Aged care and disability services bureaucratic elites seem increasingly to work in ways that are divorced from morality and common sense and removed from the everyday reality experienced by older people and their families.

The modern Age of Reason was characterised by three pivotal events and the influential figures behind them. The Inquisition of the 12th Century, the writings of Niccolo Machiavelli in “The Prince,” and the establishment of the Jesuits by Ignatius of Loyola in the 16th Century. All three drew on Aristotle’s logic (Voltaire’s Bastards. The Triumph of Reason in the West. John Ralston Saul.). This method focused on constructing arguments to confirm already accepted but unproven truths rather than seeking to determine the truth through the argument itself.

In the 18th Century, Voltaire, recognising the insufficiency of this approach, further developed the Aristotelian approach by highlighting the obvious lack of morality, common sense, and connection to observed reality in his logic. Voltaire’s view was that it merely served as a tool for justifying the existing political and bureaucratic power distribution within the society of his day. However, despite the power and logic of his insights our contemporary Western power elites appear to have regressed to this earlier, morally and common-sensically vacant form of reasoning. Aged care and disability services are good examples, where........

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