Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

Pinker explores the notion that increasing health and wealth is futile if people are caught up in a “rat race of frenzied careerism, hollow consumption, mindless entertainment, and soul-deadening anomie” (247). He calls this “cultural pessimism” and warns that it can harbor a kind of snobbery toward the average person. Pinker references Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, who both argue that development should prioritize enhancing people’s capabilities and choices—including knowledge, free speech, political participation, recreation, and social life. Pinker considers the opportunity to enjoy the world’s “cafeteria of opportunities” the “ultimate form of progress” (248).

More people have a chance to enjoy these things because they spend so much less time working than people did in previous generations; our workweeks have decreased from more than 60 hours a week in the late 1800s to only 40 hours a week now. Additionally, paid vacation and retirement are recent inventions; in previous generations, people worked until their deaths (which happened much earlier then). Because of these improvements, “the fraction of a person’s life that is taken up by work has fallen by a quarter just since 1960” (251). Pinker reiterates that people’s money goes further nowadays, and it’s more affordable to buy time-saving appliances like washing machines. As a result, we have more leisure time and avoid the long hours our ancestors spent doing housework.

Another important measure of well-being is light because it allows us to continue studying, conversing, and enjoying leisure time at night or in the winter. Pinker cites a study showing that the cost of light—whether buying candles or light bulbs—decreased 12-thousand-fold from 1300 to the present. Energy cost will continue to decline because of LED lighting, and many of the world’s poor will benefit from more accessible lighting.

Pinker confronts alarmism about the state of the modern family by referring to data showing that modern parents spend more time with their children than in previous generations. Both men and women report having more leisure time than in previous decades. In addition, technology is improving our quality of life because we can more easily keep in touch with loved ones and access information. The author emphasizes the convenience and low cost of online education and entertainment, which can greatly enhance our lives. Other sources of enjoyment and enrichment such as photography, travel, tourism, and varied food have improved over the generations too and are accessible to more people.

Ironically, despite society’s significant progress, some thinkers argue that people in wealthy nations generally aren’t any happier than people in poorer countries. Pinker explains, “People seem to bitch, moan, whine, carp, and kvetch as much as ever, and the proportion of Americans who tell pollsters that they are happy has remained steady for decades” (262). Therefore, some commentators have suggested that all our progress has been for naught and that modern society encourages shallow individualism that results in unhappiness.

The author ponders the different ways people can be well or unwell, claiming that even if healthy and wealthy people are unhappy, they’re still better off than they would’ve been historically. Pinker introduces the concepts of positive freedom, or “the availability of options to lead a good life,” and negative freedom, or “the absence of coercion that prevents a person from choosing among [the options]” (265). He considers freedom a “prerequisite” for deciding how to live a good life. Happiness correlates with freedom, and people value freedom for giving their life meaning, even if it frees them to make life choices that may not work out.

Pinker claims that happiness is reliably measurable, noting that self-reported levels of happiness correspond with other signifiers of happiness like smiling expressions and happy attitudes as well as certain brain activity. Happiness is both experiential and evaluative. One way to assess happiness is to continually prompt people to report how they’re feeling in the moment (accessing the experiential); the other, more typical approach is to ask them to evaluate how they felt in the past generally. This doesn’t always reliably indicate their happiness, however, because evaluative questions can be overwhelming, and determining an “average” of feelings and experiences over many years is difficult. The author then explores the nuances between a life of “happiness” and one of “meaning,” noting that they don’t always correlate: Many people find that life experiences like work accomplishments, raising kids, or surviving struggles made them unhappy at the time but gave their lives meaning.

Pinker turns his attention to the data, which doesn’t suggest that modern society is developing an epidemic of mental health conditions. Of the people surveyed across 150 countries, 86% felt that they were happy but incorrectly judged the people around them as less happy—another example of the optimism gap. By including this misperception, Pinker again demonstrates people’s weakness in making accurate generalizations about society based on their impressions. Happiness correlates with wealth, but Pinker notes that absolute, not relative, income results in more happiness (strengthening his earlier claim that equality doesn’t necessarily make people happy). This applies in the bigger picture too: People in wealthier countries report higher levels of happiness than those in poorer countries, though the US is somewhat of an outlier in this regard.

The author argues that in contrast to the alarmist concerns about social connections in the digital age, people aren’t lonelier than before, and that friends and family remain an important part of people’s lives. Pinker laments cultural pessimists’ negative outlook on youth and technology, calling it a “hysterical misconception” that technology has mechanized people and rendered them lonely and depressed. Pinker resists technophobic arguments by using data to show that mental health conditions are no more prevalent among youths today than in previous generations, so the increased use of technology hasn’t had any ill effect.

Pinker then examines death by suicide, explaining that it may seem a good indicator of happiness—or lack thereof—but that the rates of death by suicide are notoriously complex. They can be influenced by the ease of access to methods, by the weather and daylight hours, by media representations, and more. Incidence around the world has turbulent peaks and troughs, but rates are declining in the US as well as many other countries.

The author calls the notion that depression is becoming more common an “illusion.” He argues that depression studies based on memory are vulnerable to two biases: that younger people more vividly remember and report negative experiences than older people, and that those surviving in older generations are more likely happy and healthy than their peers who have already deceased. In addition, Pinker argues that attitudes toward mental health have shifted: The definition of depression and other mental health conditions has widened dramatically to include many people who previously wouldn’t have been considered as having depression—and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association has tripled in size since the 1950s. This “widening net of diagnosis” (282) can create the illusion that younger people are more prone to mental health conditions than people in previous generations (282). Pinker’s thorough analysis of the factors that inform depression diagnoses helps show how the reported rates of such illnesses can rise without people necessarily feeling worse than previous generations. His passage is supportive regarding psychology’s concerns, but he warns against using diagnoses collectively as a trigger for alarmist proclamations.

Pinker acknowledges that many people feel anxious and connects anxiety to their freedoms and responsibilities as well as increased awareness of global issues: “A bit of anxiety is not a bad thing if it motivates people to support policies that would help solve major problems” (287). He suggests that we learn to accept growing responsibilities “without worrying ourselves to death” (287). In addition, he reiterates that anxiety is inherent in struggles that give our lives meaning. Pinker distinguishes between clinical anxiety and the anxious feelings we all experience in navigating life. His acknowledgment of how anxiety can motivate us for the good and give us meaning as we strive toward better things shows that we needn’t always be happy to have good lives and do good for others. This complex chapter encourages consideration of one’s own happiness and perception of others’ happiness—and what could be informing that perception.

Pinker explores modern society’s obsession with potential existential threats. Traditionally, many people have worried about pollution, nuclear war, resource shortages, and overpopulation. New concerns have risen around technology such as robots, nanobots, artificial intelligence, and experiments with particle colliders. “Techno-philanthropists” have funded institutions such as the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute to study these potential threats. Pinker explains his intention to address how to distinguish between genuine threats and those that are “a figment of cultural and historical pessimism” (291). He argues that spending too much time, attention, and money on trying to avert catastrophes can lead to fearmongering, which can have serious consequences. He cites the US invasion of Iraq, which was predicated on Iraq developing weapons of mass destruction, as an example of fearmongering gone wrong. Similarly, unfounded fears of a “missile gap” fueled the Soviet-American arms race during the Cold War.

Most people poorly estimate probabilities and tend to view hypothetical or science-fictional threats as equally likely as concrete threats such as pollution and climate change. The more likely people feel a catastrophe is, the more likely they’ll spend time and money addressing it—even if it’s highly improbable. Conversely, catastrophism may prompt people to feel that investment in the future is futile and that we should just give up.

Pinker emphasizes the real harm that educators and intellectuals can do by encouraging people to worry about the future: “Few technological writers give much thought to the cumulative psychological effects of the drumbeat of doom” (292). He refers to studies showing that 15% of people around the world—including a third of US citizens—think the world will “end” in the near future. Pinker agrees with writer Gregg Easterbrook that “collapse anxiety” is a major psychological issue. By exposing the anxiety and fatalism that doomsday alarmism can prompt, Pinker expands on the theme The Relationship Between Bias, Pessimism, and Declinism. This analysis challenges other intellectuals to think more carefully about the consequences of their predictions and the tone they employ when discussing certain risks or scenarios given that their arguments can have harmful consequences in people’s attitudes and behaviors.

The author notes that apocalyptic thinking is a long tradition in our society; over the generations, many cults, religions, mystics, and others have claimed that end times are near. Such fears are evident in the Western movie trope that humans have become too dependent on technology and that our inventions will be our downfall. Pinker reflects on how these fears aren’t limited to fiction; for instance, the supposed Y2K computer software bug created significant panic among scientists and technologists, who thus invested $100 billion on “Y2K readiness” (294). This panic was unnecessary because most unaltered programs continued working: “The threat turned out to be barely more serious than the lettering on the sidewalk prophet’s sandwich board” (294). By reiterating that many different leaders and groups have predicted the end of days or other disasters, Pinker presents such predictions as hysterical, unfounded, and opposed to reason.

Given that all species are mortal and few survive beyond a million years, humans are guaranteed to die out too at some point. However, the changeable nature of our planet and solar system—not our technology—is what guarantees our species’ death. Instead, technology is our best option for “cheating death.” Rather than prompting the end of civilization, technology is more likely to help us continue it, since we have better agricultural, military, space, and geological technology than ever before and are thus better prepared to face existential threats.

Pinker considers it unlikely that artificial intelligence technology will ever become a significant danger to people. While AI robots may think quicker than us, they won’t develop a desire to dominate; intelligence and motivation are different things. Pinker likens it to fearing that a jet will suddenly act like an eagle and prey on our animals. He explains, “There is no law of complex systems that says that intelligent agents must turn into ruthless conquistadors. Indeed, we know of one highly advanced form of intelligence that evolved without this defect. They’re called women” (297). Artificial Intelligence may be programmed to know many things but can’t become omnipotent or omniscient. No one has attempted to build an Artificial General Intelligence, and Pinker claims that without human cooperation it would be like a “brain in a vat” (298). Pinker doubts that humans would be intelligent enough to design an all-powerful AI system yet stupid enough to make themselves vulnerable to the consequences of its design flaws. Like any other form of technology, we develop AI slowly and carefully and design it to benefit people. Pinker addresses the concern that some AI will replace jobs that people currently perform, claiming that even when we manage to produce more productive robots, many jobs will require people to do.

The threat of hackers poses another catastrophic scenario, in which financial institutions, governments, or militaries could be compromised. Pinker acknowledges that we’ll never entirely eliminate this risk but that we can minimize it through proper investment and planning. Additionally, as technologies become more complex, they require more people to maintain, preventing scenarios in which one malicious person gains full control over one powerful system.

Pinker questions why we’re so frightened of the prospect of “maniacs” scheming to end civilization. He points out that extremely few individuals have murderous agendas, and the number among them who have the skills to develop a cyber or bioweapon are fewer still. Additionally, only a nation-state could carry out such an attack given the sophisticated knowledge and large number of people necessary to do so. Thus far, cyber-attacks have mostly been “nuisances” rather than real dangers—and no one has ever been injured in one. Furthermore, the threat of bioweapons is miniscule. They’re an incredibly unlikely method of warfare because terrorists would endanger themselves trying to harness disease for this purpose. Examples of bioterrorism are few and far between, and generally harm very few people, such as the 2001 anthrax mailings. We usually address natural epidemics, such as the Ebola virus, before they can become pandemics. Another reason for optimism is that most disasters haven’t prompted anarchy, looting, or paralysis; disaster sociologists have found that most people “cooperate to restore order and improvise networks” (305). Pinker’s mention of the bright side of human behavior is a reminder that even when disasters occur, they don’t necessarily trigger other problems, because people can be flexible and practice cooperation. This data counters the pessimistic perception that people act selfishly in times of crisis.

The author addresses anxieties about nuclear war, which began after the US bombing of Hiroshima and continued through the Cold War. He laments that many physical scientists want to frighten people about nuclear war in an effort to prevent it. Pinker includes quotes from cultural pessimists and physicists who predicted the use of nuclear weapons, and the resulting end of civilization, throughout the late 20th century. Pinker notes that these grim predictions have done little to incentivize the world to denuclearize and that regular people tend to hope for the best and carry on. He argues that these cynical predictions may even have the opposite effect and prompt societies to build worse weapons to deter attacks from their enemies. By questioning the role of fearmongering in anti-nuclear campaigning, Pinker challenges intellectuals to think of more proven, constructive ways to engage with the public and lawmakers.

Pinker points out that today’s nine nuclear countries aren’t ready to totally denuclearize, and we should focus on maintaining international systems and stability, which has so far prevented the use of their nuclear weapons: “Anything that reduces the risk of war reduces the risk of nuclear war” (312). Pinker recalls the Cuban Missile Crisis, which he says was resolved via clear communication and diplomacy. Fears about nuclear proliferation have likewise been unfounded; in recent decades, many nations have voluntarily denuclearized.

The author warns against both panic and complacency, encouraging people to identify and follow proven methods to maintain peace. He contradicts theories that nuclear weapons are positive influences, noting that they haven’t deterred non-nuclear powers from picking fights with nuclear ones (such as the Argentinean attack on the UK’s Falkland Islands). Nevertheless, the ideal scenario is for the world’s nuclear countries to completely denuclearize, and Pinker hopes that someday they’ll all do so, noting that most people around the world favor the abolition of nuclear weapons.

The process of reducing the nuclear arsenal has already begun: Both the US and Russia have dramatically reduced their numbers of nuclear warheads. British and French stockpiles have shrunk as well, though India, China, and Pakistan have increased their supplies. Since 54,000 fewer nukes exist today than in the 1980s, the chances of a nuclear accident are much lower, a grim but real kind of progress. Another way to make nukes safer is to turn off “Launch on warning” settings (319), which guarantee that if a nuclear weapon is launched to strike a country, the warheads in its silos will automatically launch to prevent their destruction. This “hair trigger” setting is dangerous and should be dismantled. If all nuclear nations reached an international agreement of “No First Use,” that could help prevent nuclear war as well. Pinker hopes that people continue to have “patience and persistence” (322) to work toward a world free of nuclear bombs. Pinker’s lengthy exploration of nuclear weapons demonstrates their genuine inherent risks and the world’s measurable progress in beginning the process of denuclearization. As usual, his analysis warns against empty alarmism based on imagined scenarios and urges careful analysis and sober policy to reduce harm.