A review by microglyphics
Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason by Justin E.H. Smith

3.0

This was more of a 2 1/2 star read, but I rounded up. At first, I was expecting a work criticising the fetishising of the concept of rationality. The author skirts around this a few times, but mostly he defends it except at the margins. Once I got past the expectation that the book was going to take on post-Enlightenment rationality, I felt there was some decent material. I was then disappointed by the politically polemic ranting about Donald Trump, an editorial conclusion that will ensure this title becomes stale quickly. It's not that I disagree with the sentiment. I just feel that Trump will become a minor footnote in the annals of US history, so why memorialise him here. Perhaps an afterword dedicated to Trump-bashing would have been a better approach.

In the closing chapters, I feel he substantially misrepresented the position of Judith Butler regarding performative gender roles, attributing to her as having defended a position of some performative nature of sexual dimorphism. I am only marginally familiar with Butler's work, but from what I understand, this is not a position she has taken.