Sleeping With Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety
by Wendy Kaminer
Book Description
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.
Amazon.com
"It's easy to imagine a TV sitcom making fun of a character who visits psychics and astrologers and channels Sarah Bernhardt," opines Wendy Kaminer, "but virtually impossible to imagine it laughing at anyone who takes the Bible literally and believes that someone named Jonah once lived in a whale." She goes on to demonstrate that, despite the complaints from many religious people that the "secular media" mocks their beliefs, American culture still shows a high degree of respect for the faithful and pious, while popular hostility towards atheists continues to rise. But "why should it be socially acceptable to make fun of psychics and not priests?" That's one of many provocative questions Kaminer raises in Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials, a critical assessment of the extent to which U.S. society has succumbed to the irrational.Kaminer goes on to sift her way through pop spirituality "classics" like The Celestine Prophecy and Conversations with God and visits seminars by New Age gurus (leaving her "amused and dismayed by the painful stupidities that people embrace to ease their fears of death"), but Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials is not merely an assault on religion--Kaminer also attacks purveyors of junk science, the influence of the recovered-memory movement on both feminism and the American court system, and the "cyberspacy" claims made by boosters of technological progress. Whether she's considering the extensive belief in UFOs and alien abductions or wondering why so many people worshipped Princess Diana in the hour of her death, Kaminer shows how an unrestrained culture of faith "encourages passivity, gullibility, and a childlike craving for authority." Rationalists will find her skepticism a refreshing tonic. --Ron Hogan --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From the Back Cover
"[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
About the Author
Wendy Kaminer lives in Massachusetts.
Keywords: Sleeping With Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety, Books, Wendy Kaminer, Politics/International Relations, Politics - Current Events, Social Science, Sociology - General, History & Surveys - Modern, U.S. Government, Current Affairs
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