“We will always be vulnerable to urges like revenge, anecdotal thinking, and demonization. The question is whether our institutions and norms can keep them at bay. The habits of journalism are to always focus on the present. We can be misled by the availability and vividness of current news, and the fading of bad memories, into an inaccurate picture of which way the world is going. Although I’m a political centrist, I apportion the lion’s share of the blame for the challenging of those norms to Trump and the Republican Party. The key point of the book is that the values of the Enlightenment embolden us to solve problems. Human nature allows for the possibility of cumulative improvement, even as it faces the constant drag of primitive impulses that work against it. It’s an ongoing struggle. . . . The position that we can’t solve the problem [climate change} is completely consistent with the denialist position that nothing should change whatsoever. Different premises, but they reach the same conclusion.”
