The Enlightenment Is Now

Steven Pinker dismantles the pervasive myth that civilization teeters on the edge of collapse. Drawing on global datasets spanning life expectancy, poverty, violence, and literacy, the cognitive psychologist demonstrates that Enlightenment ideals—reason, science, humanism—have driven measurable gains across every fundamental metric of human welfare. Against the lazy catastrophism that dominates public discourse, Pinker insists we must defend these principles with evidence, not surrender to fashionable pessimism.

You'll learn:

- Why global data contradicts the collapse narrative

- How Enlightenment values produced concrete progress

- What distinguishes rigorous optimism from denial