Article Title: The Secret behind One of the Greatest Success Stories in All of History

Article Summary

The article discusses briefly about Steve Pinker’s book Enlightenment Now where he argues that we live in the best of times ; elucidates us how it has been better than the time before and that must remain devoted to reason and humanism if this good time has to continue.

The author starts with stating the book emphasises that the people of Earth today are better off now than we have ever been and if we fail to understand this we would jeopardise this very progress . The author interviews Mr. Pinker in this article. When the author inquires that why this world doesn’t seem to be in a good state , Mr. Pinker replies that Improvements are gradual and not much to look at.There’s a market for gloom. Thus people who predict doomsday get their share of publicity while those who believe that the world is getting better no one pays heed to them .

Secondly Mr. Picker explains to another question that there is no time when pundits don’t say that we are in crisis. They just list all the worst problems taking place anywhere in the world, and things will look more dire than they ever have. He states that the past decades were much more economically , socially and financially unstable than today .

The author concludes that through the explanations given by Mr. Pinker that It’s not that we shouldn’t be “concerned” about new problems, as if human improvement were driven by a guardian angel or a fairy godmother but it’s precisely because people are concerned that progress can happen. He finds his hopes in rationality as it continues to be valid regardless of whether people believe in it and the only thing binding together everything is our common humanity which can help us to protect this better world .

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Words to Learn from this article:

Backsliding: relapse into bad ways or error

Profound: having or showing great knowledge or insight

Dystopian: relating to or denoting an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one

Pollyanna: an excessively cheerful or optimistic person

Pan-gloss: a person who is optimistic regardless of the circumstances

Pundit: an expert in a particular subject or field who is frequently called upon to give their opinions to the public