"The Enlightenment is Working" vs Self-Righteous Religiosity

In a much-needed injection of optimism, Steven Pinker's article, "The Enlightenment is Working" was published today in the Wall Street Journal. As he does in his inspiring book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, Pinker points out that, by several metrics, life is much better for most people today than it was in the past. He shows that homicide rates, poverty levels, and sulfur dioxide pollution have all dropped significantly in the US in the past 30 years, while, on a global scale, there are fewer wars, fewer war-related deaths, fewer nuclear weapons, and fewer oil spills. Even terrorist attacks are down in Western Europe -- although there were 238 terrorist-related deaths in the region in 2016, there were 440 in 1988. Poverty and child mortality rates are down, while literacy rates and life expectancy (now 71 across the globe) are up. Worldwide, wealth has increased a hundredfold in the past 200 years, and extreme poverty and famine have become rare. Although the wealth gap is rising in developed countries, the poor usually have at least sufficient food, clothing, and shelter and often a few luxury items as well, which was not the case in centuries past. Deaths caused by accidents have dropped precipitously, rates of infectious disease are in decline, over half of the world's countries have embraced democracy (as opposed to only 1% 200 years ago), and discrimination against racial and sexual minorities and women has lessened. The global literacy rate is up from just 12% 200 years ago to 85% today, and education for all, including girls, will soon be universal. People are doing much better on IQ tests than they did in the past. We, on average, work less than our ancestors. Young people are apparently happier, less likely to be suicidal or addicted to drugs, and less lonely than their baby boomer parents. So the world may be far from perfect and progress is by no means linear, but we appear to be on the right trajectory.😀

Pinker attributes this progress to the fact that "the Enlightenment is working". As he puts it, "Our ancestors replaced dogma, tradition and authority with reason, debate and institutions of truth-seeking." Science, education, and data-driven policymaking have enabled human flourishing, from improving crop production to reducing disease to improving safety regulations. Pinker stresses the need for accuracy in this process -- accuracy in diagnosing problems and accuracy in finding effective and workable solutions.  When Pinker states that, "Secular liberal democracies are the happiest and healthiest places on earth, and the favorite destinations of people who vote with their feet," it is clear that he thinks Enlightenment values, as opposed to superstition and irrationality, have helped to create these states. It is interesting to note his inclusion of the word "secular", which leads me to wonder to what extent religion and Enlightenment values can coexist. 

While I am agnostic, I was sufficiently marinated in Catholicism growing up that it soaked into my DNA, and I still see the world, to some extent, through a Catholic lens. I still refer to the Catechism to help me resolve moral dilemmas, and I read a number of Catholic websites. There is much that I find appealing in the religion, from the values of the Beatitudes to the universality of love to Catholic social justice teachings to the "fruit of the Spirit" (who could argue against "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control"?). I also think Catholic teachings on contraception, sexuality, and the role of women are absurd and immoral, and I'm very familiar with the ways in which religion can be used to manipulate, exploit, and abuse. Racism, genocide, child abuse, slavery, discrimination against women, and rampant patriarchy are all justified by the flawed humans who wrote the books of the Bible and much Catholic literature. I cannot accept that any of that evil bigotry was divinely inspired. 

Pinker does not allude to abortion rates and teen birth rates in his article, but, in a further testament to progress, these are also at their lowest recorded rates ever. The reasons why, as indicated in this Huffington Post article, are fairly straightforward. They have nothing at all to do with restricting access to abortion, which merely makes the procedure much more dangerous, or with shaming women's sexuality, or with forcing women to give birth. They have everything to do with providing comprehensive sex education and access to contraception. The following graphic shows how the Choice Project, which provided 9,000 women with free contraceptive counseling and contraceptives, helped to reduce pregnancies, births, and abortion rates: 







As Mark Shea, a Catholic writer at Patheos, points out in this brief article, the prolife movement, for the most part, isn't really very prolife. It wants to kick nine million poor children off healthcare and deport 600,000 innocent children to "shithole countries", and "it whores itself out to a misogynistic bully and liar like Donald Trump," thus creating a culture that is hostile to life and human flourishing. Having destroyed its credibility, it then demands the right to abolish abortion by fiat. 

The Enlightenment value of data-driven policymaking is what would truly reduce abortion rates. Those who claim moral ascendancy through their religious beliefs and demand that  abortion be criminalized are very often also opposed to universal healthcare. Some would even like to make contraception illegal, or at least hard to obtain. These policies are exactly those that would increase abortions if they had their way. They would make abortions unsafe without saving a single life. 

And yet these people are so sure they are right. They believe they are engaged in a battle of good versus evil, and they inexplicably consider themselves "good". Someone recently wrote in a combox on a Catholic site, "They [meaning liberals] hate us because we are good." What justified her self-satisfaction? She embraced a religiosity that is irrational, self-aggrandizing, and alienating. Like many, she believed she was following God, but in reality, as narcissistic autocrats do, she was merely identifying herself as and with God. 

Our current administration, sadly, is regressive and harmful. It is not based on reality, actively rejects science, and is not oriented toward encouraging human flourishing. It's hard to understand how is it supported by so many highly religious people who see themselves as ethical. Religion is too often a form of superstition that allows people to easily mislead and be misled. Nazi soldiers simultaneously wore swastikas and inscriptions reading "Gott Mitt Uns". Claiming that God is on one's side is a cheap but effective deception. 

I recently unfriended someone on Facebook over fake news. This person, throughout the months leading up to the 2016 election, posted the most absurd lies about Hillary, including the old "Clinton Body Bags" calumny (namely, that the Clintons had dozens of people killed off). I did some research and managed to show that several of the people on her "hit list" could not have been killed as described or did not exist or had no relation to the Clintons. Much of this information was easily verifiable. For example, one putative victim actually died years before the event that supposedly inspired the Clintons to have him murdered. Her response was that there remained a few people on the list whose murders I had not refuted, so those people must have been killed by the Clintons. She spewed out one bizarre conspiracy theory after the next, including the utterly despicable Pizzagate, and did not have the decency to retract after the claim was debunked. Many of her posts were overtly racist. The last straw was a racist, birtherist post claiming that Obama received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia. I don't know whether she herself is consciously dishonest or wheter she is just easily manipulated. I think she's too intelligent to be the latter. Surprisingly, she truly believes that, as a devout Christian, other people should aspire to her example! She says she wants to be that "light on a hill" that draws others to Christ! 

Spreading lies, gossip, inuendo, and fake news is not a "victimless crime". Doing so certainly hurts the intended target. Hillary Clinton would undoubtedly be president if all Internet reports had been truthful and accurate. The people most likely to indulge in this deceit, like my former Facebook friend, are those most likely to support someone like Donald Trump, who is as abusive and bigoted as they are. They form a large contingent of the people who got him into the White House, and now we are all paying the price. The most vulnerable, such as Dreamers and poor people needing healthcare, are those most deeply hurt. 

So, yes, I can see why Pinker concludes that secular culture rooted in "reason, debate, and institutions of truth-seeking" transcends "dogma, tradition and authority" and promotes progress. I am not convinced that all versions of religion are incompatible with progress. For example, despite holding some medieval views, Pope Francis and the two popes before him embrace(d) the science of climate change. They have spoken out emphatically on the issue and have attempted to reduce the Carbon footprint of the Vatican. Catholic social teaching is largely aligned with modern humanistic ideas. Unfortunately, however, religions attract more than their share of people who are irrational or manipulative or who are easily-manipulated authoritarian followers.