Sleeping With Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety

(Paperback)

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In Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials, social critic Wendy Kaminer illuminates the various ways in which society has come to value emotion over reason, faith over fact, and argues that declarations of intense belief have largely taken the place of rational discourse. In a world in which "How do you feel," seems to be a more frequently asked question than "What do you know," Kaminer's examination of the rise of spiritualism, the mushrooming junk science, and the habitual merging of political and evangelical speech, blazes with relevance and incisive wit.

Probing the amusing and ominous implications of rampant credulity in our age, Kaminer raises important questions, and provides a thoughtful and eloquent perspective on the perils of present-day irrationalism.

Reviews

"[Kaminer] sends us a wise warning against the dangers to public freedoms in all overweening personal beliefs."--USA Today

"Wendy Kaminer is hard to place on the left-right political spectrum--and that is what imbues her work with originality. She relishes the clang of a good argument."--The Boston Globe

"Wonderful Wendy Kaminer!With wit and style and cold hard facts, she skewers contemporary credulity."--Katha Pollitt, author of Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism

Author Bio

Wendy Kaminer lives in Massachusetts.