Note publique d'information : La 4e de couv. indique : "Is the world really falling apart ? Is the ideal of progress
obsolete? Cognitive scientist 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 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. Pinker makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the
ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress."
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