The Bourgeois Obsession With Reason

Angles says the new order of things rational enough as compared with earlier conditions turned out to be by no means absolutely rational. The state based upon reason completely collapsed. Rousseau's social contract had found its realization in the reign of terror from which the bourgeoisie took refuge. In a word, compared with the splendid promises of the philosophers, the social and political institutions born of the triumph of reason were bitterly disappointing caricatures.