{"product_id":"voltaires-bastards-the-dictatorship-of-reason-in-the-west","title":"Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn a wide-ranging  provocative anatomy of modern society and its origins  novelist and historian John Ralston Saul explores the reason for our deepening sense of crisis and confusion. Throughout the Western world we talk endlessly of individual freedom  yet Saul shows that there has never before been such pressure for conformity. Our business leaders describe themselves as capitalists  yet most are corporate employees and financial speculators. We are obsessed with competition  yet the single largest item of international trade is a subsidized market in armaments. 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 breaking down. While most observers view these problems separately  Saul demonstrates that they are largely manifestations of our blind faith in the value of reason. Over the last 400 years  our \"rational elites\" have gradually instituted reforms in every phase of social life. But Saul shows that they have also been responsible for most of the difficulties and violence of the same period. This paradox arises from a simple truth which our elites deny: far from being a moral force  reason is no more than an administrative method. Their denial has helped to turn the modern West into a vast  incomprehensible  directionless machine  run by process-minded experts - \"Voltaires bastards\" - whose cult of scientific management is bereft 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 peoples increasingly dwell in a world of illusion. Already known to millions of readers as the author of novels which portray the overwhelming effects of this power on the modern individual by weaving together international finance  the oil and arms business  guerrilla warfare  drug traffic  and the world of art  here Saul lays aside the mask of fiction to speak in his own voice. Only by withdrawing from our addiction to \"solutions \" he argues  reclaiming the citizens right to question and participate in public life  and recovering a common sense capacity for intelligent panic  can we find a way out of our permanent crisis.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44850658443317,"sku":"ByrdShop_0029277256","price":50.89,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780029277256.jpg?v=1770450376","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/voltaires-bastards-the-dictatorship-of-reason-in-the-west","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}