Trust in a Polarized Age with Kevin Vallier
Americans today don’t trust each other and their institutions as much as they once did. The collapse of social and political trust has arguably fueled our increasingly ferocious ideological conflicts and hardened partisanship. But is today’s decline in trust inevitable or avoidable? Are we caught in a downward spiral that must end in institutional decay or even civil war, or can we restore trust through our shared social institutions?
In Trust in a Polarized Age, political philosopher Kevin Vallier offers powerful counter-narrative to the prevailing sense of hopelessness that dogs the American political landscape. In an unapologetic defense of liberalism that synthesized political philosophy and empirical trust research, Vallier restores faith in our power to reduce polarization and rebuild social and political trust.
Program host: the Penn Club
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Kevin Vallier
Kevin Vallier is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green University, where he directs the program in Philosophy, Economics, and Law. He is author of three monographs, four edited volumes, and over forty peer-reviewed book chapters and journal articles. His books include Liberal Politics and Public Faith: Beyond Separation and Must be Politics Be War? Resorting our Trust in the Open Society.