Nervous States: Democracy and the Decline of Reason

The failures of scientific rationalism have produced a surge of emotional, anti-intellectual, nationalist, and populist ideologies, according to this wide-ranging, sometimes tenuously argued treatise. Davies, a University of London political economist, goes back to 17th-century philosophers Thomas Hobbes and René Descartes to trace the rise of a Western epistemology of governance that champions scientific expertise and objective evidence as a basis for forming political consensus. That rational, deliberative model falters, he contends, under the pressures of modern war (which feeds on nationalist passions and fast, decisive action despite imperfect knowledge) and free-market doctrines that celebrate bold entrepreneurs who eschew expertise in favor of gut-instinct risk-taking. Worse, he argues, persistent economic inequality and rationalist policies’ lack of emotional appeal have made voters distrustful of technocratic elites and their statistics, and hungry for emotional engagement with demagogues like Donald Trump. He concludes that advocates of peace will have to work with, rather than try to eradicate, the feelings that are an inevitable part of politics. Intricately but not tightly argued, Davies’s book shoehorns everything from the opioid epidemic to transhumanism into his analysis, which will appeal most to those concerned about technology, put off by claims of objectivity, and interested in insights about the role of emotion in politics. (Feb.)