Le triomphe des Lumières

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If you believe the world is ending, reconsider: people are living longer, healthier, and happier lives. While challenges are significant, solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of reason and science. Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker invites us to look beyond alarming headlines and doom-laden predictions that exploit our psychological biases. Through seventy-five compelling graphs, he illustrates that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are improving globally, not just in the West. This progress stems from the Enlightenment's belief that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. Contrary to being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment has proven effective but now requires robust defense against human nature's tendencies—tribalism, authoritarianism, and magical thinking—that demagogues readily exploit. Many commentators, entrenched in various ideologies, resist this progress, leading to a corrosive fatalism that threatens the institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation. With intellectual depth and literary flair, the work advocates for reason, science, and humanism as the essential ideals needed to tackle our challenges and sustain our advancement.