The follow-up to Pinker’s groundbreaking The Better Angels of Our Nature presents the big picture of human progress: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science.
Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.
Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature–tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking–which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.
With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.
##引用了很多Hans Rosling的Factfulness,还不如看那本比较清楚简要。
评分##Pinker论证科学带来的种种好处:更长的寿命,更少贫穷,更丰富的物质享受,更和平(主要指国家级战争更少),更多民主(主要更多国家选择民主政体),教育更普及(主要是文盲更少)。单子很长,世界确实有实实在在变化。可福柯的生命政治视阈下的现代人,也有类似的趋势。pinker提到福柯,为什么不认真论证,打倒福柯,证明“数世纪的科学知识发展以及其带来的好处,背后是没有站着个'权力'的”,呢?(这是疑问句,不是反问句)反而花了那么多精力去评判宗教生活(这种评判标准当然是上面科学带来的那些好处啦),还花那么大篇幅想论证尼采是自大狂和纳粹分子。关键对手都避开,然后复述那些老掉牙的偏见,难怪书那么长。
评分主旨就是从各方面花式论证人类在变好,赞美启蒙思想的意义和效果。有的章节论证比较充分令人信服,但是部分章节也很牵强,选择的数据图表都是有利于自己的,反面观点就一笔带过,因果逻辑模糊,所以我还是站在持怀疑态度的一方。阅读这本书可以增强对人类的信心,减轻悲观主义,算是一碗科学鸡汤。
评分##人类的进步绝对不是误打误撞的奇迹,而是理性在暗夜里英雄主义的抗争。平克也绝非沦于精英主义的自我陶醉,而是恰如其分的阐释启蒙思想这个稀释在几个世纪里的概念的现世意义。
评分##比上一本angels容易懂的多????
评分##有些书难读,但是读下来还是能学到一些东西,所以还是值得。这本书文字流畅,但是看完没觉得有什么收获,最多算鸡汤,太长,所以是特大的一锅鸡汤!作者对现状太乐观,数据的选择让人生疑。以后盖茨推荐的书要等一段时间再读,水分太多。
评分##我的求生欲真的挺强,刚对人类社会产生巨大失落感,马上开始高强度阅读Steven Pinker试图缓解局势,重新相信我们在发展进步、世界在变好……具体效果待定,可能要加大马力来激活我逐渐被掩埋的乐观主义。 不患寡而不均的思维方式不可取,用发展的角度解决环境问题,民主的代价与价值……还是忍不住联想到疫情,不知这一场天灾人祸之后,世界会如何改变。
评分##Somewhat repetitive, but the quality of writing makes up for it. Each chapter is a great writing sample.
评分##真的是一本很神奇的书,神奇在于开始看的时候就知道主题是论证世界变得更好,不过就是堆积数据来论证罢了,结果看完之后像被洗脑一样,坚信世界会越来越好,我们处于最好的时代,而且作者文笔真不错,知识范围广,能感受到文字的力量。
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