Pandemic of Lunacy

What is happening to the world? Why does it seem like everyone has gone crazy? Why are so many things that seemingly everyone believed the day before yesterday suddenly held to be retrograde, hateful, or even criminal? And why are things that everyone seemed to view as lunacy the day before yesterday suddenly taught or even required? In Pandemic of Lunacy: How to Think Clearly When Everyone Around You Seems Crazy, University of Texas philosopher J. Budziszewski patiently explains the delusions that beset us. Ranging over the topics of morality and happiness, politics and government, family and sexuality, the real and the unreal, and God and religion, Budziszewski makes the case for sanity in commonsense language accessible to all. 

Pandemic of Lunacy will be treasured by anyone who is troubled or confused, anyone who wonders whether the world has gone crazy or whether they have, and anyone who feels the need for a trustworthy guide in a topsy-turvy age.

Endorsements

Philosophy and science go deeper than what common sense tells us, and sometimes correct it around the edges. But as thinkers like Aristotle and Aquinas knew, sound philosophy and science cannot coherently reject common sense altogether, especially in what it tells us about everyday human life. Modern thought has been plagued by one assault on common sense after another, typically grounded in simple but persistent fallacies. We need books that expose these fallacies and come to the defense of common sense. J. Budziszewski provides exactly that.

Edward Feser, Author, Five Proofs of the Existence of God

Pandemic of Lunacy is brilliant, the corrective we need to pull the nation back from the abyss of unreason. Too many elites and intellectuals are saturated with ideologized education that has left them withering in a drought of real knowledge and common sense. Caring guides like J. Budziszewski might bring the best of them back from the realm of false light.

Dean Koontz, Bestselling Author

This book is simply the most complete, clear, and uncompromising account of our decaying culture’s insanity that I have read yet.

Peter Kreeft, Boston College

We live in times marked by an amorality that is both comprehensive in scope and complex in its foundations. In politics, both left and right have conceded solid ground to pragmatism, and in the culture at large many of us are complicit with the chaos in ways of which we may be unaware. That is where J. Budziszewski’s book is so helpful. Offering both a subtle and wide-ranging exposition of the various individual lunacies that make up our corporate social insanity, his is a sober and shrewd voice that also offers answers to our malaise. Those familiar with his earlier work will not be disappointed. His customary precision and wit are on full display. And those new to him will find their attitudes challenged and transformed for the better. This is a profoundly helpful book for those wanting clarity in our deeply chaotic times.

Carl Trueman, Author, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self