Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

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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 be sinking into chaos, hatred, and irrationality. Yet Steven Pinker shows that this is an illusion — a symptom of historical amnesia and statistical fallacies.

If you follow the trendlines rather than the headlines, you discover:

• Our lives have become longer, healthier, safer, happier, more peaceful, more stimulating, and more prosperous — not just in the West, but worldwide.

This progress is no accident. It is the gift of a coherent and inspiring value system that many of us embrace without even realizing it. These are the values of the Enlightenment: reason, science, humanism, and progress.

The challenges we face today are formidable:

• Inequality
• Climate change
• Artificial Intelligence
• Nuclear weapons

But the way to deal with them is not to sink into despair or try to lurch back to a mythical idyllic past. Instead, we must treat them as problems we can solve, just as we have solved other problems in the past.

In making the case for an Enlightenment newly recharged for the 21st century, Pinker shows how we can:

• Use our faculties of reason and sympathy
• Address the challenges that come with being products of evolution in an indifferent universe

We will never have a perfect world, but — defying the chorus of fatalism and reaction — we can continue to make it a better one.