Enlightenment Now

by Steven Pinker

  9. Successive cohorts more tolerant: Gallup 2002, 2010; Pew Research Center 2012b; Teixeira et al. 2013. Globally: Welzel 2013.

  10. Generations carry values with them: Teixeira et al. 2013; Welzel 2013.

  11. Google searches and other digital truth serums: Stephens-Davidowitz 2017.

  12. Searches for nigger as an index of racism: Stephens-Davidowitz 2014.

  13. There seems to be no systematic decline in searches for jokes in general, such as in the search string “funny jokes.” Stephens-Davidowitz points out that searches for hip-hop lyrics and other appropriations of the word nigger almost entirely use the spelling nigga.

  14. African American poverty: Deaton 2013, p. 180.

  15. African American life expectancy: Cunningham et al. 2017; Deaton 2013, p. 61.

  16. The last year for which the US Census reports illiteracy rates is 1979, when the rate for blacks was 1.6 percent; Snyder 1993, chap. 1, reproduced in National Assessment of Adult Literacy (undated).

  17. See chapter 16, note 24, and chapter 18, note 35.

  18. Disappearance of lynching: Pinker 2011, chap. 7, based on US Census data presented in Payne 2004, plotted in figure 7-2, p. 384. Hate crime homicides of African Americans, plotted in figure 7-3, fell from five in 1996 to one per year in 2006–8. Since then the number of victims stayed at an average of one per year through 2014, then spiked to ten in 2015, nine of them killed in a single incident, a mass shooting in a church in Charleston, South Carolina (Federal Bureau of Investigation 2016b).

  19. For the years between 1996 and 2015 inclusive, the number of hate crime incidents recorded by the FBI correlated with the US homicide rate with a coefficient of .90 (on a scale from –1 to 1).

  20. Anti-Islamic hate crimes follow incidents of Islamist terrorist attacks: Stephens-Davidowitz 2017.

  21. Hate crime hyperbole: E. N. Brown, “Hate Crimes, Hoaxes, and Hyperbole,” Reason, Nov. 18, 2016; Alexander 2016.

  22. How it used to be: S. Coontz, “The Not-So-Good Old Days,” New York Times, June 15, 2013.

  23. Women in the labor force: United States Department of Labor 2016.

  24. For evidence that the decline began even earlier, in 1979, see Pinker 2011, fig. 7-10, p. 402, also based on data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. Because of changes in definitions and coding criteria, those data are not commensurable with the series plotted here in figure 15-4.

  25. Cooperation breeds sympathy: Pinker 2011, chaps. 4, 7, 9, 10.

  26. Justification as a force for moral progress: Pinker 2011, chap. 4; Appiah 2010; Hunt 2007; Mueller 2010b; Nadelmann 1990; Payne 2004; Shermer 2015.

  27. Decline of discrimination, rise of affirmative action: Asal & Pate 2005.

  28. World Public Opinion Poll: Presented in Council on Foreign Relations 2011.

  29. Council on Foreign Relations 2011.

  30. Council on Foreign Relations 2011.

  31. Effectiveness of global shaming campaigns: Pinker 2011, pp. 272–76, 414; Appiah 2010; Mueller 1989, 2004, 2010b; Nadelmann 1990; Payne 2004; Ray 1989.

  32. United Nations Children’s Fund 2014; see also M. Tupy, “Attitudes on FGM Are Shifting,” HumanProgress, http://humanprogress.org/blog/attitudes-on-fgm-are-shifting.

  33. D. Latham, “Pan African Parliament Endorses Ban on FGM,” Inter Press Service, Aug. 6, 2016, http://www.ipsnews.net/2016/08/pan-african-parliament-endorses-ban-on-fgm/.

  34. Criminalization of homosexuality and the gay rights revolution: Pinker 2011, pp. 447–54; Faderman 2015.

  35. For current data on gay rights worldwide, see Equaldex, www.equaldex.com, and “LGBT Rights by Country or Territory,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory.

  36. World Values Survey: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp. Emancipative values: Welzel 2013.

  37. Distinguishing age, period, and cohort: Costa & McCrae 1982; Smith 2008.

  38. See also F. Newport, “Americans Continue to Shift Left on Key Moral Issues,” Gallup, May 26, 2015, http://www.gallup.com/poll/183413/americans-continue-shift-left-key-moral-issues.aspx.

  39. Ipsos 2016.

  40. Values go with the cohort, not the life cycle: Ghitza & Gelman 2014; Inglehart 1997; Welzel 2013.

  41. Emancipative values and the Arab Spring (a complicated relationship): Inglehart 2017.

  42. Correlates of emancipative values: Welzel 2013, especially table 2.7, p. 83, and table 3.2, p. 122.

  43. Cousin marriage and tribalism: S. Pinker, “Strangled by Roots,” New Republic, Aug. 6, 2007.

  44. Knowledge Index: Chen & Dahlman 2006, table 2.

  45. Knowledge Index as a predictor of emancipative values: Welzel 2013, p. 122, where the index is called “Technological Advancement.” Welzel (personal communication) confirms that the Knowledge Index has a highly significant partial correlation with emancipative values (.62) holding constant GDP per capita (or its log), whereas the reverse is not true (.20).

  46. Finkelhor et al. 2014.

  47. Decline of corporal punishment: Pinker 2011, pp. 428–39.

  48. History of child labor: Cunningham 1996; Norberg 2016; Ortiz-Ospina & Roser 2016a.

  49. M. Wirth, “When Dogs Were Used as Kitchen Gadgets,” HumanProgress, Jan. 25, 2017, http://humanprogress.org/blog/when-dogs-were-used-as-kitchen-gadgets.

  50. History of the treatment of children: Pinker 2011, chap. 7.

  51. Economically worthless, emotionally priceless: Zelizer 1985.

  52. Tractor ad: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/tractor.gif.

  53. Correlation between poverty and child labor: Ortiz-Ospina & Roser 2016a.

  54. Desperation, not greed: Norberg 2016; Ortiz-Ospina & Roser 2016a.

  CHAPTER 16: KNOWLEDGE

  1. Homo sapiens: Pinker 1997/2009, 2010; Tooby & DeVore 1987.

  2. Concrete orientation of uneducated peoples: Everett 2008; Flynn 2007; Luria 1976; Oesterdiekhoff 2015; see also my commentary on Everett in https://www.edge.org/conversation/daniel_l_everett-recursion-and-human-thought#22005.

  3. Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 1931, vol. 5, p. 410, quoted in Easterlin 1981.

  4. United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights 1966.

  5. Education causes economic growth: Easterlin 1981; Glaeser et al. 2004; Hafer 2017; Rindermann 2012; Roser & Ortiz-Ospina 2016a; van Leeuwen & van Leewen-Li 2014; van Zanden et al. 2014.

  6. I. N. Thut and D. Adams, Educational Patterns in Contemporary Societies (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), p. 62, quoted in Easterlin 1981, p. 10.

  7. Economic backwardness of Arab countries: Lewis 2002; United Nations Development Programme 2003.

  8. Education leads to peace: Hegre et al. 2011; Thyne 2006. Education leads to democracy: Glaeser, Ponzetto, & Shleifer 2007; Hafer 2017; Lutz, Cuaresma, & Abbasi-Shavazi 2010; Rindermann 2008.

  9. Youth bulges and violence: Potts & Hayden 2008.

  10. Education reduces racism, sexism, homophobia: Rindermann 2008; Teixeira et al. 2013; Welzel 2013.

  11. Education increases respect for free speech and imagination: Welzel 2013.

  12. Education and civic engagement: Hafer 2017; OECD 2015a; Ortiz-Ospina & Roser 2016c; World Bank 2012b.

  13. Education and trust: Ortiz-Ospina & Roser 2016c.

  14. Roser & Ortiz-Ospina 2016b, based on data from UNESCO Institute for Statistics, visualized at World Bank 2016a.

  15. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, visualized at World Bank 2016i.

  16. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, http://data.uis.unesco.org/.

  17. On the relationship between literacy and basic education, see van Leeuwen & van Leewen-Li 2014, pp. 88–93.

  18. Lutz, Butz, & Samir 2014, based on models from the International Institute for
Applied Systems Analysis, http://www.iiasa.ac.at/, summarized in Nagdy & Roser 2016c.

  19. Ecclesiastes 12:12.

  20. Soaring premium for education: Autor 2014.

  21. American high school attendance in 1920 and 1930: Leon 2016. Graduation rate in 2011: A. Duncan, “Why I Wear 80,” Huffington Post, Feb. 14, 2014. High school graduates in college in 2016: Bureau of Labor Statistics 2017.

  22. United States Census Bureau 2016.

  23. Nagdy & Roser 2016c, based on models from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, http://www.iiasa.ac.at/; Lutz, Butz, & Samir 2014.

  24. S. F. Reardon, J. Waldfogel, & D. Bassok, “The Good News About Educational Inequality,” New York Times, Aug. 26, 2016.

  25. Effects of girls’ education: Deaton 2013; Nagdy & Roser 2016c; Radelet 2015.

  26. United Nations 2015b.

  27. Since the first data point for Afghanistan precedes the reign of the Taliban by fifteen years and the second one postdates it by a decade, the gain cannot simply be attributed to the 2001 NATO invasion that deposed the regime.

  28. The Flynn effect: Deary 2001; Flynn 2007, 2012. See also Pinker 2011, pp. 650–60.

  29. Heritability of intelligence: Pinker 2002/2016, chap. 19 and afterword; Deary 2001; Plomin & Deary 2015; Ritchie 2015.

  30. Flynn effect not explained by hybrid vigor: Flynn 2007; Pietschnig & Voracek 2015.

  31. Flynn effect meta-analysis: Pietschnig & Voracek 2015.

  32. End of the Flynn effect: Pietschnig & Voracek 2015.

  33. Evaluating candidate causes of the Flynn effect: Flynn 2007; Pietschnig & Voracek 2015.

  34. Nutrition and health explain only part of Flynn effect: Flynn 2007, 2012; Pietschnig & Voracek 2015.

  35. Existence and heritability of g: Deary 2001; Plomin & Deary 2015; Ritchie 2015.

  36. The Flynn effect as an increase in analytic thinking: Flynn 2007, 2012; Ritchie 2015; Pinker 2011, pp. 650–60.

  37. Education affects the Flynn components of intelligence (though not g): Ritchie, Bates, & Deary 2015.

  38. IQ as a tailwind: Deary 2001; Gottfredson 1997; Makel et al. 2016; Pinker 2002/2016; Ritchie 2015.

  39. The Flynn effect and the moral sense: Flynn 2007; Pinker 2011, pp. 656–70.

  40. The Flynn effect and real-world genius: con, Woodley, te Nijenhuis, & Murphy 2013; pro, Pietschnig & Voracek 2015, p. 283.

  41. High-tech in the developing world: Diamandis & Kotler 2012; Kenny 2011; Radelet 2015.

  42. Benefits of IQ growth: Hafer 2017.

  43. Progress as a hidden variable: Land, Michalos, & Sirgy 2012; Prados de la Escosura 2015; van Zanden et al. 2014; Veenhoven 2010.

  44. Human Development Index: United Nations Development Programme 2016. Inspirations: Sen 1999; ul Haq 1996.

  45. Catching up: Prados de la Escosura 2015, p. 222, counting “the West” as OECD countries prior to 1994, namely the countries of Western Europe and the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. He also notes that the index for sub-Saharan Africa in 2007 was .22, equivalent to the world in the 1950s and the OECD countries in the 1890s. Similarly, the Well-Being Composite for sub-Saharan Africa was approximately –.3 in 2000 (it would be higher today), similar to the world around 1910 and Western Europe around 1875.

  46. For details and qualifications, see Rijpma 2014 and Prados de la Escosura 2015.

  CHAPTER 17: QUALITY OF LIFE

  1. The intellectuals and the masses: Carey 1993.

  2. Variously attributed to a Jewish joke, a vaudeville routine, and a dialogue from the Broadway play Ballyhoo of 1932.

  3. Capabilities: Nussbaum 2000.

  4. Processing time for food: Laudan 2016.

  5. Shorter work hours: Roser 2016t, based on data from Huberman & Minns 2007; see also Tupy 2016, and “Hours Worked Per Worker,” HumanProgress, http://humanprogress.org/f1/2246, for data showing a reduction of 7.2 hours of work per week worldwide.

  6. Housel 2013.

  7. Quoted in Weaver 1987, p. 505.

  8. Productivity and shorter hours: Roser 2016t. Fewer poorer seniors: Deaton 2013, p. 180. Note that the absolute percentage of people in poverty depends on how “poverty” is defined; compare, for example, figure 9-6.

  9. Data on paid vacations in America summarized in Housel 2013, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  10. Data for the UK; calculation by Jesse Ausubel, graphed at http://www.humanprogress.org/static/3261.

  11. Trends in working hours in selected developing countries: Roser 2016t.

  12. Declining time needed to purchase appliances: M. Tupy, “Cost of Living and Wage Stagnation in the United States, 1979–2015,” HumanProgress, https://www.cato.org/projects/humanprogress/cost-of-living; Greenwood, Seshadri, & Yorukoglu 2005.

  13. Least-preferred pastime: Kahneman et al. 2004. Time spent on housework: Greenwood, Seshadri, & Yorukoglu 2005; Roser 2016t.

  14. “Time Spent on Laundry,” HumanProgress, http://humanprogress.org/static/3264, based on S. Skwire, “How Capitalism Has Killed Laundry Day,” CapX, April 11, 2016, http://capx.co/external/capitalism-has-helped-liberate-the-housewife/, and data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  15. Not to be missed: H. Rosling, “The Magic Washing Machine,” TED talk, Dec. 2010, https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine.

  16. Good Housekeeping, vol. 55, no. 4, Oct. 1912, p. 436, quoted in Greenwood, Seshadri, & Yorukoglu 2005.

  17. From The Wealth of Nations.

  18. Falling price of light: Nordhaus 1996.

  19. Kelly 2016, p. 189.

  20. “Yuppie kvetching”: Daniel Hamermesh and Jungmin Lee, quoted in E. Kolbert, “No Time,” New Yorker, May 26, 2014. Trends in leisure, 1965–2003: Aguiar & Hurst 2007. Leisure hours in 2015: Bureau of Labor Statistics 2016c. See the caption to figure 17-6 for more details.

  21. More leisure for Norwegians: Aguiar & Hurst 2007, p. 1001, note 24. More leisure for Britons: Ausubel & Grübler 1995.

  22. Always rushed? Robinson 2013; J. Robinson, “Happiness Means Being Just Rushed Enough,” Scientific American, Feb. 19, 2013.

  23. Family dinners in 1969 and 1999: K. Bowman, “The Family Dinner Is Alive and Well,” New York Times, Aug. 29, 1999. Family dinners in 2014: J. Hook, “WSJ/NBC Poll Suggests Social Media Aren’t Replacing Direct Interactions,” Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2014. Gallup poll: L. Saad, “Most U.S. Families Still Routinely Dine Together at Home,” Gallup, Dec. 23, 2013, http://www.gallup.com/poll/166628/families-routinely-dine-together-home.aspx?g_source=family%20and%20dinner&g_medium=search&g_campaign=tiles. Fischer 2011 comes to a similar conclusion.

  24. Parents spend more time with their children: Sayer, Bianchi, & Robinson 2004; see also notes 25–27 below.

  25. Parents and children: Caplow, Hicks, & Wattenberg 2001, pp. 88–89.

  26. Mothers and children: Coontz 1992/2016, p. 24.

  27. Increased child care, decreased leisure: Aguiar & Hurst 2007, pp. 980–82.

  28. Electronic versus face-to-face contact: Susan Pinker 2014.

  29. Pork and starch: N. Irwin, “What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation? A Brief Guided Tour,” New York Times, May 13, 2016. See also D. Thompson, “America in 1915: Long Hours, Crowded Houses, Death by Trolley,” The Atlantic, Feb. 11, 2016.

  30. Grocery items, 1920s–1980s: N. Irwin, “What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation? A Brief Guided Tour,” New York Times, May 13, 2016. Items in 2015: Food Marketing Institute 2017.

  31. Loneliness and boredom: Bettmann 1974, pp. 62–63.

  32. Newspapers and saloons: N. Irwin, “What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation? A Brief Guided Tour,” New York Times, May 13, 2016.

  33. Accuracy of Wikipedia: Giles 2005; Greenstein & Zhu 2014; Kräenbrin
g et al. 2014.

  CHAPTER 18: HAPPINESS

  1. Transcribed and lightly edited from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8LaT5Iiwo4 and other Internet clips.

  2. Mueller 1999, p. 14.

  3. Easterlin 1973.

  4. Hedonic treadmill: Brickman & Campbell 1971.

  5. Social comparison theory: See chapter 9, note 11; Kelley & Evans 2016.

  6. G. Monbiot, “Neoliberalism Is Creating Loneliness. That’s What’s Wrenching Society Apart,” The Guardian, Oct. 12, 2016.

  7. Axial Age and origin of deepest questions: Goldstein 2013. Philosophy and history of happiness: Haidt 2006; Haybron 2013; McMahon 2006. Science of happiness: Gilbert 2006; Haidt 2006; Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs 2016; Layard 2005; Roser 2017.

  8. Human capabilities: Nussbaum 2000, 2008; Sen 1987, 1999.

  9. Choosing what doesn’t make you happy: Gilbert 2006.

  10. Freedom makes people happy: Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs 2016; Inglehart et al. 2008.

  11. Freedom makes life meaningful: Baumeister, Vohs, et al. 2013.

  12. Validity of happiness reports: Gilbert 2006; Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs 2016; Layard 2005.

  13. Experience versus evaluation of happiness: Baumeister, Vohs, et al. 2013; Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs 2016; Kahneman 2011; Veenhoven 2010.

  14. Context-sensitivity of ratings happiness versus satisfaction versus good life: Deaton 2011; Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs 2016; Veenhoven 2010. Just average them: Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs 2016; Kelley & Evans 2016; Stevenson & Wolfers 2009.

  15. Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs 2016, p. 4, table 2.1, pp. 16, 18.

  16. Eudaemonia or meaningfulness: Baumeister, Vohs, et al. 2013; Haybron 2013; McMahon 2006; R. Baumeister, “The Meanings of Life,” Aeon, Sept. 16, 2013.

  17. Adaptive function of happiness: Pinker 1997/2009, chap. 6. Different adaptive functions of happiness and meaningfulness: R. Baumeister, “The Meanings of Life,” Aeon, Sept. 16, 2013.

  18. Percent happy: cited in Ipsos 2016; see also Veenhoven 2010. Average ladder placement: 5.4 on a 1–10 scale, Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs 2016, p. 3.