Enlightenment No

... not Enlightenment Now.

Steven Pinker, who for all I know is a marvelous fellow, has penned a book called Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. I haven't read (listened to) it, but just on the face of it, there seems to be no case for the publisher's blurb.

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.

I think it fails under it's own metrics. Think in terms of evolution. In order to flourish, a species needs to:

1. Reproduce
2. Not consume more resources than are being created

On both counts, the modern, secular world is failing. One, we're reproducing at below replacement rates while Muslims, no creatures of the Enlightenment, are reproducing above replacement rate. That means that in Western democracies, it won't be long before Sharia is enacted, first locally and then nationally.

Second, all of the Western nations, Japan included, are running structural fiscal deficits. Money is a proxy for resources. If you're spending more than you earn year after year, you're doomed.

The Enlightenment as modeled by the Secular Left certainly looks good in the short run. In the long run, no.

And then there's ANTIFA, the goon squad of the Enlightenment. No. Just no.