Do humankind's best days lie ahead?: the Munk debates
(2016)

Nonfiction

eBook

Provider: hoopla
Series:

Details

PUBLISHED
[United States] : House of Anansi Press Inc : Made available through hoopla, 2016
DESCRIPTION

1 online resource

ISBN/ISSN
9781487001698 (electronic bk.) MWT11663053, 148700169X (electronic bk.) 11663053
LANGUAGE
English
NOTES

Progress. It is one of the animating concepts of the modern era. From the Enlightenment onwards, the West has had an enduring belief that through the evolution of institutions, innovations, and ideas, the human condition is improving. This process is supposedly accelerating as new technologies, individual freedoms, and the spread of global norms empower individuals and societies around the world. But is progress inevitable? Its critics argue that human civilization has become different, not better, over the last two and a half centuries. What is seen as a breakthrough or innovation in one period becomes a setback or limitation in another. In short, progress is an ideology, not a fact; a way of thinking about the world as opposed to a description of reality. In the seventeenth semi-annual Munk Debates, which was held in Toronto on November 6, 2015, pioneering cognitive scientist Steven Pinker and bestselling author Matt Ridley squared off against noted philosopher Alain de Botton and bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell to debate whether humankind's best days lie ahead

Mode of access: World Wide Web

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