Fantasy Land: Anti-Realism in America (Unabridged‪)‬

Benson and Jensen treat a number of crucial ways in which anti-realism—popularly known as social constructivism—pervades and ultimately corrodes American culture, everything from soccer to more serious matters such as scientific objectivity and moral realism. Establishment elites in academia, the judiciary, and the media increasingly determine the acceptability of various kinds of political and social views, moral beliefs, even the language we use—and suppress competing views. This book offers a reasoned engagement with the mandarins of this new orthodoxy imposed on our shared public life.

Because anti-realism harms those who deny one or more aspects of reality, it is bound to fail. As much as people might like the idea of socially constructing reality as they go, all attempts to change traditional institutions such as marriage, or realities such as one’s biological sex—given rather than “assigned”—run counter to the hard facticity of human life and experience. Benson and Jensen help those committed to reason understand the inevitable failings of anti-realism, even as they point to a better way that leads to human and cultural flourishing.