Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and ProgressThe follow-up to Pinker's groundbreaking The Better Angels of Our Nature presents the big picture of human progress: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation. With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - mbmackay - LibraryThingI love reading Pinker - he is incredibly insightful and thought provoking. This book is something of a continuation of Better Angels, with the content broadened from violence to quality of life. As he ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - aadyer - LibraryThingA thoughtful well constructed Defense of Enlightenment values in the modern era with multiple examples on why the future might be rosier than you might think. Varying from cognitive biases to public ... Read full review
Other editions - View all
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress Steven Pinker Limited preview - 2018 |
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress Steven Pinker Limited preview - 2019 |
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress Steven Pinker Limited preview - 2018 |