Enlightenment Now

the most of your capacity for pleasure and satisfaction, which allowed your ancestors to thrive and thereby allowed you to exist. You can appreciate the beauty and richness of the natural and cultural world. As the heir to billions of years of life perpetuating itself, you can perpetuate life in turn. You have been endowed with a sense of sympathy the ability to like, love, respect, help, and show kindness and you can enjoy the gift of mutual benevolence with friends, family, and colleagues.
 
And because reason tells you that none of this is particular to you, you have the responsibility to provide to others what you expect for yourself. You can foster the welfare of other sentient beings by enhancing life, health, knowledge, freedom, abundance, safety, beauty, and peace. History shows that when we sympathize with others and apply our ingenuity to improving the human condition, we can make progress in doing so, and you can help to continue that progress.
 
Explaining the meaning of life is not in the usual job description of a professor of cognitive science, and I would not have had the gall to take up her question if the answer depended on my arcane technical knowledge or my dubious personal wisdom. But I knew I was channeling a body of beliefs and values that had taken shape more than two centuries before me and that are now more relevant than ever: the ideals of the Enlightenment.
 
The Enlightenment principle that we can apply reason and sympathy to enhance human flourishing may seem obvious, trite, old-fashioned. I wrote this book because I have come to realize that it is not. More than ever, the ideals of reason, science, humanism, and progress need a wholehearted defense. We take its gifts for granted: newborns who will live more than eight decades, markets overflowing with food, clean water that appears with a flick of a fing

magisterial new book Enlightenment Now is the most uplifting work of science I ve ever read. Science Magazine
 
A passionate and persuasive defense of reason and science [and] an urgently needed reminder that progress is, to no small extent, a result of values that have served us - and can serve us - extraordinarily well. The Philadelphia Inquirer

A meticulous defense of science and objective analysis, [and] a rebuttal to the tribalism, knee-jerk partisanship and disinformation that taints our politics. San Francisco Chronicle
 
Brimming with surprising data and entertaining anecdotes. Financial Times
  
[Pinker] makes a powerful case that the main line of history has been, since the Enlightenment, one of improvement. Scientific American

Let s stop once in a while to enjoy the view I m glad Pinker is pushing for this in a world that does it too rarely It s hard not to be convinced. Quartz
 
Enlightenment Now is formidable. Financial Times
 
As a demonstration of the value of reason, knowledge, and curiosity, Enlightenment Now can hardly be bettered. The Boston Globe
 
With a wealth of knowledge, graphs and statistics, a strong grasp of history, and an engaging style of writing Enlightenment Now provides a convincing case for gratitude. Pittsburgh Post Gazette

A forceful defense of the democratic, humanist institutions that [Pinker] says brought about these changes, and a declaration that reason, science and humanism can solve the problems to come. Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A masterly defense of the values of modernity against progressophobes . Times Higher Education
 
Enlightenment Now strikes a powerful blow against the contemporary mystifications being peddled by tribalists on both the left and the right. Reason 

Pinker presents graphs and data which deserve to be reckoned with by fair-minded people. His conclusion is provocative, as anything by Pinker is likely to be. Colorado Springs Gazette

Elegantly [argues] that in various ways humanity has every reason to be optimistic over life in the twenty-first century . A defense of progress that will provoke deep thinking and thoughtful discourse among his many fans. Booklist

Pinker defends progressive ideals against contemporary critics, pundits, cantankerous philosophers, and populist politicians to demonstrate how far humanity has come since the Enlightenment 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] impeccably written text full of interesting tidbits from neuroscience and other disciplines The author examines the many ways in which Enlightenment ideals have given us lives that our forebears would envy even if gloominess and pessimism are the order of the day. Kirkus Review


Praise for The Better Angels of Our Nature:

If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this the most inspiring book I've ever read." Bill Gates (May, 2017)