Hard to See America's 'Success Story' in Current Bloody Times

Is the world turning pinker? Is all for the best (as Voltaire’s Dr. Pangloss claims in “Candide”) in the best of all possible worlds — or at least, better than in any previous state of the world?

Or is the world turning a darker shade — blood red rather than pink? In the wake of yet another massacre at yet another American school by yet another political extremist with yet another screw loose and yet another assault rifle, it is hard to swallow the pinker thesis. I refer, of course, to my friend and Harvard colleague Steven Pinker, whose latest book makes the (almost) Panglossian case that things have never been better.

“Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress” is a cheerful, contrarian tract for dark times. I would guess that the vast majority of Pinker’s Harvard colleagues and students think the world is careening towards disaster. Here’s what he has to say: “Human welfare has improved dramatically, and it’s improved by almost any measure you like — longevity, health, prosperity, education, literacy, leisure time, and on and on . . . The objective record shows that progress has taken place, and it’s really an enormous success story.”