Philosophy of the American West

Is the American West a physical place or the concept of interacting with the wilderness and taming the land? Better represented by John Wayne winning the West and settling down living happily ever after, or the later Clint Eastwood version of the West as a place of drunkards and violence? Or perhaps it was as captured by Blazing Saddles and City Slickers as a wildly bigoted and backwards place that is nothing to fondly be looked back upon? And how does the Council Bluffs/Omaha Metro fit into all of this? In this episode Ardennes Stolp provides some thought-provoking reflections on how to interpret the American West.