Today we have David Brooks on the podcast. Brooks is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times and appears regularly on “PBS NewsHour,” NPR’s “All Things Considered” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He teaches at Yale University and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the bestselling author of a number of books, including The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement; The New Upper Class and How They Got There; The Road to Character, and most recently, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life.
In this episode we discuss:
- The evolution of David’s thinking about character
- The relationship between our commitments and our fulfillment in life
- Brook’s criticism of self-actualization taken to the extreme
- The four crises of our time
- David’s current stance on reparations
- Why David is a “border stalker”
- How David reconciles the need for commitment with identity fluidity
- Commitment vs. individualism
- The importance of healthy transcendence
- The enunciation moment
- What we can do about the current political landscape
- David’s thoughts on polyamory and the single life