NR PLUS
Magazine March 19, 2018, Issue

A Failed Quest for Meaning

By
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, by Steven Pinker (Viking, 576 pp., $35)

Professor Steven Pinker of Harvard has written a 500-plus-page advertising pamphlet for the Enlightenment. He doesn’t quite make the sale, in spite of his having the good fortune to be pitching the best product . . . ever, really.

Good Steven Pinker argues that the Enlightenment represented an escape from dogma, one in which the emerging combination of the scientific method and political liberalism put every claim and creed to the test of reason. Bad Steven Pinker believes — and believes hard — that the Enlightenment is itself a dogma and a tribe and a scripture. Case in point: Countering the …

In This Issue

Articles

Features

Books, Arts & Manners

Books

Seizing the Future

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Arthur Herman reviews The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World, by Charles C. Mann.

Sections

Letters

Letters

By
Rejecting Despair While admitting that William F. Buckley Jr. himself would probably have a more optimistic take, Richard Brookhiser writes: “The conservative movement is no more. Its destroyers are Donald Trump ...
The Week

The Week

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• We don’t even want public-school teachers teaching our kids. • Historically, the National Rifle Association has derived its political power from two sources. The first is the broad popularity of ...
Poetry

Poetry

By
Sometimes the frost comes early when it might have held its crystallizing of the leaves.
Happy Warrior

Brushing Alone

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Your views on Delta Airlines and Hertz rental cars now correspond to how compelling you found the cable-news appearances of a survivor of the Parkland school shooting.

Most Popular

Law & the Courts

Feds, States Sue to Break Up Facebook

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The Federal Trade Commission and 48 state attorneys general filed an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook on Wednesday, which, if successful, could lead to the first court-ordered breakup of a U.S. corporation in a decade. The lawsuit claims that Facebook has engaged in anticompetitive practices and attempted to ... Read More
Law & the Courts

Feds, States Sue to Break Up Facebook

By
The Federal Trade Commission and 48 state attorneys general filed an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook on Wednesday, which, if successful, could lead to the first court-ordered breakup of a U.S. corporation in a decade. The lawsuit claims that Facebook has engaged in anticompetitive practices and attempted to ... Read More
Law & the Courts

Still Waiting for the Kraken . . .

By
All 50 states have certified their election results and determined the electors who will vote when the Electoral College meets Monday. The “safe harbor” deadline passed on Tuesday. We will learn if there will be any “rogue electors” who write in the candidate they personally prefer instead of the ... Read More
Law & the Courts

Still Waiting for the Kraken . . .

By
All 50 states have certified their election results and determined the electors who will vote when the Electoral College meets Monday. The “safe harbor” deadline passed on Tuesday. We will learn if there will be any “rogue electors” who write in the candidate they personally prefer instead of the ... Read More
NR PLUS U.S.

Our Brave New Biden World

By
America traditionally has not reinvented reality after an election, although prior presidential winners have often tried, as in the fashion of our politics. But the new powers of social media, Silicon Valley, and a woke media have made reality-changing now a reality. Suddenly Antifa and BLM have all but ... Read More
NR PLUS U.S.

Our Brave New Biden World

By
America traditionally has not reinvented reality after an election, although prior presidential winners have often tried, as in the fashion of our politics. But the new powers of social media, Silicon Valley, and a woke media have made reality-changing now a reality. Suddenly Antifa and BLM have all but ... Read More