Enlightenment Now

Enlightenment Now Plot Summary

Introduction

In 18th century Europe, something remarkable was happening in the coffeehouses of London, the salons of Paris, and the universities of Edinburgh. A new way of thinking was emerging that would forever change how humans understood themselves and their place in the world. For the first time, people began to systematically question authority, tradition, and superstition, replacing them with reason, evidence, and a belief in human potential. This intellectual revolution, which we now call the Enlightenment, would set humanity on a dramatically different course. This historical journey explores the profound tension between Enlightenment values and the forces that have repeatedly challenged them. We'll examine how reason and science have driven unprecedented progress in health, wealth, and freedom, while also confronting persistent resistance from religious dogma, romantic nationalism, and political tribalism. By understanding this pendulum swing between progress and reaction across centuries, readers will gain valuable perspective on today's cultural and political conflicts. Whether you're interested in the origins of modern democracy, the advancement of science, or the ongoing struggles for human rights, this exploration reveals how the past continues to shape our present challenges and future possibilities.

Chapter 1: The Enlightenment Dawn: Reason Challenges Tradition (1700-1800)

The 18th century marked a profound shift in human thinking that would forever alter the course of history. In the coffeehouses of London, the salons of Paris, and the universities of Edinburgh, a new intellectual movement was brewing. Thinkers like Voltaire, Kant, Hume, and Rousseau began challenging centuries of dogma and tradition with a radical proposition: that human reason, not divine revelation or ancestral authority, should be our guide to understanding the world and organizing society. This intellectual revolution emerged from the Scientific Revolution of the previous century. Newton had demonstrated that the universe operated according to mathematical laws, not divine whims. This success inspired philosophers to apply similar rational inquiry to human affairs. The Enlightenment thinkers developed a set of core values that would prove revolutionary: reason over superstition, science over dogma, universal human rights over tribal loyalties, and progress over tradition. As Kant famously declared, the motto of the Enlightenment was "Dare to understand!" - an exhortation for people to think for themselves rather than blindly follow authority. The political implications were profound. If humans could reason for themselves, why did they need kings ruling by divine right? If all humans shared a common nature, why should some be slaves and others masters? These questions fueled revolutionary thinking. In America, Enlightenment ideals directly shaped the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison crafted a government based not on tradition but on rational design, with checks and balances to prevent the concentration of power. In France, Enlightenment thinking contributed to the French Revolution, though its violent excesses would later cause many to question whether reason alone could guide human affairs. Beyond politics, the Enlightenment transformed how we understand knowledge itself. The Encyclopedia project led by Diderot and d'Alembert sought to compile all human knowledge in a systematic way, making it accessible to anyone who could read. This democratization of knowledge represented a direct challenge to religious and political authorities who had long controlled information. Meanwhile, Adam Smith applied rational analysis to economics, arguing that free markets could harness self-interest for the common good through what he called the "invisible hand." The Enlightenment was not without its critics. Religious authorities condemned its questioning of tradition, while Romantic thinkers later argued that it overemphasized reason at the expense of emotion and intuition. Yet its core values - rational inquiry, scientific progress, individual liberty, and universal human rights - would become the foundation of modern liberal democracies. The Enlightenment's greatest legacy was perhaps its optimistic vision: that through the application of reason and science, humanity could understand the natural world, improve social institutions, and create a better future for all.

Chapter 2: Material Progress: Unprecedented Gains in Wealth and Health

The period from 1800 to the present day has witnessed an extraordinary transformation in human material well-being. For most of human history, life was, as Thomas Hobbes famously described, "nasty, brutish, and short." The vast majority of people lived in grinding poverty, with average life expectancies hovering around 30 years. Disease, famine, and violence were constant companions. Then something remarkable happened. Beginning with the Industrial Revolution in Britain, humanity entered a period of sustained economic growth unlike anything previously seen. From 1800 to 2015, the global economy grew by roughly a hundredfold, while population increased only sevenfold. This meant a dramatic rise in per capita income - not just in the West, but eventually worldwide. The average person today enjoys material comforts that would have been unimaginable to kings of earlier eras. As economist Deirdre McCloskey notes, the "Great Enrichment" saw average incomes rise from about $3 per day in 1800 (in today's dollars) to more than $100 per day in wealthy countries today. This economic transformation was accompanied by equally dramatic improvements in health. The development of germ theory, vaccines, antibiotics, and modern sanitation has conquered diseases that once decimated populations. Smallpox, which killed an estimated 300-500 million people in the 20th century alone, has been completely eradicated. Child mortality has plummeted from around 40% in pre-modern societies to less than 4% globally today. Life expectancy has more than doubled, from a global average of about 30 years in 1800 to over 71 years today. Perhaps most surprisingly, violence has declined dramatically across multiple domains. Homicide rates in Western Europe have fallen roughly thirtyfold since the Middle Ages. Wars between great powers, once a regular feature of international relations, have become increasingly rare and have not occurred since 1953. Colonial empires, which once dominated much of the world, have virtually disappeared. Even in the developing world, civil wars have become less frequent and less deadly since their peak in the early 1990s. These improvements did not happen by accident. They were driven by the application of Enlightenment principles: scientific research leading to technological innovation; market economies creating and distributing wealth; democratic governments becoming more responsive to citizens' needs; international institutions promoting cooperation rather than conflict. The result has been what Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker calls a "humanitarian revolution" - a dramatic expansion in human well-being across multiple dimensions. Critics sometimes dismiss this progress as benefiting only the wealthy few, but the data tell a different story. Extreme poverty (living on less than $1.90 per day) has fallen from 90% of the global population in 1800 to less than 10% today, with most of that decline occurring in recent decades. The greatest gains in life expectancy are now occurring in the developing world. And the spread of democracy and human rights has accelerated in regions once thought immune to such "Western" values.

Chapter 3: The Rights Revolution: From Subjects to Citizens

The evolution of human rights represents one of history's most remarkable transformations. For most of human existence, the idea that all people possessed inherent rights simply by virtue of being human would have seemed absurd. Power determined one's treatment, not abstract principles of justice or dignity. The seeds of human rights thinking emerged in various religious and philosophical traditions, but it was during the Enlightenment that these ideas gained coherence and force. John Locke argued that humans possessed natural rights to life, liberty, and property that preceded government. These ideas directly influenced revolutionary documents like the American Declaration of Independence (1776) and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789). Yet the gap between principle and practice remained enormous. The same American revolutionaries who proclaimed "all men are created equal" maintained slavery, while the French Revolution's commitment to rights devolved into the Reign of Terror. The 19th century saw gradual progress amid contradictions. Slavery, an institution as old as civilization itself, came under sustained moral attack. Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807 and slavery throughout its empire in 1833. The United States followed with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the 13th Amendment in 1865, though only after a bloody civil war. Meanwhile, early feminist movements began challenging women's legal subordination, achieving limited victories in property rights and education access. Workers organized to demand better conditions as industrialization created new forms of exploitation. The true watershed came after World War II. The Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities demonstrated the horrific consequences of unchecked state power. In response, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, proclaiming that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." For the first time, human rights became a central concern of international relations. This period also saw decolonization sweep across Africa and Asia, as imperial powers retreated and new nations formed based on principles of self-determination. The human rights revolution accelerated in the late 20th century. The Civil Rights Movement in America challenged racial segregation and discrimination. Second-wave feminism fought for gender equality in law and practice. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 ended the Cold War and sparked a wave of democratization across Eastern Europe, Latin America, and parts of Africa and Asia. The percentage of countries classified as democracies rose from under 30% in 1970 to over 60% by 2015. These advances have been neither smooth nor universal. Authoritarian regimes still brutalize their citizens. Discrimination persists against racial, religious, and sexual minorities. Economic rights remain unrealized for billions living in poverty. Yet the direction of change is clear. Practices once considered normal - slavery, torture, public executions, colonial subjugation - are now widely condemned. International courts prosecute perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity. And digital technology has made human rights violations harder to hide, as activists document abuses and build global solidarity networks with unprecedented speed.

Chapter 4: Knowledge Explosion: Science and Information Transform Society

The relationship between humans and knowledge has undergone a profound transformation since the Enlightenment. For most of history, knowledge was scarce, expensive, and controlled by elites. Today, we live in an era of information abundance that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors. This transformation began with the scientific revolution and has accelerated dramatically in recent decades with the advent of digital technology. The foundations were laid in the 18th and 19th centuries with the institutionalization of scientific inquiry. Universities transformed from places that preserved ancient wisdom to centers that generated new knowledge through research. Scientific societies established protocols for experimentation, verification, and peer review that remain fundamental to knowledge production today. These institutional innovations created communities of scholars who could build upon each other's work, making knowledge cumulative rather than cyclical. The 20th century witnessed an explosion in scientific understanding across all fields. Physics revealed the fundamental structure of matter and energy, from subatomic particles to the expanding universe. Biology decoded the genetic basis of life and revolutionized medicine. The social sciences developed systematic approaches to understanding human behavior and institutions. This expansion of knowledge translated into technological innovations that transformed daily life: electricity, automobiles, antibiotics, computers, and countless other developments that we now take for granted. The late 20th century brought a second revolution with the development of digital information technology. The internet, personal computers, and mobile devices have democratized access to information in unprecedented ways. Today, anyone with a smartphone has instant access to more information than was contained in the greatest libraries of the ancient world. Wikipedia, online courses, digital archives, and search engines have made knowledge accessible to billions of people regardless of their location or formal credentials. This democratization of knowledge has profound implications for power relationships. Traditional gatekeepers like governments, religious authorities, and media organizations have lost their monopoly on information. Citizens can fact-check official statements, access primary sources, and communicate directly with each other without intermediaries. This has enabled new forms of accountability and transparency, though it has also created challenges like misinformation and information overload. The cognitive environment itself has changed. Humans now outsource memory and calculation to digital devices, freeing mental capacity for other tasks. Collaboration across vast distances has become routine, enabling global research networks and crowdsourced problem-solving. Artificial intelligence and big data analytics allow us to identify patterns in information that would be imperceptible to unaided human cognition. These developments represent a fundamental shift in how humans relate to knowledge, comparable in significance to the invention of writing or printing. Yet this knowledge explosion has created new challenges. The specialization of knowledge means that no individual can comprehend more than a tiny fraction of what is known. This creates dependencies on experts whose work most citizens cannot evaluate directly. Information abundance makes it difficult to distinguish reliable from unreliable sources. And while access to information has expanded dramatically, the skills needed to evaluate and use that information effectively remain unevenly distributed. Addressing these challenges while continuing to expand human knowledge represents one of the central tasks for maintaining Enlightenment progress in the 21st century.

Chapter 5: Ideological Resistance: Counter-Enlightenment Movements

Throughout history, Enlightenment values have faced persistent resistance from various ideological movements. These counter-currents have taken different forms across time and place, but they share common elements: skepticism toward reason as the primary guide to truth, rejection of universal human rights in favor of particular group identities, and preference for tradition over progress. Understanding these movements is crucial for comprehending the pendulum swings of modern history. The first significant counter-Enlightenment reaction emerged in the late 18th century with Romanticism. Thinkers like Johann Gottfried Herder and Edmund Burke challenged the Enlightenment's emphasis on universal reason, arguing that human communities were shaped by particular histories, languages, and cultural traditions that couldn't be reduced to abstract principles. While Romanticism produced magnificent artistic achievements and valuable insights into human psychology, its emphasis on emotion, intuition, and cultural particularity also provided intellectual ammunition for nationalist movements that rejected universal human rights. Religious traditionalism has represented another persistent source of resistance to Enlightenment values. From Pope Pius IX's 1864 "Syllabus of Errors," which condemned liberalism, rationalism, and religious freedom, to contemporary fundamentalist movements across multiple faiths, religious authorities have often viewed scientific rationality and individual autonomy as threats to revealed truth and moral order. These movements typically emphasize divine revelation over human reason, traditional authority over individual rights, and eternal truths over progressive change. The 20th century saw the rise of totalitarian ideologies that explicitly rejected Enlightenment principles. Fascism celebrated will, action, and national glory over rational deliberation and universal rights. Nazism combined pseudo-scientific racism with romantic German nationalism to justify genocide. Soviet communism, though claiming scientific legitimacy, subordinated empirical evidence and individual rights to ideological orthodoxy and party authority. These movements demonstrated how Enlightenment values could be systematically rejected in favor of mythic narratives, charismatic leadership, and collective identity. In the postcolonial era, critiques of Enlightenment values emerged from different perspectives. Some argued that concepts like universal human rights and scientific rationality were Western impositions that failed to respect non-Western cultural traditions. Others pointed out how Enlightenment principles had been selectively applied, with colonizers invoking universal rights while denying them to colonized peoples. These critiques raised important questions about how universal values interact with particular cultural contexts and historical power relationships. Contemporary resistance to Enlightenment values often takes the form of populist movements that reject expertise, cosmopolitanism, and institutional constraints on popular will. These movements typically position themselves as defending ordinary people against corrupt elites, national sovereignty against globalization, and cultural tradition against progressive change. While they respond to genuine grievances about economic inequality and cultural disruption, they often undermine the very Enlightenment institutions that have enabled human progress: science, universities, independent courts, free press, and international cooperation. Understanding these counter-Enlightenment movements is not about dismissing them entirely. They often identify real limitations in purely rationalistic approaches to human affairs and raise important questions about community, meaning, and identity that Enlightenment thinking sometimes neglects. The challenge is to incorporate these insights while preserving the core Enlightenment commitments to reason, rights, and progress that have driven human advancement.

Chapter 6: Global Tensions: Western Values Meet Cultural Diversity

The global spread of Enlightenment values has created complex tensions between universal principles and particular cultural traditions. As ideas like human rights, democracy, scientific rationality, and market economics have extended beyond their Western origins, they have encountered diverse societies with their own historical experiences and value systems. This encounter has produced both creative adaptations and significant resistance, raising profound questions about universalism versus cultural particularity. The colonial era represented the first major phase of this global encounter, with European powers imposing their political, economic, and cultural systems on societies across Asia, Africa, and the Americas. While colonizers often invoked Enlightenment principles like progress and civilization, they applied these selectively, denying colonized peoples the very rights and freedoms they claimed to champion. This hypocrisy created enduring suspicion of Western values in many postcolonial societies, where Enlightenment ideas could appear as tools of domination rather than liberation. Japan's Meiji Restoration (1868) offered an early example of a non-Western society selectively adopting Enlightenment innovations while preserving its cultural identity. Japanese leaders systematically studied Western science, technology, education, and governance, adapting these to fit Japanese conditions while maintaining distinctive cultural traditions. This "wakon yōsai" (Japanese spirit, Western techniques) approach demonstrated the possibility of embracing certain Enlightenment values without wholesale Westernization. The Cold War period saw competing versions of modernity offered to developing nations. The United States promoted liberal democracy and market economics, while the Soviet Union offered state socialism and revolutionary nationalism. Many postcolonial leaders sought a "third way" through movements like non-alignment or African socialism, attempting to combine modern development with cultural authenticity and political independence. These diverse paths reflected the challenge of adapting Enlightenment-derived institutions to different historical and cultural contexts. East Asian economic development in the late 20th century further complicated the relationship between Enlightenment values and cultural traditions. Countries like South Korea, Taiwan, and later China achieved remarkable economic growth through market mechanisms while maintaining distinctive political and cultural systems. Their success challenged Western assumptions about the necessary connection between economic liberalization and political democratization, suggesting multiple paths to modernity rather than a single Western model. Contemporary debates about human rights illustrate the ongoing tension between universalism and cultural particularity. While international human rights instruments proclaim universal principles, their implementation inevitably interacts with diverse cultural contexts. Some leaders invoke "Asian values" or "African traditions" to justify restrictions on individual rights, while others argue that basic human dignity transcends cultural differences. These debates reflect genuine philosophical questions about the relationship between universal principles and particular historical experiences. Digital globalization has intensified both cultural exchange and the backlash against it. The internet enables unprecedented cross-cultural communication and exposure to diverse perspectives. Simultaneously, it facilitates the formation of identity-based communities that resist cultural homogenization. This paradoxical dynamic - of increasing global interconnection alongside resurgent particularism - characterizes our current historical moment. Navigating these tensions requires moving beyond simplistic oppositions between universal values and cultural diversity. The most promising approaches recognize that universal principles must be implemented through particular cultural forms, that legitimate differences exist in how societies balance individual rights against communal obligations, and that cross-cultural dialogue should involve genuine mutual learning rather than one-way imposition. The challenge is to identify which Enlightenment values truly represent universal human aspirations while respecting the diverse ways these might be expressed across cultures.

Chapter 7: Future Challenges: Sustaining Progress in a Complex World

As we look toward the future, humanity faces unprecedented challenges that will test our commitment to Enlightenment values and our capacity for reasoned problem-solving. Climate change represents perhaps the most formidable of these challenges, requiring coordinated global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to already inevitable changes. This environmental crisis tests our scientific institutions, our political systems, and our ability to balance short-term interests against long-term welfare. It also raises profound questions about the relationship between human progress and natural systems. Technological disruption presents another set of challenges. Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and other emerging technologies offer tremendous potential benefits but also novel risks. AI could enhance human capabilities or potentially displace human workers on a massive scale. Biotechnology could cure diseases or create new biological threats. These technologies are developing at an accelerating pace, often outstripping our ethical frameworks and governance systems. Managing them wisely requires strengthening scientific literacy, ethical reasoning, and international cooperation. Demographic transitions are reshaping societies worldwide. Many developed countries face aging populations and declining birth rates, creating challenges for economic growth and social welfare systems. Meanwhile, parts of Africa and the Middle East continue to experience rapid population growth, creating pressure on resources and employment. Migration flows resulting from these demographic imbalances, along with political instability and climate impacts, have become major political flashpoints, testing our commitment to human rights and international cooperation. Economic inequality within countries has increased in recent decades, even as global inequality has decreased. This trend threatens social cohesion and democratic stability, as citizens who feel left behind by economic change become susceptible to populist appeals that often reject Enlightenment values of reason, rights, and cosmopolitanism. Addressing inequality while maintaining the dynamism that drives progress represents a central challenge for contemporary societies. The information environment itself faces serious threats. Digital technologies that have democratized access to knowledge have also enabled the spread of misinformation, the formation of ideological echo chambers, and new forms of surveillance and control. Maintaining the conditions for reasoned public discourse and evidence-based policy in this environment requires both technological solutions and civic education that cultivates critical thinking and media literacy. Geopolitical shifts add another layer of complexity. The rise of China and other powers is creating a more multipolar world where Western-derived institutions and norms face new challenges. Authoritarian regimes are becoming more sophisticated in their governance techniques and more assertive in international forums. These developments raise questions about whether Enlightenment values like human rights and democracy will continue to spread globally or face increasing resistance. Despite these formidable challenges, there are reasons for cautious optimism. The same human ingenuity that has driven progress thus far continues to develop solutions to emerging problems. Renewable energy technologies are advancing rapidly. Global cooperation on issues from pandemic prevention to nuclear security has proven possible despite geopolitical tensions. Digital tools enable new forms of citizen participation and accountability. And younger generations worldwide show strong commitment to addressing challenges like climate change and social justice. The path forward requires recommitting to core Enlightenment values while addressing their limitations. We need scientific rationality to understand complex problems, but also moral reasoning to guide how we apply that knowledge. We need universal principles of human rights and dignity, but also sensitivity to how these principles interact with diverse cultural contexts. We need faith in human progress, but also humility about the unintended consequences of our actions. By balancing these considerations, we can continue the remarkable journey of human advancement that the Enlightenment set in motion.

Summary

The pendulum swing between Enlightenment values and their opponents has defined modern history. From the 18th century to the present, reason, science, and universal human rights have driven unprecedented progress in health, wealth, and freedom. Life expectancy has more than doubled, extreme poverty has plummeted from 90% to under 10% of humanity, and democracy has spread from virtually nowhere to over 60% of countries. Yet these advances have repeatedly faced resistance from religious traditionalism, romantic nationalism, and populist movements that emphasize emotion, particular identities, and charismatic authority over rational discourse and universal principles. This historical perspective offers crucial guidance for our contemporary challenges. First, progress requires balancing universal principles with sensitivity to particular cultural contexts; imposing abstract ideals without adaptation typically produces backlash rather than advancement. Second, rational governance depends on emotional and cultural foundations; institutions function best when they align with citizens' moral intuitions and collective narratives. Third, expanding circles of moral concern from family to nation to humanity represents genuine moral progress, but requires acknowledging the psychological pull of more immediate loyalties. By understanding these historical dynamics, we can better sustain the Enlightenment project of using reason to improve the human condition while addressing the legitimate concerns about meaning, belonging, and tradition that have fueled counter-Enlightenment movements throughout modern history.

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Steven Pinker

Steven Arthur Pinker is a prominent Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and author of popular science. Pinker is known for his wide-ranging explorations of human nature and its relevance to language, history, morality, politics, and everyday life. He conducts research on language and cognition, writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time, and The New Republic, and is the author of numerous books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, Words and Rules, The Blank Slate, The Stuff of Thought, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, and most recently, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.He was born in Canada and graduated from Montreal's Dawson College in 1973. He received a bachelor's degree in experimental psychology from McGill University in 1976, and then went on to earn his doctorate in the same discipline at Harvard in 1979. He did research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a year, then became an assistant professor at Harvard and then Stanford University. From 1982 until 2003, Pinker taught at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, and eventually became the director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. (Except for a one-year sabbatical at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1995-6.) As of 2008, he is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard.Pinker was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2004 and one of Prospect and Foreign Policy's 100 top public intellectuals in 2005. He has also received honorary doctorates from the universities of Newcastle, Surrey, Tel Aviv, McGill, and the University of Tromsø, Norway. He was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, in 1998 and in 2003. In January 2005, Pinker defended Lawrence Summers, President of Harvard University, whose comments about the gender gap in mathematics and science angered much of the faculty. On May 13th 2006, Pinker received the American Humanist Association's Humanist of the Year award for his contributions to public understanding of human evolution.In 2007, he was invited on The Colbert Report and asked under pressure to sum up how the brain works in five words – Pinker answered "Brain cells fire in patterns."Pinker was born into the English-speaking Jewish community of Montreal. He has said, "I was never religious in the theological sense... I never outgrew my conversion to atheism at 13, but at various times was a serious cultural Jew." As a teenager, he says he considered himself an anarchist until he witnessed civil unrest following a police strike in 1969. His father, a trained lawyer, first worked as a traveling salesman, while his mother was first a home-maker then a guidance counselor and high-school vice-principal. He has two younger siblings. His brother is a policy analyst for the Canadian government. His sister, Susan Pinker, is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal and the author of The Sexual Paradox and The Village Effect. Pinker married Nancy Etcoff in 1980 and they divorced 1992; he married Ilavenil Subbiah in 1995 and they too divorced. He is married to the novelist and philosopher Rebecca Goldstein, the author of 10 books and winner of the National Medal of the Humanities. He has no children.His next book will take off from his research on "common knowledge" (knowing that everyone knows something). Its tentative title is: Don't Go There: Common Knowledge and the Science of Civility, Hypocrisy, Outrage, and Taboo.

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