具体描述
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.
用户评价
##卖弄词藻，晦涩难懂！
##Pinker 怒了
##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。
##Somewhat repetitive, but the quality of writing makes up for it. Each chapter is a great writing sample.
##第一次听完了一本语音书
##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。
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。
##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。
##卖弄词藻，晦涩难懂！