The Past, Present, and Future of Progress

At a time when anger and anomie appear to be the order of the day, and the ideals of the Enlightenment are being bombarded from every direction, Yuval Noah Harari and Steven Pinker have entered the fray once more to remind us that all is not lost and to ensure us that reports of the death of liberalism are greatly exaggerated. Taken together, Pinker and Harari, in their most recent books, offer a calculated and compelling assessment of how far humanity has come as a species and where we should look to go in the future. In Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, Pinker contends that now, more than ever, as the dominant narrative has become that of a deepening global crisis and the failure of modernity, classical liberalism needs a forceful and steadfast defense. Using a bewildering amount of data that are neatly broken down into digestible graphs, Pinker is able to argue convincingly that not only has the Enlightenment project worked reasonably well but that when properly appreciated, “the ideals of the Enlightenment are, in fact, stirring, inspiring, noble—a reason to live” (Pinker 6). Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century picks up at the point where Pinker leaves off. After establishing early in his book that liberalism is (as Pinker also contends), “the most successful and most versatile political model humans have so far developed for dealing with the challenges of the modern world” (Harari xviii), Harari then looks to the immediate future and asks whether the ideals of the Enlightenment will be enough to deal with the oncoming revolutions in information technology and biotechnology. He maintains that in the next few decades humankind will be confronted with the most challenging dilemma we have ever faced. If liberalism wishes to survive in a world where infotech and biotech collide, it will have to adjust and reinvent itself once again. Both men agree that we are living at a time when it is difficult “to find meaning and purpose if traditional religious beliefs about an immortal soul are undermined by our best science” (Pinker 3) and that we are, therefore, “left with the task of creating an updated story of the world” (Harari 16). In a world where many exhibit “an inability to conceive of a higher purpose in anything other than religion,” and where “cynicism about the institutions of modernity” (Pinker xv) has become the norm, how will this new story go? Is a new, captivating, and unified narrative even necessary— or desirable? Harari, for one, is unequivocal on the matter: “If this generation lacks a comprehensive view of the cosmos, the future of life will be decided at random” (Harari 266). Although Pinker and Harari do agree on much and more, they also have their points of disagreement. In fact, they are somewhat reminiscent of Pestov and Sergey Ivanovich at one of The Past, Present, and Future of Progress