These are the values of the Enlightenment: of reason, science, humanism and progress. Such progress is no accident: it’s the gift of a coherent and inspiring value system that many of us embrace without even realizing it. If you follow the trendlines rather than the headlines, you discover that our lives have become longer, healthier, safer, happier, more peaceful, more stimulating and more prosperous – not just in the West, but worldwide. Yet Steven Pinker shows that this is an illusion – a symptom of historical amnesia and statistical fallacies.
If you follow the headlines, the world in the 21st century appears to be sinking into chaos, hatred, and irrationality. Is modernity really failing? Or have we failed to appreciate progress and the ideals that make it possible? But many of the apologetics come from a soft spot for religion among theists, faitheists, and Second Culture intellectuals, and a reluctance to go all in for Enlightenment humanism.‘My new favourite book of all time’ Bill Gates Some fit into a long history of Western intellectuals execrating their own society and romanticizing its enemies (a syndrome we’ll return to shortly). Some are intended to discredit a destructive (and possibly self-fulfilling) narrative that the world is embroiled in a clash of civilizations. “Though the role of theistic morality in the problems besetting the Islamic world is inescapable, many Western intellectuals-who would be appalled if the repression, misogyny, homophobia, and political violence that are common in the Islamic world were found in their own societies even diluted a hundredfold-have become strange apologists when these practices are carried out in the name of Islam.101 Some of the apologetics, to be sure, come from an admirable desire to prevent prejudice against Muslims.
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