Holding a rally to “restore” sanity suggests that there was a time, perhaps not long ago, when people were more sane than they are now. But is this so obvious? There is always a temptation to think that the world is getting worse, in every possible way. How can we tell if it’s true? Two broad trends should be of concern. First, an unhealthy dynamic is at work in our culture whereby memes that are able to successfully exploit human irrationality seem to prosper—a tendency that is exacerbated by commercial society. Second, influential political movements have arisen, on the left as well as the right, that are explicitly hostile to reason.