Is Your Social Life Missing Something? This Is For You.

Is Your Social Life Missing Something? This Is For You.

My motivation for this episode is personal. One of my resolutions this year is to spend more time hosting and to make those gatherings more meaningful.

I think a lot of us wish we had better social lives and a stronger feeling of community around us. But it’s hard. We’re busy, we’re tired, and social planning and hosting can feel like just more work. So I asked Priya Parker on the show to help.

Parker is the author of “The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters” and a wonderful Substack, Group Life. She’s also a conflict resolution facilitator. And she just thinks about gathering and hosting in a different way from anyone else I’ve ever met. For her, it’s about more than just throwing a great dinner party; it’s about how we build community across differences, all the way up to how gathering can help create a better politics. The way Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign thought about community and built community among its volunteers was partly based on her work and advice.

This episode is a bit of a break from politics — but also not. Because pulling the people we love closer and spending more time together rather than alone are as essential as any political or civic discipline could be right now.

This conversation contains strong language.

Mentioned:

In Defense of Politics by Bernard Crick

I And Thou by Martin Buber

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai

Adorable Little Detonators” by Allison P. Davis

The Accused” by Katie J.M. Baker

The Black Thought Project” by Alicia Walters

Zohran’s Smile” by Anand Giridharadas

Book Recommendations:

The Politics of Ritual by Molly Farneth

On Repentance and Repair by Danya Ruttenberg

BoyMom by Ruth Whippman

Talk to Your Boys by Christopher Pepper and Joanna Schroeder

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Episoder(480)

Timothy Snyder on the Myths That Blinded the West to Putin’s Plans

Timothy Snyder on the Myths That Blinded the West to Putin’s Plans

“Americans and Europeans were guided through the new century by a tale about ‘the end of history,’ by what I will call the politics of inevitability, a sense that the future is just more of the presen...

15 Mar 20221h 11min

Masha Gessen on Putin’s 'Profoundly Anti-Modern’ Worldview

Masha Gessen on Putin’s 'Profoundly Anti-Modern’ Worldview

For Western audiences, the past few weeks have been a torrent of information about what’s happening in Russia and Ukraine. Daily updates of Russian military advances. Horrifying videos of buildings ex...

11 Mar 20221h 1min

Fiona Hill on the War Putin Is Really Fighting

Fiona Hill on the War Putin Is Really Fighting

Vladimir Putin was looking for a swift invasion that would halt Ukraine’s drift toward the West, reveal NATO’s fractures and weaknesses and solidify Russia as a global power. In response, the West thr...

8 Mar 202258min

Fareed Zakaria Has a Better Way to Handle Russia — and China

Fareed Zakaria Has a Better Way to Handle Russia — and China

“Russia’s utterly unprovoked, unjustifiable, immoral invasion of Ukraine would seem to mark the end of an era,” writes Fareed Zakaria, “one that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.”Many of...

4 Mar 20221h 5min

Can the West Stop Russia by Strangling its Economy?

Can the West Stop Russia by Strangling its Economy?

There’s the Russia-Ukraine war that’s easy to follow in the news right now. We can watch Russian bombs falling on Ukraine, see Russian tanks smoking on the side of the road, hear from Ukrainian resist...

1 Mar 20221h 35min

A Philosophy of Games That Is Really a Philosophy of Life

A Philosophy of Games That Is Really a Philosophy of Life

When we play Monopoly or basketball, we know we are playing a game. The stakes are low. The rules are silly. The point system is arbitrary. But what if life is full of games — ones with much higher st...

25 Feb 20221h 12min

Best Of: Stop. Breathe. We Can’t Keep Working Like This.

Best Of: Stop. Breathe. We Can’t Keep Working Like This.

We were promised, with the internet, a productivity revolution. We were told that we’d get more done, in less time, with less stress. Instead, we got always-on communication, the dissolution of the bo...

22 Feb 202254min

A Critique of Government That Liberals Need to Hear

A Critique of Government That Liberals Need to Hear

Government is a bureaucratic, slow-moving institution. It’s too easily captured by special interests. It’s often incapable of acting at the speed and scale our problems demand. And when it does act, i...

18 Feb 20221h 16min

Populært innen Politikk og nyheter

giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
aftenpodden-usa
i-retten
stopp-verden
forklart
popradet
det-store-bildet
nokon-ma-ga
dine-penger-pengeradet
fotballpodden-2
rss-gukild-johaug
aftenbla-bla
hanna-de-heldige
rss-ness
bt-dokumentar-2
frokostshowet-pa-p5
e24-podden
rss-dannet-uten-piano
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk