Do Humankind's Best Days Lie Ahead?

Steven Pinker,Matt Ridley,Alain de Botton,Malcolm Gladwell

Do Humankind's Best Days Lie Ahead?
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Oneworld Publications
Country
United Kingdom
Published
23 November 2016
Pages
128
ISBN
9781786070760

Do Humankind’s Best Days Lie Ahead?

Steven Pinker,Matt Ridley,Alain de Botton,Malcolm Gladwell

Is humanity approaching a Golden Age, driven by technology and ever-closer global networks? Or is the notion of progress an illusion born in the West?

From the Enlightenment onwards, the West has had an enduring belief that through the evolution of institutions, innovations, and ideas, the human condition is improving. This process is supposedly accelerating as new technologies, individual freedoms, and the spread of global norms empower individuals and societies around the world. But is progress inevitable? Its critics argue that human civilization has become different, not better, over the last two and a half centuries. What is seen as a breakthrough or innovation in one period becomes a setback or limitation in another. In short, progress is an ideology not a fact; a way of thinking about the world as opposed to a description of reality.

So is the cup half full or half empty? As part of the Munk Debates series, held in Toronto biannually, pioneering cognitive scientist Steven Pinker and bestselling author Matt Ridley squared off against noted philosopher Alain de Botton and bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell, giving us an entertaining and thought-provoking face-off between four of the world’s most renowned thinkers.

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