Enlightenment Now

By Steven Pinker

576 pages

Published in 2018 by Penguin Books

After I published a review of Rationality by Steven Pinker, AG, a colleague, sent me a note saying that he was happy I had discovered Pinker and recommending that I read Enlightenment Now.

I did. And Enlightenment Now is a great book. The best non-fiction book I’ve read since Yuval Harari’s Sapiens. It’s definitely a desert-island book, a book you could read over and over again.

The thesis is very simple. Contrary to what most people believe (and especially college-educated people), the world is not getting worse. From a longer-term perspective at least, in most measures of well-being, things are getting better. For example:

* People are living longer.

* People are wealthier.

* Extreme poverty numbers are plunging.

* Literacy has increased.

* Rates of death are in decline.

What I Liked About It 

* This book will educate you. Especially if you believe you are already well educated.

* It won’t just educate you; it may very well change your worldview. Very few books can do this.

* I like the way the book concludes – emphasizing what Pinker says are the essential enlightenment values: reason, science, and humanism.

* He persuasively argues that religious fundamentalism and political correctness are equally dangerous anti-reason ideologies.

If, like me, you have a huge stack of books several feet high that you’re waiting to get around to reading, put Enlightenment Now on top.

Critical Reception 

I’ve rarely read so many five-star reviews of a book. And that’s especially astonishing considering the fact that this book is intellectually subversive in today’s world of the woke. Indeed, there were detractors. Kirkus Reviews said what I expected, noting that “though Pinker is progressive, the academically orthodox will find him an apostate.” And British philosopher John Grey criticized Pinker’s advocacy of “scientism” and argued that he misunderstands Nietzsche.” But most of the reviewers gave the book nothing but praise. Here are some examples…

* “In an era of increasingly ‘dystopian rhetoric,’ Pinker’s sober, lucid, and meticulously researched vision of human progress is heartening and important.” (Publishers Weekly)

* “An excellent book, lucidly written, timely, rich in data and eloquent in its championing of a rational humanism that is – it turns out – really quite cool.” (New York Times Book Review)

* “Pinker is a paragon of exactly the kind of intellectual honesty and courage we need to restore conversation and community.” (David Brooks, The New York Times)

* “[Enlightenment Now] is magnificent, uplifting and makes you want to rush to your laptop and close your Twitter account.” (The Economist)

Steven Pinker is a professor of psychology at Harvard University. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, he has been named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World Today and one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Global Thinkers. His popular and highly praised books include The Stuff of Thought, The Blank Slate, Words and Rules, How the Mind Works,and The Language Instinct. The recipient of several major awards for his teaching, books, and scientific research, He also writes frequently for The New York Times, Time, The New Republic, and other magazines.

If you’re not in the mood to read this 576-page book but have an hour to spare for watching a video presentation, any of these three will give you a good sense of what it is about:

* For an interview with Pinker at The Commonwealth Club, click here.

* For a talk he gave at Google, click here.

* For a presentation at the Cato Institute, click here.