Fame. Money. Power.
These self-serving desires lead to inequality, injustice, and oppression.

Compassion. Gratitude. Awe.
These self-transcendent emotions lead to community, friendship, and romance—when we actively engage life in cooperation with others.

To understand the things that unite us with people and with nature, and also the things that divide us over and against each other, I study social character, sociocultural history, and religion.

My recent publications include:

“ Resistance and Revolution in Society Exemplified in Film Noir and Science Fiction in the Baby Boomer and Millennial-GenZ Age.” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal, in press.

“The Necessity of Progressive Religion to Foment Progressive Change: A Frommian Argument”

and

“Social Character, Social Change, and the Social Future” (with Lauren Langman) in Erich Fromm’s Critical Theory: Hope, Humanism, and the Future. London, Bloomsbury: 2020.

My current project is “The Power of White Supremacist Emotional Illusions in a Multi-Cultural Reality” to appear in Interpreting Religion: The Meanings of Religious Belief and Practice, Vikash Singh and Erin Johnston, eds. I basically argue that white male ethnonationalism is a genuine threat to American society, but at present, Donald Trump is its incompetent prophet.