Bob is a journalist, public intellectual, and the author of many books, including The Moral Animal, Nonzero, The Evolution of God, and Why Buddhism Is True. He’s written for countless magazines, including The New Republic, where he co-wrote the TRB column with Mickey Kaus. He and Mickey also co-founded Bloggingheads TV, and the two regularly converse on The Wright Show and The Parrot Room. He also has his own Substack, the Nonzero Newsletter.Bob is quite simply brilliant, and his books have been very influential in the development of my own thinking. Empirical but spiritual, he’s one of a kind.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or click the dropdown menu to add the Dishcast to your podcast feed). For two clips of my convo with Bob — on what could possibly stop Putin now, and on the danger of humiliating a country — head over to our YouTube page.New transcript just dropped: my convo with Jonathan Haidt over the damage wrought by social media over the past decade. A primer:A listener gives “thanks for producing an interesting, thought-provoking podcast” — then dissents:There was much interesting material in your interview last week with Francis Fukuyama, but there was one major source of disappointment and irritation: your misrepresentation of the ideas of Michel Foucault. Blame Foucault for what you want, but at least try to represent his work truthfully. Contrary to what you asserted, there is no theory of conspiracy in Foucault. On the contrary, he sought to explain that power is exercised in society much less by domination by a few than by influence through diffuse means. He documented how mechanisms of power emerge over time to establish social order in the face of changing economic, social and cultural conditions.  In fact, Foucault sought to answer the question you asked at the end of your interview: if we’re all autonomous, how do we create community? What is it, Foucault asked, that brings order to society at different times, that makes us behave and think in tune with each other, that makes us behave in socially compatible ways, that makes us see ourselves as part of society, and how do we deal with those who seem to deviate from prescribed ways of being and acting? There’s no conspiracy there. There is the steady construction, by numerous people looking to make life more manageable, more productive, etc., of intellectual, institutional and practical means of bringing some order to things and of getting individuals to internalize that order. Here’s a clip from the Fukuyama episode that’s getting a lot of views:Next, a long dissent over last week’s column, “Can A Cult Become A Movement?”:You wrote: “A figure who could mimic Trump’s broader f**k-it-all style, and focus on substantive policy more than Trump does, and have a record of actually getting s**t done, could conceivably co-opt the Trump populism without the Trump baggage.”You must be joking. How do you propose for Trump’s successor to “mimic Trump’s broader f**k-it-all style” — the “it” apparently including democratic norms, the U.S. Constitution, and America’s 200-plus-year tradition of peaceful transitions of power? Trump doesn’t have “baggage.” Not telling your fiancée that you’ve fathered a child during a drunken one-night stand is “baggage.” What Trump has is a proven willingness to burn everything to the ground rather than do the right thing when said right thing involves any damage to his ego. And here’s the kicker: Trump would not have been able to do what he did had it not been for the approval of the GOP.You seem to believe that Trump is the problem, and as soon as he goes away, we can all get back to normal and pretend the Trump presidency never happened. Sorry to shout in all caps, but this is really freaking important: TRUMP IS NOT THE PROBLEM. TRUMP IS A SYMPTOM.Trump is a symptom of a political party that (with very, very few honorable exceptions) wants to grab onto power and hold onto it, ethics be damned. They sto