0:00:00 > 0:00:03Now on BBC News Stephen Sackur is here with HARDtalk.
0:00:10 > 0:00:14Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Stephen Sackur.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17This HARDtalk programme, like so many others in the churn
0:00:17 > 0:00:20of 24/7 news tends to focus on people and places facing
0:00:20 > 0:00:24problems and challenges. More often than not we hold
0:00:24 > 0:00:28the powerful to account for things that went wrong, not right.
0:00:28 > 0:00:37Are we missing the bigger picture about the world we live in?
0:00:37 > 0:00:41My guest psychologist and writer Steven Pinker
0:00:41 > 0:00:42Thinks so.
0:00:42 > 0:00:45His new book, Enlightenment Now, is a paean to human progress
0:00:45 > 0:00:48driven by reason and science. How convincing are his
0:00:48 > 0:01:09reasons to be cheerful? THEME MUSIC PLAYS.
0:01:17 > 0:01:27Steven Pinker welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. This idea of the
0:01:27 > 0:01:35enlightenment is very dear to your heart. Can you briefly, if you will,
0:01:35 > 0:01:41catch for me what you mean by enlightenment enlightenment the.The
0:01:41 > 0:01:44first of the intellectual movement of the second half of the 18th
0:01:44 > 0:01:52century that put a premium of reason as opposed to authority, tradition,
0:01:52 > 0:01:56doctors, on science, on the attempt to explain the world by testing
0:01:56 > 0:02:04hypotheses and on humanism, the individual humans as the ultimate
0:02:04 > 0:02:11good as opposed to the triumph of a nation and faith.Is it your
0:02:11 > 0:02:17proposition that it captures universal values?European and
0:02:17 > 0:02:28American. Although every idea has to come from somewhere, so it is
0:02:28 > 0:02:31European in that sense, but it is based on reason and universal human
0:02:31 > 0:02:39interests. Everyone wants a long life, to be healthy, almost everyone
0:02:39 > 0:02:44wants knowledge and education. People would prefer to live in
0:02:44 > 0:02:50safety rather than danger, all things being equal.Science and
0:02:50 > 0:02:59reason have underpinned so much of human thought and scientific and
0:02:59 > 0:03:03technological developments in recent centuries but is it you're feeling
0:03:03 > 0:03:10that this enlightenment is under threat?It absolutely is and has
0:03:10 > 0:03:14been since it was formulated. The counter Enlightenment of the 90s
0:03:14 > 0:03:23century Roseberry quickly. -- 19th century rose very quickly. The idea
0:03:23 > 0:03:31that the individual is merely a cell in the super organism, consisting of
0:03:31 > 0:03:38race and groups. And also authoritarian populism with Trump in
0:03:38 > 0:03:45the US, and populous movement in Eastern Europe.You are suggesting
0:03:45 > 0:03:52that Donald Trump in the US, as far as you are concerned, and utterly
0:03:52 > 0:03:58illogical and counter-productive political movement.Indeed. Talking
0:03:58 > 0:04:05about the intellectual roots of trumpeter sounds like an oxymoron
0:04:05 > 0:04:10but he was advised by people like Stephen Bannon and Steve Miller and
0:04:10 > 0:04:14Michael Anton who consider themselves intellectuals and are
0:04:14 > 0:04:18influenced by a counter enlightenment tradition and you can
0:04:18 > 0:04:31see some of the themes of Trumpism Trumpism wet the soul is embodied in
0:04:31 > 0:04:38a strong leader. These are things that run through Trumpism.It seems
0:04:38 > 0:04:44to me his politics is driven by emotions, by an appeal to a person's
0:04:44 > 0:04:53cup in sticks rather than their rational brain. -- instincts. The
0:04:53 > 0:04:58skill of Donald Trump is that, unlike many of his political rivals,
0:04:58 > 0:05:01he found and continues to find a way to connect with a significant part
0:05:01 > 0:05:08of the American population.Indeed and emotional impulses such as
0:05:08 > 0:05:13tribalism, authoritarianism, besting power in a charismatic leader,
0:05:13 > 0:05:23reasoning by an act don't rather than by fax and data -- anecdote,
0:05:23 > 0:05:30the story of the American who is mowed down by an illegal immigrant
0:05:30 > 0:05:37breaking traffic law, is an appeal to our not so rational side...If
0:05:37 > 0:05:44Trump is an aberration, he is not a bleep, he is part of a long line of
0:05:44 > 0:05:50politicians that you would say the last few centuries have been a
0:05:50 > 0:05:54triumph of science and reason, many would say that last few centuries
0:05:54 > 0:05:59have absolutely shown is that the human species is often driven by gut
0:05:59 > 0:06:05instinct and emotion and by feelings that are not anything to do with
0:06:05 > 0:06:10science or reason.Indeed. One of the misconceptions about
0:06:10 > 0:06:16enlightenment thinkers is that we assume we are all rational. Like Mr
0:06:16 > 0:06:25Spock from Star Trek. But David Hume, Spinoza, there were avid
0:06:25 > 0:06:31students of human nature and they proposed norms and institutions that
0:06:31 > 0:06:37would work around for our Dhaka impulses so those impulses are over
0:06:37 > 0:06:48with us. -- dark.You are saying that we need to understand that as
0:06:48 > 0:06:52human beings have never had it so good and that in terms of statistics
0:06:52 > 0:07:00on world hunger, on poverty, on loss of life to warfare, that things are
0:07:00 > 0:07:06rather wonderful on our planet today and that is not the way many people
0:07:06 > 0:07:09in both the developed and developing world actually sit and experience of
0:07:09 > 0:07:19the world?That is right. As long as tragedy and problems have not been
0:07:19 > 0:07:23reduced to zero, there will always be enough of them to feel the news
0:07:23 > 0:07:30and since we are driven by anecdotes and narratives rather than data,
0:07:30 > 0:07:35unless we see the data, we can miss the fantastic progress. Not
0:07:35 > 0:07:42uniformly...We cannot dismiss half of all Syrians, 12 million people,
0:07:42 > 0:07:47being displaced on their homes, many hundreds of thousands killed. We
0:07:47 > 0:07:54cannot dismiss that as an unimportant bleep in the data.
0:07:54 > 0:07:57Absolutely not but because of our rising moral standards, we care more
0:07:57 > 0:08:07about people than out ancestors did so things can look worse than...How
0:08:07 > 0:08:15can you measure compassion?I do not have data on compassion but, if you
0:08:15 > 0:08:22look at the way events are described and categorise, people forget that
0:08:22 > 0:08:28there were greater number of displacement during the partition of
0:08:28 > 0:08:35India, the Korean War had far more casualties than the war in Syria.
0:08:35 > 0:08:40This is not to minimise the horrific suffering of the people in Syria but
0:08:40 > 0:08:48the imperative to recognise the people in earlier eras and to
0:08:48 > 0:08:57realise that not stuck with the amount of suffering. Just as earlier
0:08:57 > 0:09:03generations reduced the number so do we. The realisation that these are
0:09:03 > 0:09:09not utopian aspirations, that displaced people and walls and
0:09:09 > 0:09:15refugees can be reduced.Come back to the point that most people on
0:09:15 > 0:09:20this earth do not think the way that you do, partly because they are not
0:09:20 > 0:09:26trained in the way that you have, but you are driven by bigger data,
0:09:26 > 0:09:31meta data and you crunch the numbers and you take a very high overview of
0:09:31 > 0:09:37the way the world works. Most folks do not do that. They relate to their
0:09:37 > 0:09:42own experience and their own perception. How much value is there
0:09:42 > 0:09:46only telling us we should be more cheerful and positive and optimistic
0:09:46 > 0:09:53when it does not match reality for most of us?That is why we have
0:09:53 > 0:10:00education, persuasion, discourse, debate. In order to counter our
0:10:00 > 0:10:05intuitions and impulses which are often misleading. A lot about
0:10:05 > 0:10:10intuitions are systematically biased. Something that can be
0:10:10 > 0:10:18amplified...But you have abayas also. We all do. You are the product
0:10:18 > 0:10:31of your nurture just as high. When people today expressed doubt about
0:10:31 > 0:10:34expertise and they sometimes say, you know what, you can prove almost
0:10:34 > 0:10:40anything with statistics, they have a point, don't they?You cannot
0:10:40 > 0:10:49prove everything with statistics, not if you are honest ...But you
0:10:49 > 0:10:53make choices about the data you put into your numbercrunching computers,
0:10:53 > 0:10:59you decide what particular facet of the human condition to profile, it
0:10:59 > 0:11:05is all subjective.Then you challenge me and observers get to
0:11:05 > 0:11:10hear the various sides and see who has the most persuasive case. The
0:11:10 > 0:11:15fact that science has progressed shows that, despite human
0:11:15 > 0:11:20disagreement and the fact that we are blinded by our buyer says, over
0:11:20 > 0:11:25the long run, with free speech, open debate, the ability to challenge
0:11:25 > 0:11:30people and the onus to provide data to support your ideas, over the
0:11:30 > 0:11:36longer run, we can approach and understanding of truth.No question
0:11:36 > 0:11:43that everybody would agree that the data on global hunger and poverty
0:11:43 > 0:11:48suggests that most people in the world, in that material sense,
0:11:48 > 0:11:52things are better at today for most people but, if you take the most
0:11:52 > 0:12:00advanced society, the US, your radio progress and runs into real trouble
0:12:00 > 0:12:03because the generations the middle class has seen the living standards
0:12:03 > 0:12:09stagnate and in some years declined. When you look at the polls,
0:12:09 > 0:12:14Americans and said, the years that they have felt the country is on the
0:12:14 > 0:12:20wrong track. Your theory of the eternal march to progress has been
0:12:20 > 0:12:27thwarted.Forget about the eternal march to progress. Problems are
0:12:27 > 0:12:35inevitable. We sold them as they arise. On average we make progress.
0:12:35 > 0:12:42The US is a peculiar case because although people think of it as the
0:12:42 > 0:12:47prototypical advanced democracy, it is a laggard among Western
0:12:47 > 0:12:52democracies...You cannot have an outlay of which is the most
0:12:52 > 0:12:57important economy in the world. It sets a standard and it is in many
0:12:57 > 0:13:01ways a country the rest of the world looks to stop if the message from
0:13:01 > 0:13:06the United States is that the values, the science, the humanism
0:13:06 > 0:13:12can take you so but then things start to go wrong, that is a message
0:13:12 > 0:13:17important to the entire world.It is an unfortunate message and in many
0:13:17 > 0:13:21ways it is a backward country compared to it's West Stand peers.
0:13:21 > 0:13:30It has high incidences of crime, lower lifespans, more abortions,
0:13:30 > 0:13:34high drug use. Any measure of social pathology. It is ahead of most
0:13:34 > 0:13:46countries of the world. But behind other...White?The US is an
0:13:46 > 0:13:49ambivalent enlightenment country because its constitution was perhaps
0:13:49 > 0:13:55the most famous product of the Enlightenment. Jefferson, Adams,
0:13:55 > 0:14:00were men of the Enlightenment but in many ways the country itself has
0:14:00 > 0:14:04been divided. There is an enlightenment country but also a
0:14:04 > 0:14:09more traditional culture of honour, more heavily represented in the
0:14:09 > 0:14:15south than the West, the ethics that instead you have this interest
0:14:15 > 0:14:21institutions, that meet out justice and secure social welfare, it is up
0:14:21 > 0:14:26to the individual defending himself and his family by the justifiable
0:14:26 > 0:14:31use of violence if necessary and a lot of American politics has always
0:14:31 > 0:14:35struggle between the culture of honour and the culture of the
0:14:35 > 0:14:40Enlightenment. And so it is a peculiar example of a Western
0:14:40 > 0:14:41democracy.
0:15:34 > 0:15:38The time when those values, weather it be from Russia, China all
0:15:38 > 0:15:42elsewhere, are being challenged in a concerted and important and
0:15:42 > 0:15:48considerable way.They are being challenged, that's why I would not
0:15:48 > 0:15:54allude to an inexorable march of progress. The end of history was a
0:15:54 > 0:15:59brilliant bit of marketing.It's now a millstone that hangs around
0:15:59 > 0:16:04Francis Fukuyama's neck.In defence of Fukuyama, the number of
0:16:04 > 0:16:10democracies has increased since the end of democracy was published.In
0:16:10 > 0:16:15the last 12 years more countries have seen a regression in diplomatic
0:16:15 > 0:16:23values.It's one of the more pessimistic measures of democracy.
0:16:23 > 0:16:28It's also an activist organisation and they are always biased towards
0:16:28 > 0:16:32our crime crisis. Other indicators of democracies. There's certainly
0:16:32 > 0:16:37been a deceleration. But freedom house has somewhat an alarmist
0:16:37 > 0:16:42picture and when you think about it, in our youth we both had 31
0:16:42 > 0:16:46democracies in the early 1970s, half of Europe was behind the Iron
0:16:46 > 0:16:50Curtain. There was barely a democracy in Latin America. Taiwan
0:16:50 > 0:16:59and the Philippines, Indonesia, Greece was a military dictatorship,
0:16:59 > 0:17:03Spain and Portugal were under the control of fascism. It's true that
0:17:03 > 0:17:07there has been a push bike in countries like Russia, Turkey and
0:17:07 > 0:17:14Venezuela. But still the overall trend continuing through the end of
0:17:14 > 0:17:17history has been towards democratisation.In your world view,
0:17:17 > 0:17:22is religion nothing more than an aberration when it enters the realm
0:17:22 > 0:17:29of public policy and governance?It is certainly... Theistic belief,
0:17:29 > 0:17:36belief in a God who can work miracles, that's something that
0:17:36 > 0:17:40should be kept out of politics, yes. In the United States we have the
0:17:40 > 0:17:44separation of church and state, and I think this is an excellent
0:17:44 > 0:17:48principle, yes, we should not base policy on miracles.Do you think you
0:17:48 > 0:17:52have too rosy a view of human nature?I'm well-equipped to deny
0:17:52 > 0:18:03that charge. Probably the strongest case is that human nature is saddled
0:18:03 > 0:18:07with flaws such as dominance, egocentrism, revenge, magical
0:18:07 > 0:18:14thinking and so on. I'm the last person that can be accused of having
0:18:14 > 0:18:18too rosy a view of human nature. I think human nature is a complex
0:18:18 > 0:18:23system and together with our policies, there are, and I stole the
0:18:23 > 0:18:27phrase from Abraham Lincoln, but better angels of our nature, sides
0:18:27 > 0:18:32of human nature such as reason, empathy, self-control, moral norms
0:18:32 > 0:18:37that are in constant tension with our darker sides and it's up to our
0:18:37 > 0:18:40institutions and our norms to empower our better angels, the parts
0:18:40 > 0:18:46of human nature that over the long run can read to institutions that
0:18:46 > 0:18:53tame our inner demons.Your academic discipline is psychology rather than
0:18:53 > 0:18:56history for example. I want to quote to you something that perhaps puts
0:18:56 > 0:19:00an historical sense of perspective onto your thinking about the
0:19:00 > 0:19:03Enlightenment, it comes from a commentator in the UK responding to
0:19:03 > 0:19:08your book, Jenni Russell, she says every civilisation has believed in
0:19:08 > 0:19:13its in vulnerability until it falls, from the Greeks, the Romans, the
0:19:13 > 0:19:16Mongols, the Ming Dynasty, it couldn't recognise the threats to it
0:19:16 > 0:19:22before it is too late and your blind spot is believing the appeal of
0:19:22 > 0:19:26liberal democracies and the light and values that underpin them are so
0:19:26 > 0:19:31powerful that they need only to be spelt out to be accepted.-- in
0:19:31 > 0:19:38light and. No. I would identify the blind spot among people who confuse
0:19:38 > 0:19:44the existence of progress with some forced inevitability or
0:19:44 > 0:19:49indestructibility ash Enlightenment. People are so unused to even
0:19:49 > 0:19:53conceiving of progress that they can't distinguish a factual claim
0:19:53 > 0:19:57like things are better than they were several decades ago, or several
0:19:57 > 0:20:01centuries ago, with these mystical notions of vulnerability or
0:20:01 > 0:20:06inexorable march is. They're not the same thing. You can acknowledge we
0:20:06 > 0:20:10live longer without saying that we live in a utopia all we are going to
0:20:10 > 0:20:14live forever.What about science, you are a scientist they sought, but
0:20:14 > 0:20:18if one looks your claims for technology and science and the
0:20:18 > 0:20:23degree to which they continue to deliver us to a better place, one
0:20:23 > 0:20:27can quite quickly counter with obviously climate change being a
0:20:27 > 0:20:31massive global problem which science for the moment seems incapable of
0:20:31 > 0:20:36coming up with a clear solution, one could look at the degradation of our
0:20:36 > 0:20:39environments, particularly the oceans and microplastics right now.
0:20:39 > 0:20:43One could say your faith in science looks misplaced.All of the facts
0:20:43 > 0:20:48you mention of course our scientific discoveries, and so without
0:20:48 > 0:20:52science...Their discoveries of the harm science is doing.That's what
0:20:52 > 0:20:56technology has done. The way to deal with them is to understand what
0:20:56 > 0:21:00caused them and what camera burst them.That's where you have to marry
0:21:00 > 0:21:06human ingenuity in science and human motivation and science -- what can
0:21:06 > 0:21:10reverse them. We don't have the motivation to undertake the massive
0:21:10 > 0:21:17cooperative effort to solve these problems.We do, not enough, but we
0:21:17 > 0:21:23do. The Paris climate accord and certainly shows the world, again
0:21:23 > 0:21:28with one conspicuous exception, can come to an agreement.The exception
0:21:28 > 0:21:33is pretty darned important.Although remember that the pushing back on
0:21:33 > 0:21:39our president, and we can't withdraw from the accord for another three
0:21:39 > 0:21:44years anyway, by which time it is possible President Trump will be a
0:21:44 > 0:21:49lame duck and his successor will reinstate the American
0:21:49 > 0:21:51participation, but individual states, individual corporations, the
0:21:51 > 0:21:55rest of the world and the rest of the world of course can push back
0:21:55 > 0:21:59against the United States when it violates the Paris Agreement by
0:21:59 > 0:22:03putting tariffs on American goods based on their carbon emissions. So
0:22:03 > 0:22:08the act of one president unnecessarily undo the progress,
0:22:08 > 0:22:13although they might.When you talk like that I'm just reminded that the
0:22:13 > 0:22:18historian Mall Ferguson said at times he is reminded of Doctor
0:22:18 > 0:22:22Pangalos when he listens to use. Doctor Pangalos, that's a mistake,
0:22:22 > 0:22:29Pangalos is a pessimist, he said we live in one, the best of all
0:22:29 > 0:22:35possible worlds. -- listens to you. You're much more optimistic than
0:22:35 > 0:22:41Doctor Pangalos?Pangalos was a a defender of the belief that God was
0:22:41 > 0:22:44incapable of making the world any better than the way we find it
0:22:44 > 0:22:48today. Just go back to climate change, we are not on track to
0:22:48 > 0:22:52solving the problem of climate change, there's no doubt. I'm not an
0:22:52 > 0:22:56optimist in the sense that everything will all workout.We're
0:22:56 > 0:23:01almost out of time but in essence you always are. Here's my invitation
0:23:01 > 0:23:06to you at the end of this programme, some people today look at where we
0:23:06 > 0:23:10are with climate change, for example, or indeed with nuclear
0:23:10 > 0:23:14proliferation, and in particular the nuclear stand-off right now with
0:23:14 > 0:23:17Donald Trump's United States administration and North Korea, and
0:23:17 > 0:23:22they think to themselves, we've probably never been closer to seeing
0:23:22 > 0:23:26existential threats to humanity come to reality, but your worldview would
0:23:26 > 0:23:34suggest we have it within us always to avert those accidental threats?I
0:23:34 > 0:23:38think there is an imperative to see our way through to avoiding the ex-
0:23:38 > 0:23:43essential threats, to treating these as problems to be solved, not to
0:23:43 > 0:23:47declare that we're doomed so we may as well enjoy life while we can, but
0:23:47 > 0:23:51to put the pressure where it has to be placed for the changes of
0:23:51 > 0:23:57policies, changes of administration, so we mitigate the severest threats.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00And your life, your experience suggests to you that there is every
0:24:00 > 0:24:07good reason to continue to believe that human beings will get to where
0:24:07 > 0:24:11they need to be?Not that there is every reason but there is a reason,
0:24:11 > 0:24:14not that it's inevitable, who knows what the probabilities are, but it
0:24:14 > 0:24:17is possible and therefore there is the imperative to take the steps
0:24:17 > 0:24:22that have the greatest chance of solving the problems.We have to end
0:24:22 > 0:24:25there but Steven Pinker, thank you very much for joining me on
0:24:25 > 0:24:29HARDtalk.Thanks for having me. Thank you very much.