American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing Our Nation
American Schism traces the source of our current political and social divisions all the way back to our nation’s founding. Drawing on extensive research, including deep dives into critical junctures in American history, Radwell reveals how the Enlightenment, an intellectual and philosophical movement emphasizing reason as the primary source of authority, migrated from Europe to the Thirteen Colonies and then morphed into two different schools of thought: Radical and Moderate. Remarkably, Radwell illustrates how the schism was already evident in our founding documents and created rival visions for the new nation. Over the centuries, the split only strengthened, leading to frequently clashing perspectives on the meaning and application of concepts such as liberty, freedom, progress, tolerance, separation of church and state, and the role of government.
The book is “American Schism” by Seth David Radwell, a businessman turned-self-taught historian who has a great idea to explain our current social and political polarization: The European Enlightenment ideas that informed our Founders were already split between “moderate” and “radical” thinkers as exemplified in Adams vs Jefferson, perhaps. Moderates were suspicious of democracy and favored having an educated elite in charge while still allowing representative democracy. The radicals thought more highly of the intellectual capacity of the people and wanted both liberty and equality, as exemplified in the French Revolution. The author’s style in this first part is verbose and pretentious and nearly impenetrable, and yet it claims to be an introduction for the general public! The style got more understandable in later chapters. It did feel like a series of separate books or articles, with different emphasis in each. By the end of the book, I imagined that some conservatives would have bailed because of the direct criticism of Trump. I do recommend the book, though, because it clarified a lot for me about the Founders’ worldview and intent, and kept me reading to the end.