American Values are Based on Two Conflicting Philosophies: a chat w Chuck Holden

human insights with james cox

During the summer of 2020 it was clear that American society was deeply divided. Police abuse of minorities, the Black Lives Matter movement, ICE traumitizing immigrant children, Portland... As I drilled down and thought deeply on this it was clear that this was not the America I learned about in High School. People clearly have two different value systems which yield two different visions of what it means to be an American.

In this conversation Chuck and I try to tear apart the overlapping and conflicting narratives to distill a clearer picture of where we are, and where we are headed. My thesis: Instead of America having a unified singular outlook, America is governed by two conflicting political philosophies... one conservative and elitist, the other liberal and egalitarian.

Chuck Holden is a professor of American History at St Mary's College of Maryland. He has extensively studied political, economic, and value systems in the American South.