The Unconscious Civilization

This is one of the books I picked up at Bookfest this January. It's been on my list of books to read for a few years now, so when I saw it on the table I grabbed it. I also grabbed "On Equilibrium" which is now on my to-be-read list. I'll get around to that book one of these days...

I find these types of books to be pretty challenging books to read. It's a book of political philosophy dealing with the history of democracy in Western countries.

John Ralston Saul, the author, seems to be saying that democracy is in trouble. He is saying that Western countries in particualar have allowed themselves to be changed from true democracies into corporatist states - run for and by the big corporations. His main idea, if I've understood this correctly, is that we've done this more or less unconsciously without actually thinking or caring about the consequences.

The evidence seems to be pretty clear. A lot of political effort over the last couple of decades (this book was released in 1996) has gone into economic reform, and the main beneficiaries of that reform seem to be the big corporations and businesses. Governments, elected and otherwise, have handed over a lot of their economic power to these businesses in the name of efficiency and free trade and globalisation.

He also argues that our education systems have been corporatised, too, with the effect that education now is mostly technical. It's aimed at turning out people with good technical skills that are useful to business rather than turning out people with a general education - the focus is on the immediate task in hand rather than the broader goals of equiping people with the skills to be able to think through the consequences of their actions.

Maybe he's being a bit alarmist, maybe I've just misunderstood him. After all, my education is puerly technical - and IT degree with basically no units from the Arts or Humanities faculties. I'm one of the people who haven't been equipped with the intellectual tools to fully assess the state of our society. In general though, I'd agree with a lot of what he said in this book.

As I said, it's the kind of book that I find hard to read and understand in one go.I will have to re-read this, maybe after I've read "On Equilibrium" so that I can get a better handle on his style of argument.

4 stars (provisional on re-reading)