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The Glass Half-Empty: Debunking the Myth of Progress in the Twenty-First Century
Despite the doom and gloom of financial crises, global terrorism, climate collapse, and the rise of the far-right, a number of leading intellectuals (Steven Pinker, Hans Rosling, Johan Norberg, and Matt Ridley, among others) have been arguing in recent years that the world is getting better and better. But this “progress narrative” is little more than a very conservative defence of the capitalist status quo.
At a time when liberal democracy appears incapable of stemming the tide of the far-right populism, and when laissez-faire capitalism is ill-equipped to deal with socio-economic problems like climate change, inequality, and the future of work, the real advocates of progress are those willing to challenge these established paradigms.
The Glass Half-Empty argues that, without criticising the systems of capitalism, the changes needed to make a better world will always fall short of our expectations. The “progress narrative” needs to be challenged before we stumble into a potentially catastrophic future, despite having the means to build a truly better world.
At a time when liberal democracy appears incapable of stemming the tide of the far-right populism, and when laissez-faire capitalism is ill-equipped to deal with socio-economic problems like climate change, inequality, and the future of work, the real advocates of progress are those willing to challenge these established paradigms.
The Glass Half-Empty argues that, without criticising the systems of capitalism, the changes needed to make a better world will always fall short of our expectations. The “progress narrative” needs to be challenged before we stumble into a potentially catastrophic future, despite having the means to build a truly better world.
377 pages, Paperback
Published March 10, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 11, 2022
To some extent my reaction to the book is of my own expectations of it. From the author's profession and being placed on the publisher's catalogue in the Economics/Politics section I was expecting an economic criticism of the narrative of progress indeed popularized by the likes of Pinker, but fundamentally proposed by the Bretton Wood institutions and a handful of American billionaires. Chapter 9 indeed touches on this, but with hardly the depth required.
What the book instead embarks on is a broad criticism of what it calls New Optimists (a collection of authors such as Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley, and Johan Norberg), something it claims hasn't ever been attempted before. Then it proceeds to quote and summarized arguments made by Jason Hickel, Mariana Mazzucato, Mark Fisher, Rutger Bregman, Joseph Stiglitz, Branko Milanović, Thomas Piketty, David Graber, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Richard D. Wolff, Naomi Klein or John Gray, all of whom have directly or indirectly already polemicized with the New Optimists themselves.
The Glass Half-Empty is at its strongest when instead of relying on the arguments of other people remains inside the author's sphere of expertise with the accidental economic argument and the more often deployed statistical one. When he discusses the impact of using a logarithmic or linear scale in a chart or disaggregates the data sets used by Pinker or Ridley to tell a more complicated story of the world, Rodrigo Aguilera is on to something, especially as he develops on observations by Hickel and Milanović or makes a few of his own. But the vast majority of the book is preoccupied with debunking the New Optimists' claims about sociology, political science, history, human psychology and philosophy where the author has a less authoritative voice so he rests much more on quotes from the aforementioned eclectic string of authors. Given the short-to-medium size of the book and the immense scope it reaches for, what results is simply a clash of claims that don't have the space to be developed into arguments. Pages and pages of: "Pinker says this, but Hickel says that." which is hardly persuasive for someone unfamiliar with the argument made by Aguilera's chosen author and unsatisfying for those that are.
At the same time, those that have at least a glancing familiarity with Aguilera's sources will note the the one thing they all have in common is their place on the shelf of progressive best-sellers. Other than that, their worldviews are incompatible. The developed arguments from where the author picked the various claims might turn out to be contradictory, thus nullifying what he presented as a firm criticism of some New Optimist or another. This makes for a poor foundation for an i ntelectual edifice that supposes to topple the New Optimism vision of the world.
Because at the end of the day, behind all the data which is punctured and pruned throughout the book, New Optimism is an worldview, a political ideology. In chapters 1 and 8 the author makes some attempts to link it to capitalist interests and other right-wing ideologies and movements, but so shily to the point that chapter 8 remains an inventory of excentric American right-wing tendencies and experiments. There is much more data to replace what was nuanced or debunked and the book only aspires to reach for something deeper. Adding to the feeling of reading something that refuses to congeal is that some of the discussed movements, like neo-reaction, were already mere historical curiosities even by 2019, when I presume the book was written, and the alt-light and alt-right would soon dwindle following social media crackdowns and billionaires shutting of founding. The fact that it only lists these groups, with few efforts to dig deeper and see the underground current in which they all have roots (something intuited by the book, but insufficiently explored), it misses the opportunity to anticipate the mutations in right-wing ideology like the "right wing populists", founded by Peter Thiel who moved on from neo-reaction.
It also harbors an uncommonly high amount of misspellings and typos. I mention this only because it suggests the editing process wasn't particularly thorough, something that might have turned it into a much worthier read. I can see a book that focuses much more on statistical criticism, pointing out that the instances of chart manipulations are so high that the New Optimists are either incompetent or intellectually dishonest, which together with a more developed economic history of the past 50 years of global capitalism could turn out to be much more worthwhile.
As it stands, it's a summary of left-liberal talking points and inherited wisdom that most people either believe or don't, proposing little that would change anybody's mind.
What the book instead embarks on is a broad criticism of what it calls New Optimists (a collection of authors such as Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley, and Johan Norberg), something it claims hasn't ever been attempted before. Then it proceeds to quote and summarized arguments made by Jason Hickel, Mariana Mazzucato, Mark Fisher, Rutger Bregman, Joseph Stiglitz, Branko Milanović, Thomas Piketty, David Graber, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Richard D. Wolff, Naomi Klein or John Gray, all of whom have directly or indirectly already polemicized with the New Optimists themselves.
The Glass Half-Empty is at its strongest when instead of relying on the arguments of other people remains inside the author's sphere of expertise with the accidental economic argument and the more often deployed statistical one. When he discusses the impact of using a logarithmic or linear scale in a chart or disaggregates the data sets used by Pinker or Ridley to tell a more complicated story of the world, Rodrigo Aguilera is on to something, especially as he develops on observations by Hickel and Milanović or makes a few of his own. But the vast majority of the book is preoccupied with debunking the New Optimists' claims about sociology, political science, history, human psychology and philosophy where the author has a less authoritative voice so he rests much more on quotes from the aforementioned eclectic string of authors. Given the short-to-medium size of the book and the immense scope it reaches for, what results is simply a clash of claims that don't have the space to be developed into arguments. Pages and pages of: "Pinker says this, but Hickel says that." which is hardly persuasive for someone unfamiliar with the argument made by Aguilera's chosen author and unsatisfying for those that are.
At the same time, those that have at least a glancing familiarity with Aguilera's sources will note the the one thing they all have in common is their place on the shelf of progressive best-sellers. Other than that, their worldviews are incompatible. The developed arguments from where the author picked the various claims might turn out to be contradictory, thus nullifying what he presented as a firm criticism of some New Optimist or another. This makes for a poor foundation for an i ntelectual edifice that supposes to topple the New Optimism vision of the world.
Because at the end of the day, behind all the data which is punctured and pruned throughout the book, New Optimism is an worldview, a political ideology. In chapters 1 and 8 the author makes some attempts to link it to capitalist interests and other right-wing ideologies and movements, but so shily to the point that chapter 8 remains an inventory of excentric American right-wing tendencies and experiments. There is much more data to replace what was nuanced or debunked and the book only aspires to reach for something deeper. Adding to the feeling of reading something that refuses to congeal is that some of the discussed movements, like neo-reaction, were already mere historical curiosities even by 2019, when I presume the book was written, and the alt-light and alt-right would soon dwindle following social media crackdowns and billionaires shutting of founding. The fact that it only lists these groups, with few efforts to dig deeper and see the underground current in which they all have roots (something intuited by the book, but insufficiently explored), it misses the opportunity to anticipate the mutations in right-wing ideology like the "right wing populists", founded by Peter Thiel who moved on from neo-reaction.
It also harbors an uncommonly high amount of misspellings and typos. I mention this only because it suggests the editing process wasn't particularly thorough, something that might have turned it into a much worthier read. I can see a book that focuses much more on statistical criticism, pointing out that the instances of chart manipulations are so high that the New Optimists are either incompetent or intellectually dishonest, which together with a more developed economic history of the past 50 years of global capitalism could turn out to be much more worthwhile.
As it stands, it's a summary of left-liberal talking points and inherited wisdom that most people either believe or don't, proposing little that would change anybody's mind.
February 11, 2021
Reading this book was vindicating in a way I hadn't realized I needed. It is not a happy read, and did speak to a lot of my fears. But that is exactly why I loved it. I love highlighting in my books but decided not to in this one, because I would have ended up highlighting the whole damn thing. I highly recommend this book to any leftist who has heard one-too-many times that they are paranoid, impatient, or pessimistic. Progress is not inevitable, and no amount of optimism (read: defending the status quo) will make it so.
May 16, 2023
Alarm bells always ring for me when a book's concept is to take apart someone else's idea rather than build one of their own and that's what this book does - taking aim at a group it calls 'the new optimists', including authors such as Stephen Pinker and Hans Rosling, authors whose works I admire.
It's strange that what I took away from Rosling and Pinker is despite the doom and gloom news the world is getting better over the long run. Aguilera doesn't actually seem to have an issue with this, more that's it's not good enough - a valid point - but mostly he takes issue with the fact Pinker and Rosling think liberalism, and to some degree capitalism, got us there. Aguilera is clearly a socialist and this is his main issue with the new optimists.
As much as I admire Pinker, the main focus of Aguilera's ire, I agree his argument has holes but trying to pick at them isn't helpful. A better approach is show a different view, like Jason Hickel does in The Divide, a book often quoted in this one. For full transparency I have given 5* to books by Pinker, Rosling and Hickel so am more than happy to entertain both sides of the argument.
Aguilera only really comes good at the end when pushing his own view of social democracy and if the rest of the book was like this, instead of taking shots at Pinker, it would be a stronger read.
It's strange that what I took away from Rosling and Pinker is despite the doom and gloom news the world is getting better over the long run. Aguilera doesn't actually seem to have an issue with this, more that's it's not good enough - a valid point - but mostly he takes issue with the fact Pinker and Rosling think liberalism, and to some degree capitalism, got us there. Aguilera is clearly a socialist and this is his main issue with the new optimists.
As much as I admire Pinker, the main focus of Aguilera's ire, I agree his argument has holes but trying to pick at them isn't helpful. A better approach is show a different view, like Jason Hickel does in The Divide, a book often quoted in this one. For full transparency I have given 5* to books by Pinker, Rosling and Hickel so am more than happy to entertain both sides of the argument.
Aguilera only really comes good at the end when pushing his own view of social democracy and if the rest of the book was like this, instead of taking shots at Pinker, it would be a stronger read.
April 23, 2020
The end is near! Repent you sinner humans and follow the god Rodrigo Aguilera tells you to, because he is a good god. Also renounce your material wealth because Rodrigo Aguilera knows just the right people who need it more than you do.
June 8, 2021
Breezy but well-sourced (with lots of figures as back-up) takedown of the New Optimists / "Job's Comforters". Clear explanations with some funny and well-placed jabs.
I suspect the Venn diagram of the New Optimists, the New Atheists and techno-libertarians / "Rationalists" looks more like one single circle, and will probably get louder and more insistent as the facts of the world outside increasingly and obviously become at odds with their dogma. I look forward to more filleting of that worldview.
I suspect the Venn diagram of the New Optimists, the New Atheists and techno-libertarians / "Rationalists" looks more like one single circle, and will probably get louder and more insistent as the facts of the world outside increasingly and obviously become at odds with their dogma. I look forward to more filleting of that worldview.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews