“The Enlightenment is working. Our ancestors replaced dogma, tradition and authority with reason, debate and institutions of truth-seeking. They replaced superstition and magic with science. And they shifted their values from the glory of the tribe, nation, race, class or faith toward universal human flourishing.”
Let’s hope we don’t materially reverse those gains. Hopefully what we’re seeing now is the last gasps of air by those who would have us go back to tribal, dogmatic thinking.
That being said, and although I’m usually an eternal optimist, I don’t have a lot of faith in the future right now. It feels like we’ve reached a tipping point where we may, in fact, quickly slide backwards.
This is particularly true where, at least in the US, the population has been steadily getting less educated, more misinformed and more hyper polarized. All amid failing or weakened institutions. This is not a blip. This is a decades long trend that will be difficult to reverse because it’s self-reinforcing.
The only thing that’s giving me hope for the US right now are the outspoken and surprisingly effective surviving victims of the Florida shooting.
