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

In this book, John Ralston Saul argues that the modern West has become a vast, incomprehensible, directionless machine run by process-minded experts he terms 'Voltaire's bastards.

' These technocrats, who co-opt reason for limited ends, have created a society where effectiveness and efficiency are confused with truth and goodness.

Saul critiques the political, economic, and cultural establishments of the West, highlighting the hypocrisies of democracy and the pervasive influence of rational elites in various fields, from politics and economics to art and science.

He contends that this cult of scientific management has led to a civilization devoid of moral force and individual responsibility, and advocates for a return to humanism and citizen-based democracy.