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

Patricia Morley is professor emeritus of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University and the author of Margaret Laurence: The Long
Journey Home and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

In this wise and witty book, John Ralston Saul points to Western
technocrats and ruling elites and says, quite simply, that the emperor
has no clothes.

By “the West,” Saul means North America, Europe, and Australia. By
“reason,” he means the amoral administrative methods that began to
dominate our civilization more than 400 years ago, and that have now
reached mythological importance in becoming the enemy of humanism,
simplicity, and common sense. Schools of business and public affairs
develop “not a talent for solving problems but a method for
recognizing the solutions which will satisfy the system” (and the
electorate). The technocrat is the new priest who understands events
within the logic of the system. “Reason is no more than structure”
and many 20th-century horrors (including the international arms trade)
are “rational” acts.

Among the many intriguing arguments used to illustrate this thesis are
the organization of death, the art of the secret, and exclusion of women
form real participation: “After all, [our society] has been created
over a period of nearly five centuries without them in mind.” Cardinal
Richelieu, chief minister to the King of France from 1624 to 1642, spoke
of the “masculine virtue of making decisions rationally.” The
equating of reason with masculinity continues today. While recognizing
that modern women occupy positions of influence, Saul wonders if they
can hold power without deforming themselves into honorary men, since
Western rational civilization is a “male reality.”

Today’s bureaucrats, Saul argues, would be disowned by Voltaire. The
revolution against kings and priests that his age accomplished needs to
be rethought and refought. Saul’s passionate polemic deserves a very
careful hearing.