In Enlightenment Now, psychologist Steven Pinker argues that 17th- and 18th-century Enlightenment values and modernization have contributed to gradually improving the world on “every single measure of human well-being.” He says people tend to think the world is getting worse because of psychological biases and errors in perception, but the data supports the conclusion that life for humans everywhere is getting better.
Pinker explains why our perceptions of a worsening world are wrong and provides statistics to challenge those misconceptions. Through presenting data on such factors as health, wealth, equality, human rights, happiness, peace, and freedom (among other measures), he explains how The Enlightenment’s key ideas of reason, science, and humanism are the driving forces behind progress in all these areas.
Pinker is a professor of psychology at Harvard University. This book, published in 2018, follows The Better Angels of Our Nature, which examined questions around peace and violence, arguing that the world has gotten consistently more peaceful over time. Pinker has gained a wide following—in 2004 he was named one of “The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today” by Time magazine, and his TED Talk presenting a synopsis of Enlightenment Now has been viewed over 4 million times.
In this guide, we’ll first explain what Enlightenment values are and where they come from, as well as what some of the prominent anti-Enlightenment positions are. We’ll then discuss Pinker’s definition of “progress,” and his explanation for why we tend to mistakenly think things are getting worse when they’re actually getting better.
Finally, we’ll delve into the data Pinker presents to support his argument that the world is improving everywhere, on all measures, due to the ongoing impact of Enlightenment thinking. We’ve reorganized Pinker’s measures of progress into three categories of well-being: human, societal, and environmental. Throughout the guide, we’ll compare his ideas to those of other scholars, provide counterpoints, and update some of the statistics with more current data.
The Age of Enlightenment refers to a historical period in the 17th and 18th centuries when European intellectuals and philosophers were concerned with re-thinking social values and moving toward a more “progressive” vision for humanity. This included thinking about the most rational ways to go about organizing and governing society to maximize human well-being, including discussions of freedom, equality, and empirical truth. Some of the best-known thinkers associated with this movement are René Descartes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, John Locke, and David Hume. Enlightenment philosophy led to revolutionizing many aspects of European society and ultimately had global influence.
The Origin of Enlightenment Values
David Graeber and David Wengrow, in The Dawn of Everything, argue that much Enlightenment thinking originated in conversations between European colonists in America and the indigenous people there. In these conversations, Native Americans raised scathing critiques of European social customs and values, particularly criticizing monarchical rule, social hierarchies, emphasis on accumulation of wealth and materialism, and punitive justice systems. The social values in their own societies at the time were essentially Enlightenment values. These descriptions made their way back to Europe, where they were widely distributed among the intellectual class and, Graeber and Wengrow argue, became inspiration for much Enlightenment thought.
The major theme tying all Enlightenment thinking together is reason. But, according to Pinker, Enlightenment also implies science, humanism, and progress:
Reason: Pinker contrasts reason with religious faith and dogma, on which he says most pre-Enlightenment thinking was based. He says consciously applying reason to all matters is necessary precisely because humans aren’t always rational thinkers. So it’s crucial to think through our beliefs, values, and social policies in a rational and logical way, rather than relying on feelings, intuition, or religious texts. (Shortform note: In The Laws of Human Nature, Robert Greene says we’re all naturally prone to irrationality. We have a tendency to react based on our emotions rather than reasoning. But rational thinking, he says, is a skill that can be learned. And that begins with not allowing our emotions to influence our thoughts and decisions.)
Science: When we apply scientific methods to our beliefs, Pinker says, we can prove or disprove them. Therefore, he argues, the scientific method is necessary to generate knowledge that is reliable. On the topic of science, Pinker includes modernity as an essential feature of Enlightenment, meaning that continuous technological innovation and advancement, through scientific endeavors, are key to continued progress.
(Shortform note: Pinker strongly associates Enlightenment values with modernity, and argues throughout this book that modernization necessarily corresponds to progress and improvement. As an example, he describes access to electricity (and other technologies) as an undeniable improvement in the human condition. But in The Dawn of Everything, Graeber and Wengrow argue that indigenous peoples in America were living according to Enlightenment values in vibrant, healthy, peaceful societies, without any electricity or other modern technology.)
Humanism: The Enlightenment is fundamentally associated with humanism, a system of thought that prioritizes the good of humanity over any divine or supernatural concerns. Pinker argues that humanism provides a secular basis for morality, allowing us to look at what contributes to human well-being, without allegiance to religion, race, or nationality, which divide humans. He says humanism compelled Enlightenment thinkers to condemn such practices as slavery, torture, and cruel execution methods.
(Shortform note: Some argue that a humanistic worldview promotes human exceptionalism, meaning humans are centered and prioritized above other living things, which can be damaging to animal-rights and environmental causes. This ideology can fuel extreme “anti-humanist” environmentalist campaigns to reduce population growth.)
Progress: Pinker defines progress as using reason, science, and humanism to better conditions for all of humanity. He argues that progress is made by making changes in social institutions like laws and educational systems, not by trying to change anything in human nature. (Shortform note: Some people believe the opposite—that progress is made by changing people. Conservative thinkers have argued that human flourishing must begin within the individual, often through spiritual development, and they oppose attempts to regulate progress by law.)
Pinker argues that Enlightenment values have improved life for humans globally, and that in order to continue to improve, we need to reinvigorate our public discourse with these values and push forward on the path of progress through reason, science, and humanism.
To fully understand Enlightenment values, and their historical impact, we should also understand the opposing positions. Pinker identifies four anti-Enlightenment positions, which he sees as stalling the progress of humanity. He argues that in order to continue to improve the human condition, we must challenge these foes of progress.
The anti-Enlightenment forces Pinker identifies are:
Romanticism as an Anti-Enlightenment Movement
One of the earlier historical foes of Enlightenment thinking was Romanticism, a philosophical and artistic movement that formed partly as a reaction to the hyperrationality of Enlightenment thought. From the late 18th through the mid-19th century, scholars and artists pushed back against Enlightenment values in favor of a more spiritual, emotional, and creative approach to the world. Romantics believed Enlightenment philosophy, through its emphasis on rationality, order, and objectivity, treated humanity as soulless and mechanistic. The Romantic movement encompassed some of the anti-Enlightenment forces Pinker mentions:
Religion: Romanticism embraced a spiritual and transcendent approach to the world over a secular and rational one.
Anti-scientism: Romanticism included skepticism of science. Romantics believed an objective scientific approach to the world would never give a full understanding of a world full of emotion, passion, and mystery.
Tribalism: Since Romanticism placed a high value on celebration of the individual, it might be difficult to argue that tribalism, in the sense of allegiance to a group, would be a Romantic notion. However, the theme of merging oneself with the divine is certainly a feature of Romantic literature. In this way, there is a theme of self-sacrifice in Romanticism.
Declinism: One recurrent theme in Romantic literature, called the “Last Man” theme, is essentially an apocalyptic vision of the future, where only one person remains on Earth. This theme is employed in the writing of such notable Romantic authors as Lord Byron and Percy Shelley.
While a definition of “progress” as using reason, science, and humanism to improve conditions for humanity seems straightforward, the word “improve” implies a value judgment and is therefore subjective. Who decides what’s better? Pinker believes we can agree on some universals in this area—there are some things we can all agree are better than other things. For example, he says: Health is better than sickness, peace is better than violence, and freedom is better than enslavement.
While some of these dichotomies may seem obvious, there are some other measures of “improvement” that Pinker strives to defend, as they are not as obviously universally “better.” For example, the claim that wealth is inherently better than poverty can be challenged by pointing out that a person who is poor but happy is better off than a person who is wealthy but miserable. Or, one could argue that wealthier, more technologically advanced human societies are not worth the sacrifice of an environmental crisis.
(Shortform note: Scholars have argued that the focus on continuous economic growth is at the root of the environmental crisis, and they call for implementing “no growth” or even “deliberately de-growth” economic models for the future. They admit, however, that the continuous growth ideology is deeply embedded in the thought patterns of modern people, so the idea of deliberate de-growth is highly unsettling for many. Therefore, they say changing the way people think is crucial in the fight against climate change.)
Pinker tackles some of these objections, arguing that to solve the dilemmas we face in the modern world, we simply need to push forward with reason, science, and humanism. He argues that people today who don’t think life is all-around better than it was for humans in the past suffer from two problems:
So let’s look at why so many people have these distorted perceptions and do feel that life in the modern world is getting continuously worse, despite what Pinker says is ample evidence to the contrary.
Pinker’s major goal in this book is to counter the widespread belief that the world is getting worse, by showing data that indicates it’s actually improving on many measures. But why do people think things are so bad if they’re not? Pinker explains that this happens for a few intersecting reasons: media slant, cognitive biases, and ingratitude.
Media slant: Pinker explains that we tend to believe our societies are worse than they are because the media focus on negative news. This skews our perception of how bad things are. To support this claim, Pinker points to a study that analyzed emotion words in news articles from 1945-2010, which showed that the news has gotten progressively more negative. But we must ask whether more negative things have actually been happening, or whether news outlets are becoming more negative in what they focus on and how? Pinker says a look at the data clearly shows it’s the latter. We’ll look at that evidence in the following sections of the guide.
(Shortform note: Researchers found negativity slant in news media around the world, but it was most pronounced in the US. One theory about why this might be is that it’s what consumers want, and the US news media tend to be profit-motivated, while news outlets in other areas of the world receive government funding, so they’re less likely to be motivated by consumer demand.)
Cognitive biases: As an evolutionary psychologist, Pinker is well-versed in cognitive biases. He explains that humans have these biases evolutionarily built into us to help us survive. However in a modern context, he says, these biases tend to work against us instead of in our favor. He describes three cognitive biases that are at work in our brains, influencing us to think things in the world are getting worse.
1. Availability bias: Pinker says when we estimate how likely something is to happen, things that come most readily to mind will seem more likely than those that don’t. And he says events or ideas that are sensationalized tend to stick in our minds. So, for example, if you read a news story about a grisly murder and another story about a local political campaign, you’re more likely to remember the murder story later. Because of this, Pinker says, seeing hypernegative media on a daily basis means we drastically overestimate the frequency of negative occurrences, like murder.
(Shortform note: Psychologists say this bias, also called the “availability heuristic” is a mental shortcut our brain takes to help us make decisions. In some scenarios, it can cause us to make bad decisions. To minimize this bias when you’re making an important decision, try asking someone else to play “devil’s advocate” and give you alternative or challenging perspectives.)
2. Negativity bias: Another bias that’s built into our brains, Pinker says, is a general bias toward negativity. Why would we be built with this tendency? Pinker says we’re hardwired to interpret things in the most negative light as a protective measure against danger. For example, if we see movement in the bushes, our brains will instinctively tend toward the worst case scenario and interpret it as a predator to prepare us for fight or flight. When this negativity bias activates in everyday life, though, it means we tend to think things are much worse than they are.
(Shortform note: According to positive psychology, our negativity bias not only distorts our perception of how good or bad things are, but it can lead to major mental health problems like depression and anxiety, cause us to make poor choices, and hurt our relationships. Psychologists suggest practicing mindfulness techniques, savoring the good things in life, and doing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to combat your negativity bias.)
3. Nostalgia: Pinker points out one exception to the negativity bias, and that’s in regard to memories of the past. He says we also have a cognitive bias for nostalgia, meaning we tend to remember events of the past as more positive than they were and forget the negative aspects. For example, when you reminisce about your childhood, you’re likely to remember it as more fun and carefree than it really was. This means people will naturally tend to think things were better in the past, which can only mean things have gotten worse over time.
(Shortform note: This is due to what psychologists call the “reminiscence bump” and the “positivity effect.” The reminiscence bump refers to the finding that older people recall events from their childhood and young adulthood better than they remember their middle-aged years. The positivity effect says that as people get older they tend to remember things more positively. These two effects together mean older people are more likely to remember their early years in a positive light.)
Satisfaction With Life in the Modern World
In The Dawn of Everything, Graeber and Wengrow take issue with the assertion that nobody would really want to live in a pre-modern society, arguing that there are many historical accounts of people choosing to do exactly that. They also point out that Native Americans, and other indigenous cultures around the world, consciously rejected attempts to force modernization on them. They ask, if modernization is unequivocally good, why did it have to be forced on people?
If people are unappreciative of the positive aspects of modern life, however, this may be due to what psychologists call hedonic adaptation, also referred to as a “hedonic treadmill.” This is the idea that we don’t enjoy things as much when we’re used to them. For example, if you ate your favorite meal every day, it would become less pleasurable over time, and you would begin to crave something else. Perhaps life in the modern world feels dissatisfying for many because it’s all we know, so we yearn for something new and different.
Recognizing the media slant and our cognitive biases should enable us to intellectually challenge and correct our assumptions, Pinker says. But we rarely do this. He explains that it’s difficult to overcome those biases and to challenge what feels intuitive. If things feel like they’re worse than they used to be, in other words, it’s difficult to actually believe that feeling is wrong. So, Pinker says that the solution is to count—when we look at the data, we can no longer deny that things are getting better. So, let’s turn to the data he presents.
In this section, we’ll review the statistics Pinker presents to support his argument that the world is getting better for humans everywhere. We’ve organized his data into three categories of well-being: human, societal, and environmental. Pinker notes throughout the book that the United States tends to be an outlier on many of the measures, like happiness and equality, and that it’s not showing as much progress as other wealthy democratic nations.
The first area of progress we’ll look at is that of human well-being. In this category, we’ll consider statistics presented by Pinker on overall lifestyle, health, safety, human rights, and happiness. According to Pinker, we can track how well humans are doing as a whole by looking at measures in these areas. And when we do, we see improvements on every measure.
Overall, Pinker argues that people have a much better work/leisure balance than they did in the past. He says that modernization has made this possible through the invention of electricity and time-saving appliances. Modern technology means we have to work fewer hours to support our households, and we spend far fewer hours on basic household chores, allowing us more free time to pursue pleasurable activities, like travel. Some of the statistics presented to support Pinker’s argument are:
How Do We Spend Our Leisure Time?
While we may have more leisure time than our immediate forebears, the earliest humans may have had even more. According to Yuval Noah Harari, in his book Sapiens, people in early foraging societies likely spent significantly fewer hours per week working than the average person in the modern world. Anthropological studies comparing foraging to farming societies generally find the same: Foragers spend less time working and more time engaging in leisure activities.
Regardless of the amount of leisure time, though, it’s how we spend it that determines how it affects our lives. And technology has changed the way we spend our leisure time. According to the American Time Use Survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American spends more than 60% (over three hours) of their daily leisure time watching TV or on the computer. Scientific studies have documented a number of negative effects of technology use on our mental and physical health. Psychologists offer advice for using your leisure time more effectively: Engage in activities that challenge you, improve yourself and your relationships, or achieve a state of creative “flow.”
Next, we’ll look at a factor that Pinker argues is universally understood as a measure of progress: health. On this topic, he looks at access to food and nutrition, how long people live, and how medical advancements have eradicated many diseases that once plagued humanity. Pinker cites the following evidence that humans are living longer, healthier lives around the globe:
The Benefits of Progress are Unevenly Distributed
Pinker readily acknowledges that none of the above benefits are equally distributed around the world.
Much of this is the legacy of colonialism. Countries that were previously subject to European colonization, especially those in Africa, have some of the poorest outcomes on all of the above measures. The countries with the lowest life expectancy rates and poorest health are all African countries. Child mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa is 14 times higher than it is in Europe and North America. The countries with the greatest food crises are all in Africa and the Middle East.
In Development as Freedom, economist and philosopher Amartya Sen examines the connection between food production and population, and his conclusions align with Pinker’s. Sen argues that despite the growing global population, there is no overall food shortage in the world. He says enough food is produced to feed everyone; it’s just not distributed well.
So, the biggest challenge for the future will be addressing these inequalities in how the benefits of progress are distributed.
The next measure of progress we’ll look at is safety. On this measure, Pinker examines data on both intentional and accidental causes of harm and death, and says that we’re safer on all counts. While we can never avoid violence, accidents, or natural disasters entirely, he says we can put policies in place that minimize their threat and make us safer. Let’s look at the data Pinker presents to support a claim that we’re safer than people were in the past.
1. Violent crime: To look at the threat of violent crime and how that's changed over time, Pinker provides statistics for homicide deaths in the US and England, as compared to the worldwide average. He shows that while the homicide rate in England has remained consistent from 1965-2000, it’s consistently very low. The US rate by contrast has fluctuated between about six and 10 deaths per 1,000 people during those decades, with the most recent two decades dropping to the lowest rate, around five deaths per 1,000. The worldwide rate also has gotten continuously lower since the year 2,000, dropping from around nine to six per 1,000.
Pinker says statistics on homicide show that the great majority of it happens in very small portions of the world—specific neighborhoods in specific cities in specific countries. He believes targeted (“effective, fair, and humane”) law enforcement in those areas is the solution. He also advocates for CBT-style therapy for populations that are in these high-violence areas, to teach self-control and thereby reduce violent tendencies.
(Shortform note: The suggestion to increase law enforcement in high-crime areas is a complex issue. Researchers have found that on average, every police officer added to a city results in between 0.06 and 0.1 fewer homicides. Which means it would take more than 10 new police officers to save one life per year, at a cost of between $1 million to $2 million annually. While this may seem worthwhile, researchers also note that increasing police presence also means an increase in arrests for lower level, “victimless” crimes, like drug possession, as well as increasing the incidence of racial profiling and police brutality.)
2. Accidents and disasters: Pinker argues that we’ve become much better over time at preventing and responding to natural disasters and accidents of all kinds. He points out that rates of death from both accidents and natural disasters have decreased steadily over time. As an example, he shows that deaths from traffic accidents in the US were 24 times lower in 2021 than in 1950. He attributes this to improved safety features in cars, campaigns and policies targeting drunk driving, driver education programs, and law enforcement. He also shows consistently declining rates from other kinds of accidents, including from fire, drowning, and gas poisoning.
(Shortform note: The United Nations has said that natural disasters related to climate change have increased five-fold over the last 50 years, with over 90% of the deaths being in developing countries. As Pinker points out, the rate of death from such disasters depends heavily on the warning and response systems in place. Because these disasters are only expected to increase in the future, the UN emphasizes the importance of ramping up efforts to prepare for and respond to them, especially in poorer nations.)
There is, however, one notable exception to the “accidental death” trend, and that is in the area of accidental drug overdose. In this category, the rate of death has risen sharply and steadily in the US since the 1990s. Pinker acknowledges this rise, but he argues that this one exception doesn’t negate the overall trend of decreasing deaths by accidents. And he believes the best way to address the issue is to push forward with Enlightenment thinking and apply reason and science to the problem. In other words, by creating social programs and policies to address it.
The Root Causes of Drug Addiction
While Pinker categorizes drug overdose under “accidents,” it certainly isn’t the same kind of accident as drowning or being killed in a tornado. Overdose is usually a result of addiction, which has a psychological root cause. This probably makes it more appropriate for the “happiness” category. Since the 1970s, researchers in psychology have noted the social and environmental causes of addiction, beginning with the “Rat Park” experiments.
In this series of experiments, groups of rats were studied side by side. Some rats were put into empty cages with no stimulation, while the others were put in a “park” setting with a stimulating environment where they were free to socialize, play, and exercise. All groups of rats were given two bottles of water to drink—one plain water, and the other laced with morphine. The rats in “Rat Park” preferred the plain water, while the rats with the isolated environment were 10-16 times more likely to choose the morphine water and become addicted.
Johann Hari addresses this issue in his book Lost Connections, which looks at the social causes of depression (and the addiction that often follows). He says “the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety—it’s connection.”
Next, we’ll look at Pinker’s data on human rights progress. He specifically considers racism, sexism, and homophobia to be the biggest contributors to human rights abuses and argues that we should acknowledge the great advances the world has made in these areas.
Racist, sexist, and homophobic attitudes: Pinker provides data from the Pew Research Center on racist, sexist, and homophobic opinions that shows those have all steadily declined in the US from 1985-2015, and they are far more likely to be associated with the oldest generation. He shows us that hate crimes have also declined, and he says that while there were upticks during the Trump presidency, that is not indicative of an overall trend.(Shortform note: Racism isn’t only about bigoted attitudes. It’s built into the structure of society. Systemic racism includes inequalities and discrimination that are part of social institutions. For example, discriminatory practices in hiring, housing, and policing result in large-scale social disadvantages for some groups as compared to others.)
Women’s rights: Pinker shows that women around the world have increasingly gained more rights, freedom, education, and economic security. He points out that in 1900, only one country allowed women to vote—New Zealand. Today, women can vote in every country that men can, except one—Vatican City. This supports Pinker’s claim that religion is one of the major barriers to Enlightenment values.
Gay rights: Pinker points out that homosexuality used to be considered a crime in almost every country in the world. He says the first suggestion that sexuality between consenting adults should not be legislated came from European Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire, and some countries began revising their laws shortly thereafter. The statistics Pinker presents show that as of 2015, around 90% of the world’s countries have decriminalized homosexuality.
Liberalization: Pinker says that when we look at the overall trends, we see that the world is becoming increasingly liberal. He defines liberal values as “emancipatory” values that encourage personal freedom and autonomy, individuality, and creativity over authority, conformity, and discipline. He points out that there are still gaps between regions, but all world regions are becoming more liberal over time. He argues that when we look at correlations between liberalization and other social features, we see that more liberal countries correlate with:
Women’s and LGBTQ rights in Indigenous Societies
On these measures, Pinker compares the present to the relatively recent past, and the progress is undeniable. However, if we look further back in time, we find that in some cases, these issues got worse before improving again. For example, there have been many indigenous matriarchal societies around the world, meaning societies in which women have high status and leadership roles. Women’s status tended to decline in many of these cultures only after European colonization, but there are still some solidly matriarchal societies existing today, such as the Mosuo in rural China.
Many indigenous cultures, as well as early state societies like the Greeks and Romans, also accepted homosexuality as natural and normal long before the Enlightenment. This may even be one of the ideas the Enlightenment thinkers “borrowed” from Native Americans—many of those tribes are known to have had sex/gender systems that were characterized by fluidity in gender and sexual identity and categorization.
Finally, in the category of human well-being, we’ll look at happiness. We might ask, does any of this really matter if we’re not any happier? Pinker says, despite beliefs to the contrary, we are happier. He acknowledges that happiness can be difficult to measure. It can only be measured by self-reporting, which can be unreliable. However, he argues that there are intrinsic goods in life—life itself, health, education, leisure, and freedom—and we can measure those. People who have more of those things should be happier than those who have less, Pinker says. And if they have those things and they’re still unhappy, Pinker says it’s an issue of ingratitude.
1. Levels of happiness: In order to examine what actually makes people happy, Pinker looks at levels of happiness across different countries and then compares those to other features of those countries. He says the research shows that happier countries also have better health, greater freedom, higher wealth, and better social welfare systems.
Although these correlations exist, Pinker acknowledges that there are outliers. Specifically, the data shows that in general, wealthier countries tend to have happier citizens. However, based on relative wealth, Pinker says the US is not as happy as it “should” be, and Latin American countries are happier than they “should” be. So clearly wealth isn’t a consistent predictor of happiness if considered in isolation.
(Shortform note: Two factors influencing how much money affects our happiness are how we prioritize it in our lives and how we spend it. Researchers have found that people who prioritize money over time tend to be less happy than those who value time more. And those who spend their money on experiences and on other people are happier than those who spend their money on material items for themselves. Differing cultural values related to those factors could explain why wealth and happiness don’t correlate so neatly across countries.)
2. Mental illness: Pinker acknowledges we’ve seen a rise in mental illness in recent years. However, he attributes this rise largely to a rise in diagnoses. He says over-diagnosis, and expanding definitions of what constitutes a “mental illness” mean more people are now considered to be mentally ill, but that doesn’t mean more people actually are mentally ill. In fact, he argues that the fact that we’ve gotten better at acknowledging and diagnosing mental illness is a positive sign that we’re becoming more compassionate and is actually a sign of moral progress.
(Shortform note: Scholars disagree on whether mental illness rates are increasing or if it’s an over-diagnosis problem. However, some research suggests that a mental illness diagnosis can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, believing you’re mentally ill can have negative effects on your mental health. If this is true, then the long-term results would be the same: an increase in mental illness.)
3. Loneliness: Pinker says there’s a widespread belief that people are lonelier now than they were in the past, because we have fewer in-person relationships and less community involvement. But (although he only looks at data for Americans on this measure) he says the data shows that people aren’t actually lonelier now—they just have different types of relationships than they did in the past. They interact more on social media than in person, but they have wider social networks because of this.
Does Social Media Impact Our Well-Being?
Research examining the link between social media use and well-being is contradictory, so the correlation is still unclear. A 2019 study looked for links specifically between social media use and overall well-being, academic achievement, and narcissism. The researchers found little to no correlation on the first two factors, but they did find higher rates of narcissism associated with social media use.
On the other hand, a 2020 study did find a correlation between social media use and poorer mental health. Researchers in this study report that “social envy” associated with social media use can increase levels of depression and anxiety.
Harvard Health says asking whether social media causes loneliness is like asking whether eating causes obesity—in other words, only if you overindulge. Several research studies have found that heavier users of social media are more prone to loneliness.
Researchers also caution that as social media use is a relatively new phenomenon, there’s still insufficient research to make solid conclusions yet about its long-term effects.
Next, we’ll turn to Pinker’s data on how Enlightenment values have affected humans on a larger scale—at the societal level. In this section, we’ll discuss research on wealth distribution and inequality, peacefulness, democracy, and technological advancement.
On the topic of wealth distribution, Pinker says that it’s a mistake to think that inequality in itself is a bad thing. He argues that inequality in distribution of wealth isn’t a problem in itself, because it doesn’t matter how much money rich people have, as long as everyone has enough. For example, if the richest people in society triple their wealth and the poorest people double their wealth, that may make the inequality between richest and poorest greater, but it still means everyone is better off. So the problem, he says, is poverty, not inequality. A more equal society isn’t necessarily good either, he argues, because the things that tend to level societies are tyrannical leaders, war, disease, and state collapse.
Global Distribution of Wealth
Pinker says the idea that “as the rich get richer, the poor get poorer” is actually false. The data shows that all around the world, the rich have indeed gotten richer, and the poor have also gotten richer, just to a lesser degree. Historically, Pinker tells us, worldwide inequality increased dramatically starting at the Industrial Revolution, because that allowed some people to get very rich on others’ labor, creating major class gaps. But since then, wealth has become more equally distributed again, as people in all classes have prospered.
The overall global pattern, Pinker says, shows that the lower and middle classes of poorer countries have improved their conditions steadily, along with the upper classes of richer countries. The lower-middle classes of the rich countries have not improved as much, though, and he argues that this causes Americans and Europeans (particularly in those classes that haven’t fared as well) to think conditions are not getting better. But Pinker says the UK and US lower-middle classes just happen to be the worst off as far as gains. But he says when we focus on the big picture, “the trade-off is worth it.”
(Shortform note: It can also be argued that inequality in wealth creates inequality in power, and that means the very wealthy tend to have a disproportionate amount of influence over the political process. And when this is inherited wealth, it can create a situation much like a nobility, with generations of families becoming a ruling class. Improving the economic situation of the poor and working class would not necessarily eliminate this power imbalance problem if the people at the top of the social structure still have vast amounts of wealth that those at the bottom never come close to reaching.)
Poverty Alleviation
One major mechanism for poverty alleviation in developed countries is taxation systems that charge a greater proportion to the wealthier groups and distribute it to the poorer ones through social programs, which Pinker says is a feature of modern capitalism. He says pre-modern/pre-capitalist societies did much less to help the poor.
Since the middle of the 20th century, social spending in developed countries has increased dramatically. Of these countries, Pinker says, the US is notoriously resistant to social spending, with conservatives and libertarians always trying to limit it. And still, he says, the US spends 19% of its GDP on social services. By comparison, Pinker notes that Indonesia spends 2% and India 2.5% of their GDP on social services.
(Shortform note: Still, the US lacks many social services that most of the developed world has, like government subsidized health care and child care, and mandatory paid leaves. Some suggest the lack of public support for expanding social services in America is due to entrenched racism in American culture. Beliefs that these programs would disproportionately serve people of color create resistance from the white majority and from the wealthier classes that hold stereotypes about welfare recipients.)
Pinker points out that some European countries (for example, Germany and the Scandinavian countries) have fared better than others, and better than the US, because they have more robust social welfare systems, ensuring that everyone has a decent standard of living. He believes that universal basic income may be the next historical trend we’ll see to prevent poverty.
Is Universal Basic Income Realistic?
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a controversial topic, but there’s growing support for the idea worldwide. Generally, the idea is that the government gives a specific amount of money to the citizens each month to subsidize their cost of living. This sometimes comes with stipulations, such as the requirement that you must be working or actively seeking employment to qualify.
Norway is the only country that currently has a national UBI for all citizens, and Brazil has UBI for the poorest citizens. But many other countries have considered it, and there have been a few pilot experiments with it in Finland, Canada, and the US.
The city of Stockton, California ran a two-year experiment with giving all residents $500 per month—without any stipulations. Despite the common belief that UBI would encourage people to be lazy and not work, this experiment found that even this small amount increased the overall well-being of residents, and increased the rate of full-time employment. Other experiments have shown similar results. When people have enough money to meet their needs without constant stress, they have the time and energy to seek out full-time work in more satisfying jobs.
The major challenge of UBI is the question of how to fund it. Taxation is the most obvious answer, but that can work in different ways—for example, through diverting funds from other areas of the national budget, or by increasing taxation on corporations or citizens. Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes, argues in his book Fair Shot, that the wealthiest citizens of society, like himself, should pay for a UBI for the less wealthy.
In the discussion of peace and violence, Pinker refers to his previous book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, to review historical trends, and then extends the data to include the seven years between that book and this one. That book showed that globally, violence has declined by every objective measure. But he says people have critiqued it, pointing out major episodes of violence that have happened since its publication. Still, he argues that those are blips on the radar and don’t change the overall historical trend, which is that instances of violence are declining globally.
Pinker focuses here on statistics of wars between major world powers. He says from the 1500s through the 1700s, major powers were fighting each other 75-100% of the time. War was far more the norm than peace. However, he shows us that between 1800 and the present, less than 25% of the time has been spent in war between major powers. After World War II, we entered what’s called the Long Peace, with no major world wars since. Although wars still break out, Pinker says, they’re no longer the norm.
He says since “war begins in the minds of men,” making explicit anti-war policies contributes to fewer wars because people come to see war as unacceptable. The UN Security Council exists for this reason—countries technically can’t wage war on one another without approval from this council. Pinker points out that for most of human history, that hasn’t been the case.
(Shortform note: Although Pinker would surely remind us that this is an exception that doesn’t negate the rule, it should be noted that since the writing of this book, in February of 2022, Russia launched a military invasion of Ukraine. And this is having global consequences in the form of major disruption in supply chains. The disruption has caused shortages and soaring prices of certain goods, including food. Ukraine and Russia supply a large proportion of the world’s wheat, barley, and sunflower oil, and some experts believe long-term disruption in this supply has the potential to cause widespread famine.)
Pinker says human societies are always trying to find a balance between the violence of anarchy and of tyranny. He considers democracy to be the form of government that best finds that balance between allowing citizens freedoms and also protecting them. He argues that democratization of the world’s nations constitutes progress, and the world is clearly going in that direction. He points out that in 1971 there were 31 democratic governments in the world. In 1989 that number was 52. In 2009 it was 87, and in 2015 it was 103. This shows the world is increasingly moving toward democracy as a form of government.
Next, Pinker makes a connection between democratic government and human rights protections. He says, along with democratization, government protections of the human rights of their citizens have gradually increased worldwide over time. Pinker points to Norway as the “gold standard” for human rights protections, and North Korea as the opposite. He shows that when South Korea democratized, human rights protections improved there, by comparison.
How Do We Measure Democracy?
Rather than counting the number of democratic nations, some experts prefer to look at the number of people living in democratic countries as a measure of how democratic the world is. They say counting this way tells us how many people in the world enjoy democratic rights. And according to researchers for Our World in Data, between 2017 and 2021, this number fell from 3.9 billion to 2.3 billion people. To explain this, the researchers point to Brazil, Indonesia, and Poland as examples of three countries that have become more autocratic in this time period, with a total of over 500 million people living in them.
Another trend undermining democracy is the rise in democratically elected authoritarian leaders, sometimes called “Democratic Strongmen.” Such leaders assume power by being elected in via populist movements and propagandist campaigns, and then gradually chip away at democratic rights as they hold office.
Capital Punishment
Pinker considers capital punishment to be a form of abuse by a government of its own citizens, so he argues that abolition of capital punishment is progress. The top five countries that execute people are China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. Pinker points out that the US is an outlier among wealthy democratic nations on several measures, including this one. In this case, he says the problem is that the US is too democratic, meaning a majority of citizens tend to think the death penalty is just, so it stays in place. In some cases, with issues like this, he says, the government needs to legislate based on reason by legal scholars, instead of the will of the “common man.”
Even though the US lags behind its democratic counterparts in this area, Pinker says capital punishment is on its way out. States have gradually banned the death penalty, and those that still impose it do so less frequently than in the past. So he says it’s only a matter of time until the US abolishes this practice.
(Shortform note: The declining trend in capital punishment appears to be continuing. Amnesty International has reported decreases in the number of executions worldwide every year for the past decade. It should be noted that China cannot be included in the data because they keep executions secret, though Amnesty reports that the number is likely in the thousands annually. In 2020, 18 countries carried out executions, with the top six being China, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the US.)
As a final measure of societal well-being, Pinker turns again to that enemy of Enlightenment: anti-technology sentiment. He says there are fears that technology will destroy us, but most of the major threats humanity has faced could actually have been avoided or solved with technology. And that’s still the case with the problems we face today. Some of those fears include: artificial intelligence, bioterrorism and cyberterrorism, and nuclear technology.
Pinker argues that fears about artificial intelligence are simply irrational, because computers have to be programmed and operated by humans, so they cannot possibly evolve the way things in nature do. Because of this, he says, they’ll never have human-like motivations. So, this fear, in Pinker’s view, is simply based in irrationality: People need to use reason to counter these kinds of fears.
(Shortform note: Although scientists generally agree that computers likely can’t become sentient in the way humans are, there are other very real concerns. AI technology can certainly be used to manipulate people, and it can make dangerous mistakes—for example, self-driving cars or automated weapons can malfunction. There are also concerns about humans being susceptible to using AI technology to replace human interaction, which could have devastating effects on our relationships and identities.)
There are also widespread fears of attacks by biological weapons or cybersecurity attacks that could cause the collapse of civilization. Pinker argues that these fears are far overblown compared to the likelihood of them happening. Biological organisms like viruses, he says, are widely recognized as poor weapons, because once released they can’t be controlled, so the user can’t avoid becoming a victim of them. Cyberterrorist threats could cause a breakdown of technologies, but that certainly wouldn't need to entail the collapse of civilization or anything so dramatic as people imagine.
(Shortform note: On the topic of the potential for biological warfare, a biophysicist notes that while it’s true that using biological weapons might be irrational because of the potential for backfire, there are plenty of people who don’t think rationally in the world. As far as the dangers of cyberterrorist attacks, experts agree that fears are probably overblown, but they caution that younger generations will continue to be more tech-savvy, which means the threat may increase with time.)
Pinker says that although nuclear technology itself can be used in positive ways, one technological threat is real: nuclear war. But fear-mongering is counterproductive, he says. It immobilizes people. People are more likely to try to solve problems if they think they’re solvable, so we need an approach somewhere between panic and apathy. Therefore, like all other challenges we face, we must address the nuclear threat with reason.
How Can We Minimize the Nuclear Threat?
Economist and philosopher Max Roser analyzes data on nuclear risk, and he suggests some strategies for combating that risk. He says that we’ve made steady progress in nuclear disarmament over the past 30 years or so and argues that we should continue toward a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons from the world. Some other strategies he suggests we employ in the meantime are:
Promote cultural value shifts toward peacefulness, including transitioning to more democratic governments.
Monitor current nuclear risks more closely. This monitoring is done by the International Atomic Energy Agency. We need to ensure this agency has the resources necessary to do the best job possible.
Sign treaties between nations to stop proliferation of more nuclear weapons.
Educate the public to be more aware of the dangers and risks and to actively work against this threat. He points out that this subject was once at the forefront of social dialogue and awareness but has slipped out of our focus, even though we still have weapons that can kill billions of people.
Pinker’s final measure of Enlightenment progress is perhaps the one that poses the greatest challenge and is the basis for the strongest pushback against his argument that things are getting better: the environment.
Pinker acknowledges that arguments about environmental destruction are among the most common criticisms he gets. It can be argued, for example, that the good of modernization does not outweigh the harm it does to the environment. So he asks whether progress and modernity are worth the environmental cost. He argues that they are—because, he says, environmental problems are solvable if we keep on the “enlightened” trajectory of applying reason and science to them. He calls this position “ecomodernism.”
An ecomodernist position, Pinker argues, begins with the acknowledgment that some amount of pollution is an inevitable result of the human lifestyle. Acknowledging that, we then have to weigh the positive effects industrialization has had on human lives against the negative effects it’s had on the natural world. (Shortform note: Industrial pollution has had a negative impact on human health as well as the environment. It has been linked to asthma, bronchitis, skin and eye diseases, and cancer, among other problems.) And he says modern gifts such as electricity, food surplus, advanced medicine, and freedom from servitude are certainly worth some degree of environmental pollution. Most importantly, he argues, this trade-off is worth it because it’s exactly those modern advancements that will solve the environmental crisis.
On the topic of “resources,” Pinker argues that it’s a fallacy to think we’ll eventually run out of the resources we need to sustain our lives because humans have always been able to switch to new resources before the previous ones ran out. For example, modern societies are switching to electric vehicles and moving away from gasoline long before petroleum runs out. (Shortform note: Others are less optimistic. A 2021 study predicted that if economic and population growth continue at their current pace, the world’s natural resources will be depleted in 20 years.)
Here, Pinker revisits the topic of nuclear technology. He advocates developing nuclear technologies for sustainable energy while we continue to push for value and policy shifts that will discourage use of this technology for weapons. And again, he says, we need to acknowledge the danger of the environmental crisis without panicking to the point of resignation.
The environmental issue illustrates Pinker’s overarching argument. He says that when we are confronted with challenges, we have a tendency to overreact or withdraw and desire the past. For example, environmentalists might oppose development of nuclear technology. Some, like neo-Luddites, even take hardline anti-technology stances, arguing for returning to a pre-modern way of living. But Pinker says this is exactly the wrong response. He says only reason, humanism, and continued scientific progress will adequately address climate change—along with all the other problems we face in the world today.
Paths to a More Sustainable Future
Environmentalists tend to take very different, even opposing, positions on how to best address the impending climate change crisis and create a more sustainable future for humanity.
On one hand, the ecomodernist movement seeks to address the problem with technology by “decoupling” humans from nature. This path would entail most humans living in densely populated, highly modernized urban areas, relying on nuclear energy and intensive production of genetically-modified or synthetically created foods. Supporters of ecomodernism believe there’s no way for humanity to return to a symbiotic relationship with nature, so therefore removing ourselves from it, and letting nature “rewild” itself is the only way forward.
On the other hand, back-to-the-land movements promote a closer integration between humans and nature. Emerging in the 1960s and ’70s, this movement has seen a resurgence in recent years, especially among the Millennial generation. This path entails creating more sustainable and harmonious relationships with nature to minimize our impact. It promotes a return to rural living, which includes reducing reliance on technology and engaging in small-scale farming and self-sufficiency.
After looking at the data, do you think the world is getting better or worse, overall?
Did any of the statistics presented challenge or even change your ideas about the state of the world? In which areas were you most surprised? (For example, safety, happiness, peace, technology, and so on.)
After thinking about the cognitive biases Pinker describes, do you think you’ve been susceptible to any of them? How might they have influenced the way you perceive the world?
Do you agree that modernization (continuous technological advancement) is an essential feature of progress? Why or why not?