By Jim Heffernan
These are books I’ve been stuck on for a while, unsure about reviewing them or not. I think they convey a great message, but I wish they were easier to read. Watson’s book is obviously padded for length, and Pinker’s is just a little too academic for non-PhD’s.
Watson’s central message is that we are faced with 10 forces: capitalism, technology, the internet, politics, media, education, human nature, the environment, population, and transportation that act on us all the time, in concert and in mainly negative ways.
Each of the forces changes rapidly and they all seem to combine in ways that threaten our civilization. The forces have all become self-serving. Our general well-being does not figure into the equation because it does not promote the wealth and power of those who control the forces.
Brian Watson comes to the conclusion that we will be unable to resist the forces and 50 years from now, we will be entering a new dark age.
Pinker comes to a different conclusion than Watson. He concludes that we are in an era of enlightenment. He provides us with 75 graphs that show life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, and happiness are actually in a continuous state of improvement, nationally and world-wide. He believes reason, science and humanism will prevail.
Both authors acknowledge negative coverage by our profit-obsessed news and social media exaggerate our problems and impede our progress. Our survival depends on a continued process of enlightenment. Tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, and magical thinking are powerful forces that impede enlightenment. Logic, science, and rationality are our defenses against these forces. History suggests they will be sufficient. Will they?
Here’s a couple of excerpts from the books. I’m hoping that the optimism of Pinker is the more accurate view.
“Remember your math: an anecdote is not a trend. Remember your history: the fact that something is bad today doesn’t mean it was better in the past. Remember your philosophy: one cannot reason that there’s no such thing as reason, or that something is true or good because God said it is. And remember your psychology: much of what we know isn’t so, especially when our comrades know it too.
Keep some perspective. Not every problem is a Crisis, Plague, Epidemic, or Existential Threat, and not every change is the End of This, the Death of That, or the Dawn of a Post-Something Era. Don’t confuse pessimism with profundity: problems are inevitable, but problems are solvable, and diagnosing every setback as a symptom of a sick society is a cheap grab for gravitas.”
― Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress Page 452
If you look, you can see the abyss from here. Recklessness and irresponsibility surround us. Those two qualities characterize our political and corporate leaders, our economic and technological systems, and our approach to the biosphere. Those two qualities are baked into the structure, algorithms, and operation of the internet, connectivity, and Webworld.
We just lost sight of everything. Egged on by a loud and pressing paradigm that made it nearly impossible to keep our wits about us, we chose the wrong gods.
Brian Watson, Heading into the Abyss, Page 283
306 Pages Published Dec. 16, 2019 Available at Cloud and Leaf Bookstore, Manzanita and inter-library loan at Tillamook Public Library
Goodreads 3.67 out of 5 21 ratings
Brian Watson wrote a newspaper column for two regional newspapers in Massachusetts for 20 years until he ran out of optimism.
576 Pages, (123 acknol.,notes, index) Published Feb. 13, 2018 Available at Cloud and Leaf Bookstore, Manzanita and Tillamook Public Library
Goodreads 4.21 out of 5, 28,362 ratings.
Steven Pinker is prominent psychologist who has written 10 books dealing with human nature, language, and cognition.