Most non-fiction “idea” books are way, way, way too long. They start with some engaging anecdote in chapter one that sets up the thesis or observation in chapter two. The rest of the book is endless restatement — sometimes with useful supporting information, often not. I assume there is some minimum length that editors require for a “serious” book. Give me a pamphlet any day.
Enlightenment Now is also really long, with a thesis that can be stated pretty succinctly. But the length here has a purpose. Pinker absolutely pummels with data to prove his points — and while it was tough to keep focused on chart number 5,008 of a million, he succeeds.
It’s almost impossible not to be worn down by the inanity of the public sphere; Enlightenment Now offers insight and tools that offer hope to those of us who believe in progress and innovation and the steady improvement of humankind. I’ll try to pick out the high points here, but the full meal deal is worth the effort; highly recommended.
1. Things are pretty amazing
Humans have been around for tens of thousands of years. For most of that time, we bumbled along, slowly improving our lot but largely living hand to mouth, the exception being tiny ruling classes that thrived on the backs of their impoverished people. But for some reason, starting in the late 18th century, pretty much everything started to accelerate for the better.
The obvious thing to do here would be to recount facts from the book, but there are just too many to do it justice. Just a tiny selection:
- Since the 1700s, the % of people in extreme poverty has dropped from 90% to 10%.
- 6% of children die at birth in the poorest parts of the world, down from 33% in the richest.
- Catastrophic famine has virtually disappeared from the earth.
- Nuclear stockpiles are down 85% from their high in the 80s.
- War between countries has become the extreme exception vs. the norm.
- Two hundred years ago 1% of world population lived in a democracy. Today, 66% do.
- Since the early 1900s, Americans are 96% less likely to die in car accidents, 92% less likely to die in a fire, 90% less likely to drown, 95% less likely to die on the job. We also work 22 hours fewer per week.
Again, this is just a tiny random sample. And the problem with presenting this stuff in bullet form is that it feels counterintuitive and/or naive. After years in Iraq/Afghanistan and Israel/Hamas/Russia/Ukraine, is war really the exception? Should we really be excited about an 85% drop in nuclear arms when 15% is more than enough to destroy civilization? Global averages don’t matter if you’re at the bottom of the scale. And what about other existential threats like climate change or pandemics?
That’s why the book is worth reading. There is an avalanche of good news, including stuff you would never expect, and Pinker backs it up with real data — the narrative is messy and a bit mind-numbing, but he’s convinced me that it’s real.
2. How did this happen?
Things have been improving pretty consistently for hundreds of years, but why? It turns out that the Age of Enlightenment was really quite special. We began to turn away from superstition, and instead applied our brains to understand the world and make it better. We accepted that there is a reality underlying our world; that it is understandable and consistent; and that we can continually improve our understanding to create the circumstances that maximize human flourishing. We became scientists.
Of course there were scientists before the 1700s, and great ones at that. But as a species, we were bound by religion and made-up stories. Those aren’t gone, but by “mostly” accepting that magic isn’t real — that our understanding of the world is limited and often wrong — that we can keep iterating to make it better — and that we can use our knowledge to shape the world through technology, politics, education — we’ve been able to enjoy exponential progress.
There are some interesting warnings tucked in there. It depends on an objective reality, and it accepts that we’ll be wrong a lot. It assumes a more-or-less shared understanding of what “human flourishing” is. There are forces that push back on these and more, but we’ve been able to keep at it for about a quarter of a millennium.
The big takeaway is that, despite it all, the world is working. The United Nations works. Doux commerce works. Nonviolent protest works. The WHO, NIH, and CDC work. The FDA, EPA and international agreements work. Interpol works. Charitable giving works. Education and even Democracy work. None of them perfectly, and not all of them forever. We can / must do better. But still, pretty impressive.
3. So why aren’t we all psyched?
First of all, “better” and even “better in almost every way by huge margins” doesn’t mean great. Millions suffer every day, and the most privileged of us still have legitimate cause to be depressed sometimes. We haven’t solved climate change and Russia is doing their best to screw things up. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by negative trends that, while maybe short-term in the life of the species, easily can encompass our own lifespans. And it’s just human to focus on today’s problems vs. those of twenty years ago, even if they’re smaller by comparison.
Pinker also hypothesizes that at least some increased anxiety in our lives is completely rational. When you don’t know how to read, never leave your village, and have the local priest telling you God has it all figured out, life is seems a lot less complicated. We know more and understand more, so guess what? The world is huge and scary and capricious and certainly doesn’t care about me personally. Yikes.
But even people that say they are personally happy tend to feel (or at least say) that the world is getting worse. While it seems trite to say, it turns out that this “intuition” is strongly reinforced by “the media” interacting with the way our brains have evolved:
- Availability: We think things we hear about are common, even though they may not be.
- Recency: We heavily weight what we just heard, even if it’s the exception.
- Confirmation: Once something is in our head, it holds on for dear life.
- Nostalgia: We tend to remember the past as far better than it really was.
There are for sure incredible journalists out there, but writ large “the media” just wants us to watch their ads and buy their content. The things that accomplish that are big, scary, explosive, titillating and sexy, so that’s what gets reported. Random statistical fluctuations turn into “surges” or “concerning trends” or they “signal potential disaster.” We’re told to be angry about everything. Slow news days here in Washington always bring out the stories about Mt Ranier popping off, or the continental plates pulling a Lex Luthor on my house at Whidbey.
Of course I get sucked into this too — and if you cover the whole world and predict disaster every day, you’re going to be right sometimes! It’s hard to know what to do about this; ignoring the news might make you happy but also makes you a lousy citizen. The best I can come up with is to try and limit the “breaking news” popups on my phone and try to read whole articles rather than just scroll headlines. Not easy.
4. So we can just relax, right?
Of course not.
All of the goodness that Pinker catalogs happens because real people are making it happen. They’re recognizing problems, using facts and history and ideas to understand them, designing solutions, trying them out, throwing away the ones that don’t work and improving the ones that do.
This is why life without God has meaning — we’re all part of a great machine that, despite our own innate irrationalities, are helping humanity flourish in the world. Inexorably, hard won, with terrible setbacks. My failures easily outnumber my successes, but I’m still pretty proud of what I’ve created so far (mostly looking at you, A & C).
Enlightenment Now was published in January 2019, smack in the middle of the Trump presidency. Given events since then, it seems like the world saw the book and said “Pinker, hold my beer.” Populism, COVID, abortion, human rights, inflation, Ukraine, Hamas — and the risk of more chaos and setbacks if we elect a convicted felon to his second term.
But when I was in high school, my lit teacher told us that Victor Hugo wrote to a friend, “the key is to live as if men were good, while knowing they are not.” I’ve never been able to find the actual quote or source here, but I like it anyways, and will add this twist: “Work like the world will end if you don’t, even though it probably won’t.”
Dory had it right — just keep swimming (and vote for the deep state).
