Enlightenment Now

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'Bristles with pure, crystalline intelligence, deep knowledge and human sympathy' Richard Dawkins

Is modernity really failing? Or have we failed to appreciate progress and the ideals that make it possible?

If you follow the headlines, the world in the 21st century appears to besinking into chaos, hatred, and irrationality. Yet Steven Pinker showsthat this is an illusion - a symptom of historical amnesia andstatistical fallacies. If you follow the trendlines rather than theheadlines, you discover that our lives have become longer, healthier,safer, happier, more peaceful, more stimulating and more prosperous -not just in the West, but worldwide. Such progress is no accident: it'sthe gift of a coherent and inspiring value system that many of usembrace without even realizing it. These are the values of theEnlightenment: of reason, science, humanism and progress.

The challenges we face today are formidable, including inequality, climatechange, Artificial Intelligence and nuclear weapons. But the way to dealwith them is not to sink into despair or try to lurch back to amythical idyllic past; it's to treat them as problems we can solve, aswe have solved other problems in the past. In making the case for anEnlightenment newly recharged for the 21st century, Pinker shows how wecan use our faculties of reason and sympathy to solve the problems thatinevitably come with being products of evolution in an indifferentuniverse. We will never have a perfect world, but - defying the chorusof fatalism and reaction - we can continue to make it a better one.