![]() ![]() We will never have a perfect world, but - defying the chorus of fatalism and reaction - we can continue to make it a better one. 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 to solve the problems that inevitably come with being products of evolution in an indifferent universe. ![]() But the way to deal with them is not to sink into despair or try to lurch back to a mythical idyllic past it's to treat them as problems we can solve, as we have solved other problems in the past. The challenges we face today are formidable, including inequality, climate change, Artificial Intelligence and nuclear weapons. These are the values of the Enlightenment: of reason, science, humanism and progress. ![]() Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2021, xviii, 221, 27. Jonathan Marks, Let’s Be Reasonable: A Conservative Case for Liberal Education. Such progress is no accident: it's the gift of a coherent and inspiring value system that many of us embrace without even realizing it. The Case for Reason, Old Books, and Liberal Education. ![]() If you follow the trendlines rather than the headlines, 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. Yet Steven Pinker shows that this is an illusion - a symptom of historical amnesia and statistical fallacies. If you follow the headlines, the world in the 21st century appears to be sinking into chaos, hatred, and irrationality. Is modernity really failing? Or have we failed to appreciate progress and the ideals that make it possible? ![]()
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