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Voltaire's bastards: The dictatorship of reason in the West

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It takes tremendous courage to open a book with such a subtitle. It is human nature to construct an ideology based on our favorite thoughts, and then live cozily inside as master of the realm. For then we can use that ideology as shield and weapon.

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.

This book opened a window for me finally explaining what was wrong with all the large disfunctional companies and organizations that I have seen over the years. I would equate this book with Adam Smith's in that it will probably be the forerunner to a new branch of study. The only warning that I would give is that this book took ten years to write and contains so much information to digest per page that it is not a quick read. You have to put it down every time your brain is full and for me this was quite frequently. If you work or deal with large organizations and are perpetually confused as to why they do the things they do then this book is exactly what you need. My only question about this book is directed at Mr. Saul himself and that is "Why are you living the life you seem to eviscerate in your book?"

It is hard to fit all of my complaints into a 1,000 words.

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.

Voltaire's Bastards is an impressive book, both by size and content. And reading through the 650 odd pages does give you the impression that this book has taken a major slice out of Saul's life. I can easily relate to that.

It has the qualities of a daily journal (which I appreciate in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's work) and yet remains very coherent, down to the little details. This combination immediately got me thinking and stimulated me greatly.

There are some people, however, that have argued that it's reasoning is flawed - which is their right - and have therefore rejected the book. It's my belief that they missed the point. What John Saul has attempted to do with this book is to get some sort of debate going over where we are heading as a civilization. He is trying to get us out in the streets asking serious questions. And he is defying the accepted principle that the system works or at least can be reformed, by implying that it should simply be rebuilt from the ground up. This idea, obviously, does not and cannot please everybody.

Now Voltaire's Bastards isn't without a few flaws, which is to be expected (specially if you take an exclusively rational approach), but nothing - at least for me - that is so bad that I had to drop the book. It's biggest problem - to the best of my knowledge - is that there is a lot of information being dispensed, sometimes very densely and usually shot in all directions. This can be too much for people who expect something very concise or something that concentrates on a very narrow path.

So in conclusion, Voltaire's Bastard is a fantastic book, but it's not for everybody. Now if you happen not to agree with Saul, don't stop reading and don't judge. Let the book simmer slowly. It's not a cure-all instant solution. It's a long hard look at what our priorities have been in the last few hundred years.

A book full of nothing but presumption and nonsense. Mr Saul has a very firm grasp on the way the world doesn't work. His "facts" are shady and his ideas based on notions a pragmatic individual would dismiss as nothing more than intellectual musings, but of course it's pragmatic individuals that the criticisms in this book are directed towards, or is it? He's really not all that clear. Mr. Saul has decided to run with his possibly drug induced delusions and create a 500+ page book! It strains on every page to be profound, but seems only to insist that the very existence of this volume contradicts the message within.
The Twilight Saga is a more compelling read! Seriously

John Ralston Saul's "Voltaire's Bastards" proposes to tell one about the dictatorship of reason in the west starting with the Jesuits, The Enlightenment and on-ward to the Harvard Business School and Robert McNamara. Nevertheless, Saul never really quite defines what reason is. From reading the book, I assume his definition consists of reason as cold, utilitarian logic. Unfortunately, I believe this is a myopic view of "reason" as well as the accomplishment of reason in the west.

Saul also doesn't really follow his thesis. The book is a jumbled mess of reflections: sometimes relating back to the thesis of the dictatorship of "reason" and other times going off on seemingly left-wing tagents. He attacks all the usual culprits including corporations, Henry Kissinger, Nixon, etc., etc while trying to pull his targets into his underlying thesis.

Overall, "Voltaire's Bastards" desperately needs an editor in order to sequence the book in order to make it readable. Saul also needs to define "reason" from the start. For a better critique of the enlightenment, go read Foucalt or the post-structuralists.

There is much in this book, depending on one's particular interests, that can be skimmed or skipped. With patience, however, the book in its entirety is a rewarding experience for it calls into question much about how we organize ourselves politically, economically, and socially.

The bottom line, and very consistently with other great books such as "The Manufacture of Evil" on the low end and "Consilience" on the high end, is that Western thinking has been corrupted to the point that the West has become, as the inside flap says, "a vast, incomprehensible directionless machine, run by process-minded experts....whose cult of scientific management is bereft of both sense and morality."

As my own interests run toward public intelligence and public effectiveness in guiding the polity, I found his several chapters related to secrecy, immorality, and the "hijacking of capitalism" to be especially worthwhile.

He concludes that secrecy is pathological, undermining both public confidence and the public dialog. Intelligence in his view is about disseminated knowledge, not secrets.

Throughout the book the author discusses the contest between those who feel that the people cannot be trusted--the elites who strive to remain in power by making power appear an arcane skill with rites and formulas beyond the ken of the people--and those who feels that the people--and especially the larger consciousness of the people--are more in touch with nature and reality and the needs of the people than these elites.

This is a difficult book to absorb and enjoy, but I recommend because it sets the broad outlines for the real power struggle in the 21st Century--not between terrorism and capitalism, but rather between the government-corporate elites with their own agenda, and the larger body of people now possibly ready to turn every organization into an employee-owned and managed activity.

If you can put this down after reading the first 37 pages, then you have no idea of what is going on in the world events. The scariest book I've ever read.

"Voltaire's Bastards" is a withering critique of the ideology of rational management that has come to pervade and choke virtually every corner of our lives. Saul assails his enemy on many fronts, but in the end his charges boil down to two: a.) Rational Management doesn't work because reality is more complicated than reason can model and b.) Rational Management encourages corruption because it is blind to moral standards. In those central contentions lie both the strengths and weaknesses of this brilliant book. The first is undoubtedly true, but it does not necessarily follow that management is irreformable. Systems thinking has been the rage in business management for half a decade now, for more or less the same reasons Saul is assailing management. Whether that will provide a more effective tool remains to be seen, but but it is certainly a possibility. More to the point is his impoverished notion of reason. The idea that reason cannot tell us about right and wrong is a modern prejudice built on the rejection of metaphysics after Newton's science became the paradigm of knowledge in the West. This reduced reason to calculation. In previous eras a broader conception of reason, that enabled discourse about goodness and similar allegedly subjective matters, was a staple of intellectual life; Saul, however, seems totally unaware of this fact. Because of this, he is implicitly buying into the idea that what we call "reason" really is rational, which is to support the self-justifying propaganda of the present managerial elites. Thus, by closing off ethical questions to rational discussion, Saul leaves himself no logical basis for his critique.

In spite of these flaws, this book is a potent attack on the perversions of present power structures and a clear diagnosis of what is wrong with them. It is highly recommended.

Saul provides a new vantage point for looking at the world around us. Even if you completely disagree, thinking about why you disagree, formulating some kind of response will also give you a new way of looking at the world. Some may find parts of this deeply disturbing. One could take the discussions of the technocrat and realize that Saul is describing ... me. One of the best books ever.

There are some misrepresentations of the thesis.., so let me give you my understanding ( it's in the title, and one must READ THE BOOK to fully grasp the point). Saul is NOT ANTI-REASON!!!. To suggest that he is anti - reason is a gross oversimplification....

...Saul trauled history looking for isolated, unrespresentative, suitably supportive examples. Uhhh, let's see ... WW1, WW2, Voltaire, Socrates, Plato, Michaelangelo/Davinci/Raphael, the nature of advertising, the rise of the star system, the rise of the heroic political figure. I could go on ( and on, and on, and on - yes, it's a long read). The selection of historical commentary is wide and deep....

...Saul spends a lot of pages talking about the bureaucratization of the military as one of the reasons that __NAPOLEON__ won so many campaigns. Yes, Napoleon's enemies were bureaucratized. Saul gives this same reason for Pascal Paoli's victories, __40 YEARS BEFORE NAPOLEON__....