Hi, Brian Lairer here.

Up next, Brian Lairor Weekend,

three of our favorite segments from the week,

packaged together for you to listen to on the weekend.

So enjoy, and I'll see you back on the radio Monday at 10 a.m.

on WNYC on WNYC.

Good morning again, everyone.

Is it possible that we're learning some of the wrong lessons about American culture from the pandemic? In a New York Times op-ed,

NYU sociologist Eric Kleinenberg writes that people tend to talk about an epidemic of loneliness

that the pandemic spawned. Kleinenberg says it's really a loss of trust we should be talking about.

That theory is part of a new book by Kleinenberg called 2020.

One city, seven people, and the year everything changed.

The city is New York.

We'll hear about some of the seven people and talk about what changed

that we should still be talking about in 2024, trust and other things. Yes, 2020, the year that

brought an economic crash precipitated by COVID-19. 2020, the year George Floyd was murdered

by a police officer. 2020, the year that President Biden first went head to head with Donald Trump.

Eric Kleinenberg is also Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU, and again, the book title is 2020, one city, seven people, and the year everything changed. Eric, thanks for coming on. Welcome

back to WNYC. Thank you. It's nice to be here. And I want to start, even though this is so personal,

obviously, to so many people who are in grief and everything else since 2020. Still, I want to

start on kind of an abstraction, I guess, with your theory of crisis

and what we can learn from it. You're right. Extreme events can make visible a range of

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