Ezra Klein

I buy the thought that our good side is more potent to manipulate than other parts of us. But the other thing I think you're getting at there that always feels true to me is that part of the power of a story is the degree to which it makes us a person simply of consequence, that we are or can see ourselves as the actor living in a moment in human history where we matter.

I buy the thought that our good side is more potent to manipulate than other parts of us. But the other thing I think you're getting at there that always feels true to me is that part of the power of a story is the degree to which it makes us a person simply of consequence, that we are or can see ourselves as the actor living in a moment in human history where we matter.

We're not just one of the many.

We're not just one of the many.

I watch a lot of Sesame Street these days.

I watch a lot of Sesame Street these days.

To my father's enduring disappointment, he's a mathematician, and I was never that interested in nine times nine. One thing I noticed reading your book of essays is that there are certain stories or groups of stories that you circle. And you come back and back, particularly to the stories of the Bible. How do you think about or how do you explain that?

To my father's enduring disappointment, he's a mathematician, and I was never that interested in nine times nine. One thing I noticed reading your book of essays is that there are certain stories or groups of stories that you circle. And you come back and back, particularly to the stories of the Bible. How do you think about or how do you explain that?

from a secular perspective, because obviously there's another explanation from the spiritual perspective. But how do you explain the potency, the stickiness of the stories in the Bible? Because they're not easily accessed, and many of them are not easy.

from a secular perspective, because obviously there's another explanation from the spiritual perspective. But how do you explain the potency, the stickiness of the stories in the Bible? Because they're not easily accessed, and many of them are not easy.

I want to talk a bit about the way that stories function in politics. You're Canadian, but you've spent a fair amount of time living in the United States as well. What's your view of the difference between the stories Americans tell about themselves, about their country, and the stories that Canadians tell about their country?

I want to talk a bit about the way that stories function in politics. You're Canadian, but you've spent a fair amount of time living in the United States as well. What's your view of the difference between the stories Americans tell about themselves, about their country, and the stories that Canadians tell about their country?

I do not.

I do not.

Before my time.

Before my time.

I'm a little older than that.

I'm a little older than that.

I think you're right about America groping for another foil in the long kind of post-Cold War period. One story I sometimes tell myself about where we are is that there was an attempt to make it the Islamic world. That didn't hold together. It wasn't big enough. It was too Al-Qaeda. We're too dependent on Saudi Arabia. So we found it here. I don't really think it's going to be Putin.

I think you're right about America groping for another foil in the long kind of post-Cold War period. One story I sometimes tell myself about where we are is that there was an attempt to make it the Islamic world. That didn't hold together. It wasn't big enough. It was too Al-Qaeda. We're too dependent on Saudi Arabia. So we found it here. I don't really think it's going to be Putin.