From an objective vantage point, it’s possible to perceive Humanity’s paradoxical nature and its effects.  

The “ultimate paradox of humanity” is this: our extraordinary intelligence is entangled with ancient biases that would sabotage it were they not checked by our ability to align our thinking with evidence and logic. As we look in the mirror and at the world around us, we see evidence of what happens when those biases prevail. 

In a word, incoherence.  

Curiosity reduces incoherence where it is active, and incoherence thrives in its absence.

The way our minds work, we must choose to be rational while irrational propensities either conceal that choice or suppress it. 

That somewhat demystifies why it’s taken so long for humanity to break free from a past dominated by irrational, inhumane thinking and behavior.  

Starting about 300 years ago, a young but robust Enlightenment project enabled more of Humanity than ever to gain an objective perspective on human endeavors. The purposeful, principled curiosity it ignited for a relatively small fraction of the global population represents the first widespread coherent response to millennia of domination by mysticism, tribalism, and authoritarianism. 

But this triumph is not on autopilot. The opposite is true. While Enlightenment values must be deliberately affirmed, our irrational biases are always on. 

For the Enlightenment project to continue making flourishing possible, every generation will be called upon to muster coherent responses to the cognitive and psychological biases within us and to their destructive cultural effects.

This is the first episode in a multipart Leap of Curiosity mini-series on the long, rocky road to human flourishing. 

Thank you for listening! Please subscribe if you haven't already, and remember, as always, be curious on purpose, be curious on principle!