Presenting Anthony Gottlieb’s new book, The Dream of Enlightenment , The New Yorker today raises the question whether we are “ really so modern .” Modernity is not about science and technology, argues the writer. “Rather, it is a subjective condition, a feeling or an intuition that we are in some profound sense different from the people who lived before us.” He goes on to show that we are no different from the people who lived, say, a hundred years ago. We may have accumulated a lot of new technology and its gifts. But our attitudes haven’t changed. Aristotle who was born 2400 years ago was more sophisticated in thinking than most people living today. If Aristotle were to visit us today, he would find us as savage as the people of his days. He wouldn’t accept our attacking certain people with missiles and bombs in the name of gods and ideologies as a sign of modernity. He would find it impossible to imagine that certain sections of people are kept away from the mainstr
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