Do Humankind S Best Days Lie Ahead

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.

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. So is the cup half full or half empty? As part of the Munk Debates series, held in Toronto biannually, pioneering cognitive scientist Steven Pinker and bestselling author Matt Ridley squared off against noted philosopher Alain de Botton and bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell, giving us an entertaining and thought-provoking face-off between four of the world's most renowned thinkers.

Will Donald J. Trump be America’s next president? For some, his brash, politically incorrect campaign is the panacea for the Washington and Wall Street elites that have saddled the country with endless wars, an anemic economy, and growing racial division. Trump’s boosters believe he will usher in a Reagan-like era of domestic prosperity at home, and free America from a destructive global web of counterproductive trade agreements and military entanglements abroad. Trump’s critics are having none of this. They see not a president in waiting, but a dangerously unstable and inexperienced demagogue — one who threatens U.S. democracy and global peace and security. Rather than being a harbinger of the country’s renewal, Trump’s candidacy is supposedly destroying the social fabric of America by demonizing minorities, denigrating women, and exacerbating racial differences. To engage with the controversy of the moment, the Fall 2016 Munk Debate will move the motion: Be it resolved, Donald Trump can make America great again . . .

The Politics of Well-Being argues that the relationship between well-being and ethical life has been overlooked. The more specific argument of the book is that ethical life requires political engagement, and the emergence of a society committed to critical thinking. It is argued that these conditions allow for our ordination and confirmation as ethical subjects. While well-being can be experienced in different ways, it is claimed that, after experience of ethical life, a more sustainable form of it is revealed to us, a form which we would be drawn to preserve, a form which can be constituted as an object of hope. While the book draws on philosophical themes, its main focus is political. This is because its primary objective is to identify and to examine what needs to be done in order to realise ethical life. Its main focus in this respect is the identification and examination of the barriers which need to be overcome if ethical life is to be realised. It is acknowledged that this will not be an easy task. Indeed, it may be an impossible task. However, despite these barriers, and despite the dark days we are living through, the book is a call to hope rather than a surrender to despair. This book will be of interest to students of politics, psychology, cultural studies, philosophy, and sociology, as well as anyone else interested in exploring new ideas about how the make the world a better place.

The twenty-first semi-annual Munk Debate pits award-winning journalist E. J. Dionne, Jr. and influential author and blogger Andrew Sullivan against former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich and bestselling author and editor Kimberley Strassel to debate the current crisis of American democracy. “Our country is now as close to crossing the line from democracy to autocracy as it has been in our lifetimes.” — E. J. Dionne, Jr. It is the public debate of the moment: is Donald Trump precipitating a crisis of American democracy? For some the answer is an emphatic “yes.” Trump’s disregard for the institutions and political norms of U.S. democracy is imperiling the Republic. The sooner his presidency collapses the sooner the healing can begin and the ship of state righted. For others Trump is not the villain in this drama. Rather, his young presidency is the conduit, not the cause, of Americans’ deep-seated anger towards a privileged and self-dealing Washington elite. Trump’s disruption of politics as usual is what America needs to start the process of restoring democracy by the people, for the people.

From the world-renowned Munk Debates comes a collection of dialogues by leading intellectuals envisioning our post-pandemic future. During this time of social distancing, the acclaimed Munk Debates series have been reimagined into a series of dialogues by leading intellectuals who examine the geopolitical, economic, technological, and historical angles of this unprecedented new era. How will the world look after COVID-19? What is the future for the international economy and institutions? Will the global balance of power shift? Can technology save us? These are the questions that have occupied the best minds since the beginning of the pandemic. In a series of one-on-one conversations with moderator Rudyard Griffiths, renowned author Malcolm Gladwell, journalist Fareed Zakaria, and New York Times columnist David Brooks, along with six other thinkers, dissect what brought us here and what comes next.

The twentieth semi-annual Munk Debate pits Niall Ferguson against Fareed Zakaria to debate the end of the liberal international order. Since the end of World War II, global affairs have been shaped by the increasing free movement of people and goods, international rules setting, and a broad appreciation of the mutual benefits of a more interdependent world. Together these factors defined the liberal international order and sustained an era of rising global prosperity and declining international conflict. But now, for the first time in a generation, the pillars of liberal internationalism are being shaken to their core by the reassertion of national borders, national interests, and nationalist politics across the globe. Can liberal internationalism survive these challenges and remain the defining rules-based system of the future? Or, are we witnessing the beginning of the end of the liberal international order? The twentieth semi-annual Munk Debate, held on April 28th, 2017, pits prominent historian Niall Ferguson against CNN’s Fareed Zakaria to debate the future of liberal internationalism.