Enlightenment Now

This is an incredibly interesting, well-written, and informative book that lays out the case for the amazing success of liberal democracies based on the Enlightenment values of liberty, universal humanism, and individualism.

I consider this book an essential reading for everyone who has been brainwashed by the current pessimistic and catastrophizing ideologies attacking this most successful of all human civilization.

Pinker is an outstanding writer, and the empirical evidence he marshals for the success and values of the Enlightenment in promoting human flourishing is utterly persuasive.

Reading the daily news might make you think that the world is falling apart, and that it’s futile to even try to move forward. But in this book, Pinker provides a data-based antidote for everyday pessimism, and the perennial tendency to think that the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

He reviews substantial evidence to show that, in contrast to the lives lived by our ancestors in the “good old days,” our lives in the modern world are better in many many ways – we live longer, healthier lives, we are literate, we are less likely to be… show more.

I also wake up every morning, check the news and think that the world is falling apart. Because evolution in our dangerous pre-history often resulted in the survival of those who worried most. That is why we have to check the data and the long-term trends to correct for our exaggerated sense of drama, to understand where we are – in the period of time with the most wealth, best health, most literacy, and least poverty. There are other great books from rational optimists, like Matt Ridley, Hans Rosling, and Charles Kenny, but Steven Pinker’s is the one that covers… show more.

We live in a time of intellectual and social turmoil, with distrust of many of the foundations of modern western life, including science, democracy, rationality, and a commitment to material progress. This book is a reminder of how the Enlightenment, flowing out of the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Reason in the 17th century but reaching its fuller definition in the 18th century, has immeasurably improved our lives. We live longer, are wealthier and less prone to violence, are more satisfied with life, have technologies that add pleasure, and reduce drudgery. The book is remorselessly packed with… show more.