Yeah, if I were to take two extreme ends of philosophy in terms of sociological outlook it would be Ralph Waldo Emerson's style of self-reliance versus Critical

Yeah, if I were to take two extreme ends of philosophy in terms of sociological outlook it would be Ralph Waldo Emerson's style of self-reliance versus Critical Theory - and the self-reliance ethic runs deep in American culture, so of course Critical Theory seems like some kind of philosophical anti-matter to all things American.