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teokajlibroj's review against another edition
4.0
I'm very impressed with how positive and factual this book is. Usually books are either one or the other, using facts to document a crisis or offering bland optimistic generalities. The world really is improving and we should celebrate this.
However, the chapters on inequality and the environment were flawed. Pinker should have acknowledged that most things are getting better, but not everything. Instead, by defending everything, he cast doubt over the whole book. He seemed willing to cherry-pick statistics to make the environmental situation look better, leaving himself open to the criticism of blind optimism he otherwise avoided.
I did notice that although Pinker strongly promotes the ideas of rationality and debate, he seems unwilling to take criticism. While his argument is made in precise detail, he generalises his critics as hysterical, irrational and foolish, without presenting their argument for us to judge.
A final note is that like other Pinker books, he presents his argument in exhaustive detail and I felt exhausted by the end of it and started skimming. His point was hammered home long before the end of the book. I skipped the bland final argument for enlightenment values because it had already been said.
Overall, an excellent book with only a blemish or two to stop it from being 5 stars.
However, the chapters on inequality and the environment were flawed. Pinker should have acknowledged that most things are getting better, but not everything. Instead, by defending everything, he cast doubt over the whole book. He seemed willing to cherry-pick statistics to make the environmental situation look better, leaving himself open to the criticism of blind optimism he otherwise avoided.
I did notice that although Pinker strongly promotes the ideas of rationality and debate, he seems unwilling to take criticism. While his argument is made in precise detail, he generalises his critics as hysterical, irrational and foolish, without presenting their argument for us to judge.
A final note is that like other Pinker books, he presents his argument in exhaustive detail and I felt exhausted by the end of it and started skimming. His point was hammered home long before the end of the book. I skipped the bland final argument for enlightenment values because it had already been said.
Overall, an excellent book with only a blemish or two to stop it from being 5 stars.
tonyleachsf's review against another edition
5.0
Full of optimism and rationality. Well supported by facts, not driven by fear. Tears apart nearly all ideologies in support of reason. Everyone should read this.
pinkgallah's review against another edition
4.0
Well written I thought. And full of interesting things. Drags on a bit. I hope the important points can make their way to people who the book aims to persuade.
bartonstanley's review against another edition
4.0
Presents a sound argument that life has improved substantially for most human beings, and that the bulk of that improvement is due to the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment.
If it had focused solely on this argument I would have been tempted to give it five stars. The speculative chapters at the end of Part II are a little too speculative and I found that I had to skip one or two of them.
However, overall I learned a lot and have a much better perspective on the state of the world and the the threats to further improvements in the lives of human beings.
If it had focused solely on this argument I would have been tempted to give it five stars. The speculative chapters at the end of Part II are a little too speculative and I found that I had to skip one or two of them.
However, overall I learned a lot and have a much better perspective on the state of the world and the the threats to further improvements in the lives of human beings.
erikbergstrom's review against another edition
4.0
What is Steven Pinker's solution for getting us all on the same page?
The Enlightenment, ya dummy!
"The Enlightenment? Isn't that the thing that happened like 700 years ago?"
First of all, the Age of Enlightenment was only like 300 years or so ago, and second of all, yeah that seems like a long time ago relative to our humble existences, but in all actuality, Pinker argues, the amount of progress our world has made in that time is unprecedented and will likely be unmatched!
Of course, there has been a bit of halting to that progress along the way... Rome wasn't built in a day lol! But I enjoyed Pinker's POV throughout... as long as we keep the flames of the Enlightenment lit—Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress—we're gonna make it, after all.
I probably fall more on the sides of Reason & Science, where a lot of people I know are more about Humanism & Progress. Pinker makes a good argument that by lumping all 4 ideas into our everyday thinking, we can find common ground. Progressives could take it easy on the doomsday-foretelling and recognize progress where & when it's occurred already. They could also lay off on central planning being the all-healing panacea it isn't. Libertarians could take a chill pill and see how some regulations on the free market have actually brought more freedom & prosperity to the world.
My critiques (to ensure I maintain my famous balanced Goodreads review reputation): Some of Pinker's solutions (thinking about the environment section) seem kind of pie-in-the-sky for a dude who gets paid to pontificate and look at graphs. He also hugely swings and misses at the end with his shallow interpretations of Nietzsche, who he believes led to the rise of Hitler & National Socialism... I wonder if he deliberately ignored the fact that Nietzsche hated anti-semites and early forms of national socialism? Even the Jewish comic creators of Superman realized the Ubermensch could be a hero, not a villain. Finally, I think there are times his glasses are a little too rosy, like when he says poor people have never been fatter... I think that's more because they can't afford better nutrition, Steve, not because they're pleasantly plump. But I do think his heart is in the right place.
If there's ever an edition of this where they remove the dated Trump references (that's just one of those 'blips' he talks about by now, right?) I might buy the physical copy of this and share it with my un-enlightened friends. If you've read this, let me know what you think in the comment section below!
The Enlightenment, ya dummy!
"The Enlightenment? Isn't that the thing that happened like 700 years ago?"
First of all, the Age of Enlightenment was only like 300 years or so ago, and second of all, yeah that seems like a long time ago relative to our humble existences, but in all actuality, Pinker argues, the amount of progress our world has made in that time is unprecedented and will likely be unmatched!
Of course, there has been a bit of halting to that progress along the way... Rome wasn't built in a day lol! But I enjoyed Pinker's POV throughout... as long as we keep the flames of the Enlightenment lit—Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress—we're gonna make it, after all.
I probably fall more on the sides of Reason & Science, where a lot of people I know are more about Humanism & Progress. Pinker makes a good argument that by lumping all 4 ideas into our everyday thinking, we can find common ground. Progressives could take it easy on the doomsday-foretelling and recognize progress where & when it's occurred already. They could also lay off on central planning being the all-healing panacea it isn't. Libertarians could take a chill pill and see how some regulations on the free market have actually brought more freedom & prosperity to the world.
My critiques (to ensure I maintain my famous balanced Goodreads review reputation): Some of Pinker's solutions (thinking about the environment section) seem kind of pie-in-the-sky for a dude who gets paid to pontificate and look at graphs. He also hugely swings and misses at the end with his shallow interpretations of Nietzsche, who he believes led to the rise of Hitler & National Socialism... I wonder if he deliberately ignored the fact that Nietzsche hated anti-semites and early forms of national socialism? Even the Jewish comic creators of Superman realized the Ubermensch could be a hero, not a villain. Finally, I think there are times his glasses are a little too rosy, like when he says poor people have never been fatter... I think that's more because they can't afford better nutrition, Steve, not because they're pleasantly plump. But I do think his heart is in the right place.
If there's ever an edition of this where they remove the dated Trump references (that's just one of those 'blips' he talks about by now, right?) I might buy the physical copy of this and share it with my un-enlightened friends. If you've read this, let me know what you think in the comment section below!
frudzicz's review against another edition
Edit: Having finished this, I'm very pleased that the issues I had within the first half of the book (which are, nevertheless, still there) are well outweighed by the positive, hopeful, and clearly articulated facts and arguments in the totality of the work. That said, I still think it's worthwhile to read the book with careful skepticism on individual points, and to follow up on the various references provided.
---
I’m about halfway through the book. It’s stylistically well written, but there are several rhetorical issues that I wanted to mention.
The book’s structure can be, ironically, somewhat unscientific, as many conclusions clearly precede the evidence, and not the other way around. For example, data are often omitted so that only subsets that display the desired trends are shown and, in cases where multiple possible interpretations exist, we’re always left with the one aligning with Pinker’s apparent laissez-faire centrist politics. Perhaps we cannot expect tests of statistical significance and other scientific rigour from a mass-market book like this, and I appreciate the aim to be quantitative, but it’s not exactly a skeptical scientific work.
I think many of us will be in broad agreement with Pinker on the abstract aims of the Enlightenment, and how they have been conducive to human flourishing over the centuries. It’s uplifting and encouraging to be reminded of our progress, on average. However, when in this receptive state, I worry that certain specific conclusions will slip through your filter if you’re not reading this critically. For me, the wheels came off a bit in the chapters on Inequality and the Environment; in the former, we are only presented with positive causes of inequality (“luck, skill, or effort”, pg 103) and only positive outcomes (e.g., bizarrely, “people in more unequal societies are happier” because they are “swamped by hope”, pg 101, emphasis Pinker’s). The chapter on the Environment also ridicules “the left” for wanting to make drastic changes to how energy is produced and consumed but then concludes that things will work out, so don’t worry, because capitalism will naturally make drastic changes to how energy is produced and consumed. In these cases, my instinct was to try to examine whether the apparent strangeness of these statements is a result of Pinker’s biases or mine, but before the paragraph is done we’re off to some other metric without any opportunity to scratch the surface, which is all this book really provides anyway.
---
I’m about halfway through the book. It’s stylistically well written, but there are several rhetorical issues that I wanted to mention.
The book’s structure can be, ironically, somewhat unscientific, as many conclusions clearly precede the evidence, and not the other way around. For example, data are often omitted so that only subsets that display the desired trends are shown and, in cases where multiple possible interpretations exist, we’re always left with the one aligning with Pinker’s apparent laissez-faire centrist politics. Perhaps we cannot expect tests of statistical significance and other scientific rigour from a mass-market book like this, and I appreciate the aim to be quantitative, but it’s not exactly a skeptical scientific work.
I think many of us will be in broad agreement with Pinker on the abstract aims of the Enlightenment, and how they have been conducive to human flourishing over the centuries. It’s uplifting and encouraging to be reminded of our progress, on average. However, when in this receptive state, I worry that certain specific conclusions will slip through your filter if you’re not reading this critically. For me, the wheels came off a bit in the chapters on Inequality and the Environment; in the former, we are only presented with positive causes of inequality (“luck, skill, or effort”, pg 103) and only positive outcomes (e.g., bizarrely, “people in more unequal societies are happier” because they are “swamped by hope”, pg 101, emphasis Pinker’s). The chapter on the Environment also ridicules “the left” for wanting to make drastic changes to how energy is produced and consumed but then concludes that things will work out, so don’t worry, because capitalism will naturally make drastic changes to how energy is produced and consumed. In these cases, my instinct was to try to examine whether the apparent strangeness of these statements is a result of Pinker’s biases or mine, but before the paragraph is done we’re off to some other metric without any opportunity to scratch the surface, which is all this book really provides anyway.
ishanjmukherjee's review against another edition
2.0
Steven Pinker is right that the world is getting better, but the book doesn't need to be this long.
aspiring_learner's review against another edition
5.0
Probably the most important book you could choose to read at this moment. Want to know about how the world has gotten better and how it happened? Read this book.