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11:45 PM - Sleeping with ET, et al This evening's book club selection was Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials by Wendy Kaminer. Subtitled The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety, this book was a fairly thoroughgoing tirade about the various irrational beliefs which pervade our society and all too often seep into our public policy discussions. I had expected the more conservative members of the club to be a bit offended by the author's (and the host's) harsh (mis)treatment of mainstream religious beliefs. To the contrary, our resident radical socialist excoriated Kaminer for doing precisely that for which she had excoriated modern mainstream journalism, namely, mocking modern mass movements while going relatively easy on traditional religious beliefs. I found this exchange somewhat puzzling and was put at a loss for an expression eqivalent to "turns in her grave" for a living author. In all seriousness, though, Kaminer did a fine job of demostrating the extent to which we have a "sectarian public square" in which expressions of public piety are not merely the norm but are in some sense mandatory in the higher echelons of our democracy. What she did not do, in my estimation, was demonstrate that we are in the midst of an historical trend of rising irrationalism. I tried to solicit comments on this point, alas, to no avail. Without substantial empirical data (e.g. inter-generational scientific polling) it would be fairly difficult to demonstrate this central thesis of the book. I'm not demanding double-blind lab tests, here, merely something beyond anecdotal evidence, however relevant and persuasive it may be. (
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