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

Voltaire's Bastards by John Ralston Saul is pretty much based on demonstrating how reason, when place above all other virtues, can lead to terrible things.

The book's main argument is that the virtues temper each other out, and that any one of them pushed to the extreme is destructive. He then proceeds to demonstrate how reason has led to aberrations in many aspects of society, and does so in a very convincing way. It's a long read (took me a year, on and off), but it's worth it.

There was a pretty good book from years back that I read recently that kinda breaks down the arcing history of how we got to the point where the military has to be maintained because it's become such a part of the economy. Subsidies, factories, employment, contractural employment, research and dev, all kinds of stuff tied to it. This is a chapter or two in the whole book, but goddamn was my mind blown.

Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West by John Ralston Saul

Book

E-book

It more or less takes the history of reason and logic and shows how it's gotten misused.

well thats for another time, but the absolute expert on it is John Ralston Saul - Voltaires Bastards https://www.amazon.com/Voltaires-Bastards-Dictatorship-Reason-West/dp/0679748199

Reason is part of the solution, but not the whole solution. Excellent book on the topic - Voltaire's Bastards

I agree with you on the second point you make 100%; and it is a huge failing of the video. But the rise of the middle class after the renaissance and age of reason is more complicated than black death --> church looses its grip. The BD was huge but there was more too it. Nevertheless religion as the 'key' institute did cede to modern systems of governance which if you look at the last 500 years puts the average westerner in a pretty good spot health / wealth / education wise. The fist quarter of Voltaire's Bastards makes a pretty decent account of it (not a bad book IMhumbleO).