Enlightenment Now Book Reviews

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Knowledge is power. The world is getting better. Much much better. This progress was not inevitable and it was hard won by many humans who attempted to solve the difficult problems they faced. Reason, science and humanism represent the best ideas that humanity has come up with to ensure human flourishing. Professor Pinker makes a stirring, evidence-based defense of these values. Thank you so much.

Enlightenment Now. I enjoyed the review of the Enlightenment, all that’s it accomplished, and what it makes possible in the future. He loses me with a weak promotion of Humanism and poor critique of contemporary politics in the last few chapters.

Great Read!. I concur Mr Pinker!

Pull back the curtain. I really enjoyed this book, although I struggled a bit with the flow. Stephen Pinker is well educated and as such, prone to use obtuse words in place of simple. Fortunately reading with the iPad I could quickly find the definition of many a word I was unfamiliar with, such as “peripatetic” - nomadic, - traveling from place to place. My world view shaped by the turbulent 60s and my indoctrination in the sect of Mormon belief painted a dark future that would only end with the second coming of Christ. It was after all, in the name of our faith. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The latter days. The end of times, which were shaped by the temptations of the devil and colored with the rumor of wars and strife. If only we could “endure to the end”. With life experience I began to see succeeding generations complain of the same fates, of how bad things were and how bad the future would be. But in reality, it wasn’t that bad - in fact, it was quite good. Better than I had imagined. All one has to do is read a bit of history to realize that we live in a golden age. An age of discovery, wonder, affluence, education. In this book Stephen Pinker reiterates this point with a verbosity of logic and reason. Making an argument of how good the here and now is and of how it can and will get better as long as humankind continues with the skills brought about by the great reformation. The skills of Reason, Science, and Humanism. “For it requires only the convictions that life is better than death, health is better than sickness, abundance is better than want, freedom is better than coercion, happiness is better than suffering, and knowledge is better than superstition and ignorance.”

Woke. Too woke

Excellent read. My 2018 was full of great books, decent movies, annoying news-feeds, fun lab experiments and lots of fun traveling. I am hardly a fan of social philosophy as a genre, but recently finished two books those can loosely be put under that classification. To me, the mere fact that Enlightenment Now (-by Pinker), is not as well-known and talked-about as Sapiens (-by Harari) is a proof of human kind's bias towards flamboyant intellectual gymnastics than reasoned, pragmatic analysis. While Sapiens was a thoroughly enjoyable read from literary point of view, in terms of philosophy Harari come out as a colossal charlatan at times (probably because the book was only meant to be a 101 beginners' course lectures). Pinker's Enlightenment Now, on the other hand, is phenomenally cohesive. He presents a laser-sharp autopsy of the history of human beings with and without science and reason. An absolute gem of a read; an essential for times to come and today.

Research based optimism. One cannot quibble with data, facts, evidence and research. Dr. Pinker presents these in this important book about how we are indeed living in enlightened times, despite the tragic and terrifying school shootings, etc. Though there are a couple times when this book is a difficult read, the scholarly approach of this book is imperative. One cannot help but feel uplifted about how humanity is progressing. The various media paint a mostly pessimistic view of our race by focusing on the negative. Dr. Pinker helps us see past the negativity. The research based charts and graphs are pretty amazing. We are not going to hell in a hand basket.

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