About the Author

Independent writer exploring culture, technology, and the human experience.

Kay Elksong has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and received awards while teaching Critical Thinking & Writing.

Kay Elksong is an independent writer whose essays explore cultural change, empathy, and the effects of the COVID pandemic on American society. Her work examines technology—including a concept she calls “virtual imperialism”—and reflects on how individuals and communities navigate modern challenges… with hope of coming out of the COVID pandemic better than when we went into it.

Learn More

From the Author

This was not intended to be a religious book. But on occasion, I mention a personal belief, and in the final chapter I reference the God of Abraham, in whom Jews, Muslims, and Christians profess belief. I mention this because the book can be read as a response to the challenge “the people’s pope” gave to society at the start of the pandemic.
 
In The New York Times, on November 20, 2020, Pope Francis wrote, “A crisis reveals what is in our hearts. To come out of this crisis better than we went in, we must let ourselves be touched by others’ pain.” We can hope, then, to have come out of the COVID pandemic better than when we went into it.

As I considered the many changes in American culture that moved center stage during the COVID pandemic, I wondered to what extent that challenge has been met. This book is one response to that question.

As I considered the many changes in American culture that moved center stage during the COVID pandemic, I wondered to what extent that challenge has been met. This book is one response to that question.

Kay Elksong has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and received awards while teaching Critical Thinking & Writing.

$1 of each book sold goes to the children in Gaza.


Book is available

Barnes & Noble.com
Ingram-Sparks.com
Read Now

Different Values

Cultural Shifts in America from Covid to War in the Mideast.

See what reviewers are saying:

Bradley Allen
City Book Review.com San Francisco, CA

Elksong is as comfortable dissecting the role of artificial intelligence and what she calls "virtual imperialism" (she warns with sober analysis of how identity and autonomy might be reshaped in a digitized world) as she is when she explores the fragile state of mental health or the altered rhythms of work...the kind of book that sparks conversation rather than closes it.

Diane Donovan
Midwest Book Review

Much food for thought and insights about connections key to understanding extremist attitudes and proposals, offering instead more independent analyses of cultural changes.

Tommy McNiece
City Book Review.com Seattle, WA

While the pandemic chapter emphasizes interior transformation and the small-scale choices of individuals, the Gaza discussion expands outward to collective responsibility and the global implications of moral action....she invites readers to treat the book as both a devotional text and a cultural critique. This hybrid approach may not suit every reader, but it is precisely what makes Different Values distinctive.

Table of Contents