Where universities once sought to produce and disseminate reliable knowledge, far too many academics today prioritize activism and political projects. This results in poorly supported academic theories and distorted claims that eventually proliferate beyond the university—through the graduation of students who’ve received a flawed education, through a mainstream media that all too often credulously parrots even the most biased claims as “the truth,” and ultimately through public institutions increasingly shaped by politicized expertise.

On subjects ranging from race and gender to single parenthood and free markets, Virtuous Nonsense exposes the most damaging of these academic distortions, which not only undermine public trust and sound policymaking but also artificially narrow the boundaries of acceptable debate. In so doing, it presents a challenge to the left: face the crisis, or remain complicit in the degradation of our intellectual and civic life. Until more liberals acknowledge the problem of malfunctioning disciplines and uncritical media environments, America cannot hope to repair its engines of knowledge—or recover from an epistemic crisis that sickens our culture, society, and politics.