The Wright Show

Bruce's new book, Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age ... Debunking the idea of the "predictable crises of adult life" ... Two kinds of life changes: "disruptors" and "lifequakes" ... Does Bob need a lifequake? ... Bruce: "The linear model of life transitions is just wrong" ... Millennials zigging and zagging ... The ABCs of meaning: agency, belonging, cause ... How to write your own life story ... Are the stories we tell about ourselves just BS? And is that okay? ... How to change the meaning of your life ...

Trump's three- (or maybe four-) pronged campaign strategy ... Was Bob too nice to Bari Weiss in his anti-Bari essay? ... What's really new about cancel culture? ... On the purported bigotry of Maria Farmer, a prominent victim of Jeffrey Epstein ... Mickey wishes Ghislaine well ... Reasons to doubt "horseshoe theory," where the Trumpist right teams up with the left ... Remembering Michael Brooks, who died this week at 36 ... The liberal conspiracy theory that Trump is poised to impose martial law ... Aleister Crowley, Walter Duranty, and the Parrot Room ...

David's new book, On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It ... The tension at the heart of dehumanization ... David: Genocides are moralistic ... The essential role of psychological essentialism ... Dehumanization in American politics ... When David received death threats after critiquing Jordan Peterson ... The "Great Chain of Being" and our complex conception of monsters ... Why David doesn't like the term "the banality of evil" ... How to resist dehumanization ...

Mickey gets epically ratioed for a tweet about cancel culture ... Is it creepy that the Lincoln Project wants to "de-Trumpify" the GOP? ... The problem with data-driven campaigns ... Bob tries to uncancel himself on trans issues ... Bari Weiss and Andrew Sullivan exit their woke publications ... How culpable is Trump for rising Covid deaths? ... The Trump administration’s attack on Fauci ... A smarter way to counter China ... This week's wild Epstein speculation ... Will Israel’s covert attacks on Iran start a war? ... What happens if there's a Supreme Court vacancy before November? ...

Buddhism and the military atrocities in Myanmar and Sri Lanka ... The early political history of Buddhism ... Varieties of Buddhist rationales for nonviolence ... The history of war between Southeast Asian nations ... Is warfare antithetical to attaining enlightenment? ... Justifications for non-pacifism ... Meditation and the antiwar mindset ... Foreign policy, anti-China sentiment, and BLM protests ...

Covid deaths are suddenly rising and a new school year approaches ... Is Trump’s reelection campaign doomed? (And is Steve Bannon part of it?) ... Mickey’s theory about BLM and the future of American cities ... Weighing the consequences of the Harper’s anti-cancel-culture letter ... Bob complains about American journalism (cont’d) ... Who killed Jeffrey Epstein? Discussing an underdiscussed candidate. ...

Rutger's new book, Humankind: A Hopeful History ... Debunking the "veneer theory" of human nature ... Are violence and war intrinsic to human nature? ... The human self-domestication thesis ... Why Bob doesn't like the idea of people "deserving punishment" ... Is it bad to emphasize the dark side of human nature? ... What the debunking of the Stanford Prison Experiment can teach us ... Giving money to rich people: Why the U in UBI? ... Would UBI turn us all into couch potatoes (or worse)? ...

Mickey to Trump: Drop out ... How can the number of cases be rising while deaths stay steady? ... How Biden can put his bumbling to his advantage ... Digging into the "Russian bounty on GIs in Afghanistan" story ... Ghislaine Maxwell and the many Epstein conspiracy theories ... Will we ever find out the names of the men Epstein procured girls for? ... Weighing the cancellations of Woodrow Wilson, John Wayne, and JFK ... Mickey sees a potential "Sister Stab-ya" moment ...

How did evangelicals view Trump's infamous walk to the church? ... Sarah's new book, Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump ... The many commonalities between Trump and Cyrus the Great ... The Christian Right and alt-right, a "coalition of lost cultural dominance" ... The secret origin story of the Christian Right ... Sarah: Race is an animating force of the Christian Right ... Can anything lessen America's tribal grievances? ...

Theories about why infection numbers are going back up ... What they don't tell you about masks ... Is it too early to dance on Trump's grave? ... Mickey: The NYT has become a guilt-tripping barrage of wokedom ... Black activist Shaun King presents Biden with a Sister Souljah opportunity ... A new theory about the infamous WaPo Halloween party story ... Why has the right lost the culture war? ... What would a post-Trump GOP look like? ...

How Kaiser became one of China's first rockstars ... How the American bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade helped break up the band ... Did America’s post-9/11 War on Terror have a liberalizing effect on China? ... Seeing the world from Beijing's perspective ... Some philosophical questions occasioned by China's rise ... Racism and America’s fear of China ... How should we judge China's behavior in its own neighborhood? ... Is President Xi a corruption fighter or just a power consolidator? ... Steve Bannon and his dodgy Chinese sugar daddy ... Kaiser: A huge misconception about China is that engagement failed ...

Threats of disorder and promises of reform after George Floyd ... Mickey: “The Supreme Court is falling apart” ... The Washington Post Halloween party blackface debacle ... The not-very-shocking revelations in John Bolton’s new book ... Mickey complains to the manager and clarifies his position on welfare reform ... Bob: Yes, Covid cases are rising—but deaths are falling ... Bob attempts to strong-arm Mickey into starting a Patreon ...

Toby's organization, Justice Is Global ... Slow economic growth and rightwing nationalism ... Toby: The only way to deal effectively with inequality is globally ... How to solve the overcapacity problem in the steel industry ... Toby's radical idea: a global minimum wage ... Can the WTO become a vehicle for progressive policies? ... Will the GOP's "blame China" strategy work? ... Worrying about an October surprise from Trump ... Toby: Racial justice and economic justice go hand in hand ...

Is liberalism being supplanted? ... Why Millennials succeeded in changing the culture of the workplace ... James Bennet's resignation and the "new samizdat" ... Mickey dismisses Bob’s fears about Trump’s authoritarian potential ... Is the New York Times now a journal of opinion? ... Mickey laments that welfare reform didn't work as well as he hoped ... Bob wants progressives to think about class, not just race ... Mickey: Conservatives should retreat on Confederate statues ... Examining conspiracy theories about the elderly Buffalo protester ... Lafayette Square revisited ...

Ross's new book, The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success ... Ross's surprising perspective on technological change ... The Back to the Future test: looking at 1955 vs. 1985 and 1985 vs. 2015 ... Is information technology leading to disruption or stagnation? ... Imagining how a new renaissance might emerge ... Space travel as an escape from decadence ... Ross is skeptical about Bob's favorite Catholic theologian, Teilhard de Chardin ... The Matrix, Wall-E, and Jesus ... Applying Ross's decadence thesis to the pandemic and the protests ...