Enlightenment Now: The Case For Reason, Science, Humanism, And Progress

"There is much to argue about, but that's what makes this book interesting."

"First book for his official Book Club — a data-driven defense of reason and humanism."

"Yes, I end with a contemporary book. The author (who happens to be someone whose thinking I so admire that I married him) argues that the project of reason, both the moral reason of the philosophers and the empirical reason of the scientists, remains the best hope of humankind. Yes, of course, Plato was right that individually our capacity for putting reason before the urgency of our own desires and delusions is paltry. But what the values stemming from the European Enlightenment managed to create were institutions—of acquiring and refining knowledge and of regulating civil society, locally, nationally, and globally—that are designed to counteract the forces of irrationality, which, manifest now, just as they always have done, as data-resistant magical thinking, close-minded ideology (whether religious or secular), authoritarianism, tribalism and the demonization of the other. Reason may not be as self-sufficiently robust as some had hoped, but it doesn’t have to be. What Enlightenment Now demonstrates is how far it has brought us, often kicking and screaming, into our greater collective well-being—and therefore how much we stand to lose in taking reason’s progress for granted. This interview was updated in October 2017."

"The world is getting better. Really. This is the premise for Steven Pinker’s sweeping book Enlightenment Now, which argues that we’re making real progress on most every front. We’re living longer, healthier lives. We’re better-educated and have higher living standards than any previous generation. Extreme poverty and deadly diseases are in sharp decline around the globe. Pinker says the facts are clear – but our politics, the media, academia and human nature lead us to dwell on the problems that remain, rather than celebrate the advances we’ve achieved. Agree or disagree, it’s a fascinating read."