Where Has Our Reason Gone? The Shocking Crisis of Rationality in the Age of Information!

Crisis of Rationality and Symbolic Inflation: 

Interpreting the Decline of Reason in the Contemporary Public Sphere

 

ABSTRACT

 

The expansion of higher education, the increasing number of academic degree holders, advances in information technology, and broader public access to knowledge should, in principle, strengthen public rationality. However, these developments do not necessarily coincide with improved societal capacity to think critically, evaluate evidence, distinguish facts from opinions, and make decisions based on long-term considerations. This article examines this phenomenon as a crisis of rationality or a decline of reason in the contemporary public sphere. The analysis draws on Immanuel Kant’s concept of Sapere aude, which emphasizes the courage to use one’s own reason, and René Descartes’ rationalism concerning the importance of thinking as a foundation of knowledge. The study employs a descriptive-qualitative approach through a conceptual and literature review of rationality, credentialism, the public sphere, anomie, and evidence-based policy. The discussion addresses five major manifestations: academic credential inflation, the dominance of symbols over substance, pragmatism in political life, the weak integration of scientific evidence into public policy, and structural resistance to expertise. The article also examines brain drain as one potential consequence of an ecosystem that provides insufficient support for academic freedom, meritocracy, and evidence-based research. The analysis indicates that the crisis of reason should not be understood merely as a problem of individual intelligence, but rather as an institutional, cultural, and ethical problem. Restoring rationality requires strengthening epistemic literacy, academic integrity, evidence-based policymaking, scientific freedom, government transparency, and citizens’ willingness to test claims against evidence rather than relying solely on authority, popularity, or symbolic status.

 

Keywords: Sapere aude, rationality, critical reasoning, credential inflation, public sphere, evidence-based policy, brain drain.

 

1. INTRODUCTION

 

“Sapere aude! Dare to use your own reason.” — Immanuel Kant.

The question of where human reason is heading has become increasingly relevant in an era characterized, paradoxically, by unprecedented access to knowledge. Contemporary individuals can access scientific journals, books, statistical data, university lectures, policy reports, and a wide range of other sources of knowledge through digital devices. The number of higher education institutions has also expanded, as has the number of people obtaining academic degrees. Yet, an abundance of information and academic credentials does not automatically produce a more rational society.

 

This issue has, in fact, long been a concern of modern philosophy. In his essay An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?, Kant argued that enlightenment involves humanity’s emergence from self-imposed intellectual immaturity. Accordingly, Sapere aude is not merely an invitation to become knowledgeable; it is a call to have the courage to use one’s own capacity for reason responsibly (Kant, 1784).

 

Education, therefore, in its substantive sense, should not end with the acquisition of a degree. It should cultivate the ability to question assumptions, examine evidence, understand causal relationships, recognize errors in reasoning, and make decisions responsibly. In this context, an increase in the number of educated people may occur simultaneously with a decline in the quality of public reasoning if educational systems place greater emphasis on credentials than on the development of epistemic capacity.

 

The phenomenon becomes increasingly complex as the public sphere is transformed into an arena of competition for attention. Social media enables emotional, controversial, or sensational claims to spread much faster than scientific explanations that require context and caution. Information that is popular is not necessarily true, while information that is true is not necessarily popular. Consequently, popularity may replace validity as a measure of social acceptance.

 

This is where the question, “Where has my reason gone?”, becomes particularly relevant. The question does not imply that society has lost its intelligence. Rather, it points to a more fundamental issue: whether human beings actually use their capacity for thought to evaluate reality critically.

 

In politics, for example, the public may encounter debates concerning the track records, educational backgrounds, integrity, policies, and legitimacy of various public actors. Such debates often unfold not through systematic examination of evidence, but through group loyalty, political identity, video clips, memes, and repeated claims. Under such conditions, facts may become subordinate to narratives.

 

In academia, the issue takes a different form. Doctoral degrees, professorships, publications, citation indices, and other academic indicators serve important functions. However, these indicators may lose their substantive meaning when treated as ends in themselves rather than as instruments for producing valid and useful knowledge. Collins (1979) demonstrated that educational credentials also serve social functions as mechanisms of stratification. Society therefore needs to distinguish academic credentials from epistemic competence.

 

This article aims to analyze this phenomenon from the perspectives of philosophy, sociology, and public policy. Its primary objective is not to claim that one society is more or less rational than another, but rather to identify mechanisms through which critical reasoning may lose its central position in social decision-making.

 

2. METHODOLOGY

 

This article employs a descriptive-qualitative approach based on a conceptual and literature review. This approach was selected because the subject concerns social and epistemic phenomena that require interpretation of philosophical ideas, social theories, and concepts of governance and public policy.

 

2.1. Data Sources

 

The primary sources consist of conceptual works relevant to rationality, education, social stratification, the public sphere, and anomie, including:

1. Immanuel Kant’s works on enlightenment and intellectual autonomy;
2. René Descartes’ works on methodological doubt and the foundations of knowledge;
3. Randall Collins’ theory of credentialism;
4. Émile Durkheim’s theory of anomie;
5. Jürgen Habermas’ concept of the public sphere;
6. literature on evidence-based policymaking; and
7. literature on the mobility of highly educated workers and brain drain.

 

2.2. Analytical Technique

 

The analysis was conducted in three stages. First, the study identified key concepts concerning rationality and the use of reason. Second, these concepts were mapped onto contemporary phenomena in academia, the public sphere, politics, and governance. Third, a critical interpretation was conducted to identify relationships among symbolic culture, institutional incentives, and the quality of decision-making.

 

The analytical framework can be formulated as follows:

Information → Evidence Evaluation → Reasoning → Consideration of Alternatives → Decision → Impact Evaluation

Conversely, a crisis of reasoning may develop through the following pathway:

Information → Emotion/Identity → Repetition → Popularity → Decision

This distinction is important because the two processes may produce different decisions even when individuals have access to the same information.

 

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

 

3.1. Sapere Aude and the Challenge of Intellectual Courage

 

Kant regarded the courage to think independently as one of the central elements of enlightenment. Sapere aude does not mean rejecting authority or assuming that every personal opinion is correct. Rather, the principle requires individuals to exercise their rational capacities independently while remaining intellectually responsible (Kant, 1784).

 

In the contemporary context, the challenge has become even greater because human beings are confronted with an overwhelming flow of information. Whereas limited knowledge was once the principal obstacle, the problem has now shifted toward information abundance and the difficulty of distinguishing valid information from invalid information.

 

An individual may encounter thousands of pieces of information each day without possessing the ability to determine which are data, interpretations, propaganda, opinions, speculation, or disinformation. Thus, literacy in the twenty-first century cannot be limited to the ability to read and write. It must develop into epistemic literacy—the ability to understand how knowledge claims are constructed, verified, challenged, and revised.

 

Here, Sapere aude acquires a renewed meaning. The courage to use one’s own reason means having the courage to say:

“I do not know yet.”

Then:

“What is the evidence?”

And finally:

“Is the evidence sufficient to support this conclusion?”

These three simple questions constitute an important foundation of a rational society.

 

3.2. From Cogito to a Culture of Critical Thinking

 

Through his Discourse on the Method, René Descartes placed methodological doubt among the important instruments in the search for certainty in knowledge (Descartes, 1637). The concept of cogito is often summarized in the expression cogito, ergo sum—“I think, therefore I am.”

 

In a modern context, this principle can be interpreted not merely as a metaphysical statement concerning human existence, but also as a reminder that human beings possess a reflective capacity to examine their own beliefs.

 

The problem arises when individuals stop questioning their beliefs simply because those beliefs originate from a group with which they identify. Under such circumstances, rationality may become an instrument of justification.

 

People no longer ask:

“Is this claim true?”

Instead, they ask:

“Does this claim benefit my group?”

This shift in questioning represents an important indicator of a transition from the pursuit of truth toward the rationalization of interests.

Critical reasoning, therefore, is not merely the ability to identify other people’s mistakes. A higher form of critical reasoning is the ability to identify the possibility that one’s own thinking may be mistaken.

 

3.3. Credential Inflation and the Reduction of the Meaning of Education

 

One of the paradoxes of modern society is the growing importance of formal education alongside the increasing possibility that education may be reduced to a symbol of status.

 

Through the concept of the credential society, Collins (1979) explained how educational credentials can function as mechanisms of social selection and the distribution of opportunities. Degrees do not merely represent education; they may also serve as signals of status, competence, and social position.

 

Under normal circumstances, academic degrees serve an important function. A doctoral degree, for example, indicates that an individual has completed education and research at a particular level. However, a degree is not an absolute guarantee that every opinion expressed by its holder is correct.

 

It is therefore necessary to distinguish:

credential ≠ truth

position ≠ universal competence

popularity ≠ scientific validity

publication ≠ absolute truth

 

Academic quality is ultimately determined by a more complex process: the research question, methodology, data quality, analysis, openness to criticism, reproducibility, and scientific integrity.

When a degree becomes an end in itself, the intellectual process may lose its substance.

 

Ideally, the scientific process moves through:

Reading → Questioning → Testing → Experiencing Failure → Improving → Discovering → Producing Knowledge

By contrast, symbolic inflation may generate the following pattern:

Credential → Status → Authority → Repetition → Immunity to Criticism

This distinction is critically important for the health of the scientific ecosystem.

 

3.4. When Symbols Overcome Substance

 

The crisis of rationality can also be understood as symbolic inflation, a condition in which symbols acquire greater social value than the substance they are supposed to represent.

 

An academic degree should represent competence. A uniform should represent the responsibility associated with an office. Statistics should represent the reality being measured. Public policy should represent an effort to address public problems.

However, when symbols become ends in themselves, society may experience what can conceptually be described as the substitution of substance by representation.

 

In such an environment, individuals may become more concerned with maintaining an image of success than with evaluating whether the underlying objectives have actually been achieved.

This phenomenon does not occur only in academia. In government, for example, the number of programs launched may be used as an indicator of political achievement, while the more important question is whether those programs actually solve public problems.

 

Accordingly, measures of success need to shift from:

“How many programs have been created?”

to:

“How much of the public problem has actually been resolved?”

 

3.5. The Public Sphere: From Rational Discourse to the Attention Economy

 

Jürgen Habermas viewed the public sphere as an important arena for opinion formation through discourse that enables citizens to deliberate rationally on matters of common concern (Habermas, 1989).

 

However, the digital public sphere has different characteristics. Digital platform algorithms tend to allocate greater visibility to content that generates high levels of engagement. In such an environment, provocative or emotional content may gain greater visibility than complex and nuanced explanations.

 

As a result, society may experience what can conceptually be described as epistemic fragmentation. People inhabit different information environments, meaning that the same facts may be interpreted through radically different narratives.

 

The problem is not simply the existence of fake news. The more fundamental problem is the erosion of shared mechanisms for determining what should count as evidence.

When society no longer possesses a minimal consensus regarding methods of verification, public debate may become a competition among competing claims.

Under such conditions, people may no longer debate in order to seek truth, but rather to defend identity.

 

3.6. Political Pragmatism and Civic Rationality

 

In a democratic system, citizens have the right to determine their political choices based on their values, interests, experiences, and own judgments. However, the quality of democracy is also related to the quality of information available to citizens.

 

When political choices are shaped primarily by group loyalty, unverified information, or short-term exchanges of interests, the space for public deliberation becomes narrower.

This does not mean that every form of social assistance or government program constitutes transactional politics. Social assistance may have legitimate social and economic functions. The concern arises when public programs are no longer assessed according to their design, effectiveness, transparency, and impact, but primarily according to their short-term political benefits.

 

A healthy democracy requires citizens who are able to distinguish:

public policy from political image-building;

evidence of achievement from claims of achievement; and

political rights from patronage dependency.

 

3.7. Public Policy and the Importance of Evidence-Based Policy

 

A crisis of reasoning has highly concrete consequences when it enters the governmental decision-making process.

Public policy should ideally be developed through a relationship among problems, evidence, policy alternatives, cost-benefit or impact analysis, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. Head (2016) emphasizes the importance of evidence in public policymaking while also demonstrating that the relationship between science and policy is not always straightforward.

 

Scientific knowledge does not automatically become policy. Governments must also consider public values, budgetary constraints, societal interests, political factors, and implementation capacity.

However, such complexity should not become a justification for disregarding evidence.

A serious problem occurs when decisions are made first and scientific justification is sought afterward.

 

The ideal pathway is:

Problem → Evidence → Analysis → Alternatives → Consultation → Decision → Implementation → Evaluation

A problematic pathway is:

Decision → Implementation → Justification → Awaiting Consequences → Searching for Someone to Blame

The distinction demonstrates that rationality is not merely a matter of individual intelligence, but also a matter of institutional architecture.

 

3.8. Policy Failure as a Failure of Learning

 

A single policy failure does not necessarily indicate a crisis of reasoning. In complex systems, failure may occur even when policymakers have used the best available evidence.

The problem becomes more serious when institutions fail to learn from such failures.

 

A rational organization is not characterized by the absence of mistakes, but by its ability to:

1. detect mistakes;
2. acknowledge mistakes;
3. identify their causes;
4. improve the design;
5. reevaluate the outcomes; and
6. prevent the recurrence of similar mistakes.

Institutional learning capacity is therefore an important indicator of the health of reasoning within government.

 

3.9. Brain Drain and an Ecosystem Unfriendly to Expertise

 

The mobility of scientists and professionals is a complex global phenomenon. The movement of scientists to other countries does not necessarily represent failure on the part of their countries of origin. International mobility can also generate knowledge exchange, research networks, investment, and brain circulation.

However, brain drain may become a problem when a country systematically loses talent without being able to obtain commensurate knowledge benefits.

 

A scientist’s decision to work abroad is influenced by numerous factors, including the quality of research infrastructure, funding, career opportunities, institutional stability, academic environment, remuneration, academic freedom, and the quality of the research ecosystem.

 

Therefore, the response to the diaspora should not stop at the question:

“Why did they leave?”

A more productive question is:

“What conditions would make such talent willing to come, remain, collaborate, or return?”

A country seeking to develop a knowledge-based economy must create an ecosystem that values competence and integrity, rather than merely the possession of academic degrees.

 

3.10. Anomie and the Normalization of Deviance

 

Durkheim used the concept of anomie to describe conditions in which social norms weaken or lose their binding force (Durkheim, 1893).

The concept can help explain situations in which society formally recognizes that an action is wrong but gradually becomes accustomed to witnessing such behavior.

 

In the context of corruption, for example, the problem is not merely the act of obtaining illegal benefits. A broader problem emerges when society begins to lose its moral sensitivity toward misconduct.

Corruption may then be perceived as:

• a risk associated with public office;
• part of the game of power;
• something that is “already normal”; or
• an individual mistake that can be forgiven because of group loyalty.

 

At that point, the problem shifts from a mere violation of law to a crisis of norms.

Nevertheless, the use of religious or cultural symbols in the public sphere must also be analyzed carefully. Religious symbols in themselves cannot be regarded as evidence of justification for corruption. The problem arises when such symbols are used to divert attention from substantive accountability.

The principle that needs to be maintained is: respect for a person is not the same as justification of that person’s actions.

 

3.11. The Crisis of Reason Is Not a Crisis of IQ

 

One common misconception in discussions of the decline of reason is to assume that it demonstrates that human beings are becoming increasingly unintelligent.

Such a conclusion is overly simplistic.

An individual may possess high cognitive ability yet still make irrational decisions when interests, identities, group pressures, or social incentives influence the reasoning process.

 

The issue examined in this article is therefore more accurately described as a crisis in the use of reason rather than a crisis of intelligence.

Human beings may possess substantial intellectual capacity but use that capacity to rationalize conclusions that have already been predetermined.

 

This phenomenon demonstrates the importance of distinguishing:

intelligence — the ability to process information,

from

rationality — the ability to use information appropriately in forming beliefs and making decisions that can be justified and held accountable.

The two are related, but they are not identical.

 

3.12. From “Smart People” to a “Reasoning Society”

 

A society does not merely need many intelligent people. It needs systems that enable such intelligence to generate public benefit.

Scientists need the freedom to communicate research findings. Bureaucrats need reliable data. Politicians need independent policy information. Journalists need access to credible sources. Citizens need the ability to assess all of this information.

 

The quality of reasoning is therefore the product of interaction between individuals and institutions.

When institutions provide incentives for scientific honesty, data transparency, criticism, and evaluation, reason is given room to flourish.

Conversely, when institutions reward compliance, popularity, loyalty, and image-building alone, critical thinking may become personally disadvantageous.

This is where the crisis of reason becomes a structural issue.

 

3.13. A Model for Restoring Reason

Based on the preceding discussion, the restoration of rationality can be formulated around six pillars.

 

1. Epistemic Literacy

Society needs to be taught not merely what should be known, but how to determine whether something is true.

 

2. Academic Integrity

Academic degrees and positions should once again be closely associated with competence, research, integrity, and scholarly contribution.

 

3. Academic Freedom

Scientists should be able to communicate research findings without undue political pressure or inappropriate economic interests.

 

4. Evidence-Based Policymaking

Public decisions should be informed by data, evaluation, risk analysis, and mechanisms for institutional learning.

 

5. Transparency and Accountability

Public institutions should enable citizens to understand how decisions are made and how their outcomes are evaluated.

 

6. Intellectual Courage

Society needs to develop a culture that does not punish individuals merely for asking critical questions.

 

Through these six pillars, Sapere aude can be translated from a philosophical motto into a practical principle of public life.

 

4. CONCLUSION

 

The question, “Where has my reason gone?”, ultimately concerns not the disappearance of human intelligence, but the loss of the courage and opportunity to use that intelligence responsibly.

 

Contemporary society lives in a paradox. Knowledge is increasingly abundant, education is more widespread, technology is more advanced, and information is easier to obtain. Yet, such abundance does not automatically produce public rationality. When credentials replace competence, symbols replace substance, popularity replaces evidence, and loyalty replaces argumentation, what this article describes as a crisis of rationality and symbolic inflation emerges.

 

This crisis cannot be reduced to low individual intelligence. It is related to structures of incentives, organizational culture, the quality of education, the character of the public sphere, policy design, and institutional integrity.

 

Restoring reason therefore requires more than increasing the number of schools, universities, doctoral graduates, professors, or research institutions. More important is ensuring that these institutions genuinely develop people’s capacity to question, doubt, test, revise, and take responsibility for decisions.

 

Kant reminded humanity to have the courage to use its own reason. Descartes emphasized the importance of thinking and methodological doubt. Durkheim warned of the dangers associated with weakening social norms, while Habermas demonstrated the importance of the public sphere as an arena for opinion formation through communication and discourse.

 

These four intellectual traditions converge on an important conclusion: a healthy society is not one that never makes mistakes, but one that is capable of recognizing its mistakes, testing them against evidence, and learning from them.

 

Therefore, the question “Where has my reason gone?” should not end as a complaint. It should become the beginning of reflection:

Do I examine the evidence before believing something?

Do I have the courage to question information coming from my own group?

Can I distinguish facts from opinions?

Do I evaluate policies based on their impacts rather than merely their intentions?

And am I willing to change my opinion when evidence shows that I am wrong?

If the answer is yes, then reason has not disappeared.

It simply needs to be called back.

Perhaps this is the deepest meaning of Sapere aude in our time: dare to think, dare to examine, dare to question, and—most difficult of all—dare to admit when we are wrong.

 

5. REFERENCES

 

Collins, R. (1979). The credential society: An historical sociology of education and stratification. Academic Press.

Descartes, R. (1637). Discourse on the method of rightly conducting one’s reason and of seeking truth in the sciences.

 

Durkheim, É. (1893). The division of labor in society. Free Press.

 

Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. MIT Press.

 

Head, B. W. (2016). Toward more “evidence-informed” policy making? Public Administration Review, 76(3), 472–484.

 

Kant, I. (1784). An answer to the question: What is enlightenment?

 

Merton, R. K. (1968). Social theory and social structure. Free Press.

 

Nutley, S. M., Walter, I., & Davies, H. T. O. (2007). Using evidence: How research can inform public services. Policy Press.

 

Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology. University of California Press.

 

World Bank. (2017). World development report 2017: Governance and the law. World Bank.

 

#CriticalThinking

#Rationality

#SapereAude

#PublicSphere

#EvidenceBasedPolicy