rather with Hume. Which is entirely unforgiveable as Hume addresses what seems to be Saul's main argument. Yet Saul has no response for Hume. Through out the volume Saul's apparent ignorance of philosophy is profound.

His analysis of history is equally bankrupt. Most egregious is his section on McNamara. First he claims that McNamara is responsible for the proliferation of nuclear arms. Saul fails to mention that by the time McNamara was in office, the Soviet Union, China, Great Britain, France, and Israel all had nuclear weapons. India was only a few years away from similar developments, and the basis of their development was Canadian nuclear technology. But McNamara gets the blame because he tried to minimize the possibility of total nuclear war and because he didn't want the US to be the world's policeman. Another criticism of McNamara is that he "corporatized" the military making it unable to win wars. Saul seems unaware that 1) Vietnam was a military victory but a political defeat, 2) that the bureaucratization of the military began long before McNamara -- during WW2 both Eisenhower and Marshall led the Allied forced to victory despite being managers rather than soldiers, 3) that the army's purpose isn't to get soldiers to die but rather to kill other armies' soldiers. Saul makes the common mistake of civilians in assuming that the military is a purely pragmatic institution with a "singularity of purpose" that involves killing. Even a cursory examination of the roles played by the military today would show how foolish this belief is.

Finally, Saul's biggest failing is that he offers no alternative. Even IF you accept his argument that a "rational" system doesn't produce perfect answers it may very well be the case that it produces better outcomes than any other system. Much like Churchill's contention that "democracy is a horrible form of government, but it is better than any other we have tried."

I couldn't help but feel that this book only preaches to the choir. If you already agree with Saul then save yourself the time and don't bother reading this. If you don't agree with Saul then don't bother reading this because he's not especially interested in convincing people who aren't already in agreement.