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1-Page Summary of Enlightenment Now
Overview
In Steven Pinker’s book Enlightenment Now (2018), he talks about the ideas that have helped shaped the modern world, and how those ideas are changing people’s lives for the better.
Ideas that came out of the Enlightenment are still relevant today. These ideas include reason, science, humanism and progress. Reason is a key part of these ideas because it helps people understand their world better and recognize similarities between all people. Science also plays an important role in helping people understand themselves better through observation and experimentation. The idea of humanism was developed to help people realize that everyone is equal so they shouldn’t be treated differently based on race or gender, for example. Finally, the idea of progress has helped society become more advanced over time by improving systems such as markets and governments to make them work better for everyone involved.
Despite the fact that modern society has made great strides, there are still people who dismiss scientific facts and theories. On the Right, Donald Trump’s administration has dismissed climate change as a hoax. On the Left, some intellectuals argue that civilization is in decline because of Enlightenment ideas. They claim that these principles are false or based on violence. However, this isn’t true; if we hold fast to these principles of intellectual thought and progress, then our future will be better than our past.
Following the Enlightenment, several scientific principles established in the nineteenth century reinforced the humanistic worldview. Entropy is one of them, which means that everything tends to be disorderly and not governed by divine forces. Evolution is another principle, which states that life can emerge from disorder without any help from a god or other higher power. The final principle was information theory, or understanding that there are certain types of information (DNA) that can direct how life evolves over time. These three principles demonstrate why ideas have so much potential to change people’s lives and their world overall.
Despite the many challenges facing humanity in this century, there are a lot of positive things happening. For example, people are living longer and healthier lives due to technological advancements that have been made. These advances will help us solve other problems as well. As long as we continue to apply Enlightenment principles, progress is likely to happen on most fronts.
Key Point 1: The news media and many of the world’s public intellectuals have perpetuated a false narrative that everything is getting worse.
It’s easy to see why people think the world is falling apart. News outlets are filled with stories about war, disease, famine and crime. This happens because many news organizations have a short-term focus and sensationalize events.
Recently, some journalistic entrepreneurs have attempted to reinvigorate long-form journalism. One such project is The Correspondent, a Dutch news site that’s attempting to do just that. It’s financed through crowdfunding and membership subscriptions rather than advertising, which means it won’t be driven by the same commercial pressures as other news sites are. In addition, its list of principles promises not to provide reactionary coverage of current events but instead focus on providing context for global trends over time.
Negative news tends to skew public perception, leading people to believe that the world is getting worse. However, viewing things from a broader perspective shows that the world is actually improving in many ways.
