Enlightenment Now

Enlightenment Now describes how the values of the Enlightenment, science, reason, humanism, and progress, keep improving our world until today, making it a better place day by day, despite the negative news.

Just 200 years ago, over 90% of the world’s people lived in extreme poverty. Today, that share is less than 10%. That’s because from 1820 to 1900, global income tripled. 50 years later, it had tripled again, and a third time by 1984. Nowadays, even poorer, less developed countries, like Rwanda or El Salvador double their income every 18 years. Richer countries do so every 35 years.

A common argument against the benefits of global income growth is that “only the rich get richer.” That’s nonsense, as not just the decreased share of poverty shows, but also the scientific known as the Kuznets curve. Developed by Simon Kuznets in the 1950s and 60s, it explains that as income grows, inequality only initially rises, then peaks and goes back down.

Another scientist, economist Adolph Wagner, found more evidence to prove this point. Wagner’s law states that as a state’s wealth rises, it spends more on social benefits programs. In Europe, for example, only 1.5% was used for a poverty safety net 100 years ago. Today the average of states’ budgets reserved for it is 22%.

Today’s world is of course not perfect. There are civil wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Syria still going on today. However, less than 100 years ago, war used to be the normal state the world was in. Just during WWII, over 60 million people lost their homes, more than even the peak global refugee numbers we have today.

And not just that. If you watch Pinker’s TED talk on Enlightenment, you’ll see him quickly cover a bunch of charts, showing humans are safer all around. There are fewer accidents, natural deaths, crimes, wars, and less political oppression than ever before.

One of the many movements behind these trends is the United Nations. With its inception in 1945 came the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a humanist document ascribing every person on earth certain, non-negotiable privileges. Today, 193 nations are part of the organization and it continues to help international relations flourish, for example with trade agreements, dispute negotiations, and travel rights.

The reason most people are afraid despite all these good news is that the media who report them don’t favor positive stories. You never hear that 100,000 people have made it out of poverty, but a terror attack is an event they can cover. Speaking of which, terrorism is one of Americans’ greatest fears. And yet, they’re more likely to be killed by a lightning strike or the sting of a bee.…