Steven Pinker’s book Enlightenment Now (2018) has become quite famous and popular. His position isn’t anything but new and was probably best expressed by Matt Ridley in his book The Rational Optimist (2010). The argument is quite a simple one: science and technology have made our lives immensely better than they used to be. To some extent I do agree with this position.
On the surface almost everything is better than even just a 100 (let alone a 1000 or more) years ago. However, that is just the surface. If you look beneath the surface you see a lot of human suffering going on, perhaps a lot more than just a 100 or a 1000 years ago. Depression, suicide, addictions, anxiety levels are at an all-time high. Humankind has psychological problems that were extremely rare or weren’t problems, like ASD, borderline disorder, eating disorders and ADHD.
So, how can you be an optimist when it is only our material world that is shiny and glittery when our psychological world is a wasteland? Of course, a rational optimist might say “Cheer up, guys - no need to be depressed, because this is the best of all worlds we live in”. However, the problems are not only restricted to our mental states. There are also physiological epidemies in our modern world that were virtually unknown in hunter gatherer societies: heart disease and hypertension, most cancers and most allergies. I have a hunch that pretty much all of these diseases are related to stress (cholesterol) levels in our modern lifestyle.
In history we have seen again and again that when indigenous people come into contact with western civilisations diseases start to soar, alcoholism, depression, suicide, high teenage pregnancy rates and low life expectancy are rife in Native American reservations. Indigenous Australians didn’t have a word for cancer and now it is the number one killer among them. Eating disorders were virtually unknown until a few decades ago: Modern media have quickly spread them to the remote corners of our planet.
To my mind it is better to be an idealist pessimist than a rational optimist: like a smoke detector a little bit too sensitive but being able to help in time.
To give a concrete example: twenty years ago, a colleague of mine said that we are living in a horrible time for having children. At first my inner rational optimist came out and thought: “That is crazy and paranoid!”. At no time has it been easier and safer to have children nowadays. I consider low child mortality rates the greatest achievement of medicine. Children have actually way more things than they ever need, and parents spend more time with the (fewer) children they have.
However, twenty years later I tend to see things differently. Childhood doesn’t seem to be such a happy, care-free, time it used to be. There are a lot of depressed teens, cutting themselves, and death by suicide has increased by 33% in the US in the past decade. For a lot of teenagers life consists of exam anxiety, fear of being bullied and boredom. An African proverb says, “It takes a village to raise a child”. That village has definitely gone. Nowadays often there aren’t even grandparents around, there might be no sibling to play with, personal social interactions for children have been dramatically reduced. Often even with their parents who both have a jog. The deep connections that used to be there have gone.
Last, but not least, there is the problem of low fertility rates. Birth rates in the developed world have long dropped below the replacement rate of 2.1. children per woman. This can even be seen as a success story in the eyes of rational optimists, as it makes fears of an overpopulated unwarranted. However, fewer and fewer people wanting to have children should be cause for concern as there are severe long-term consequences to be expected, plus it is initiated of times that aren’t too happy.
Steven Pinker as an evolutionary psychologist knows that having offspring is paramount for living being. He describes how he personally has ignored ''the solemn imperative to spread my genes. By Darwinian standards I am a horrible mistake. . .. But I am happy to be that way, and if my genes don't like it, they can go jump in the lake.'' Of course, everybody’s genes can jump in the lake, but Steve should also start thinking about why that is increasingly the case. In my humble opinion it is because humans are programmed to delay reproduction until times are settled and optimal for child rearing (good job, right partner, etc.). However, in our unsettled times, the right time might just not come at all. And this is definitely not a cause for optimism.
Dedicated to my parents
Dedicated to my parents
Comments
Post a Comment