Voltaire's Bastards

On last week's Econtalk podcast, Russ Roberts spoke to John Ralston Saul on the occasion of the re-issue of his 1992 book Voltaire's Bastards. In it, and in the interview, Saul argues that rationality has displaced the old humanism, and a society which uses only the norm of rationality is a poor and deformed one. I would have enjoyed the interview without necessarily making a recommendation were it not for the close. Saul raises the example of Nazi architect Adolf Eichmann and Roberts replies with Saul's own point that technology has improved, but humans are still the same. Provocative.