Finding Meaning in the Matrix | Interview: Arthur Brooks

The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

The Dispatch

Politics, News

4.7 • 6.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2026

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In a blast from the past, Jonah sits down with his former job foreman and slumlord, Arthur Brooks, to discuss finding meaning in a complicated and empty world. Arthur and Jonah talk about the difficult conditions of modernity, phone discipline, living like your grandparents, identity portfolios, religion, love, friendship, starting The Dispatch, and Arthur's six steps for finding life's meaning.Show Notes:—Arthur Brooks: The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness—Charles Murray: Taking Religion Seriously—Charles Murray on The Remnant—Malcolm Muggeridge: Something Beautiful for God: The Classic Work on a Skeptic's Conversion Through Mother Teresa's Exemplary Influence—Helen Andrews: “The Great Feminization”The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including access to all of Jonah’s G-File newsletters—⁠click here⁠. If you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Selling your car can be super simple.
0:02.0	If you choose, we buy any car because they sort out any outstanding finance for you.
0:08.0	Just bring along your final settlement agreement.
0:10.0	If only they could make parallel parking simpler.
0:13.0	To the right bit, mate.
0:15.0	Yeah, back. Back a bit more. A bit more.
0:18.0	Oh, no, too far.
0:21.8	We buy any car.
0:23.0	Selling made simple.
0:27.1	To sell your car today, enter your reg number now at webuanycar.com. I'm going to. Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention.
0:48.3	Can you digger? Good, Jee, guys.
0:58.6	Greetings, dear listeners.
1:02.9	This is Jonah Goldberg, host of the Remnant podcast, brought to you by the dispatch and dispatch media.
1:04.1	Full disclosure, this is a note from the past, as it were.
1:08.5	We're recording this somewhere around Christmas time, but it doesn't
1:11.5	really matter for your purposes because we're going to be holding this for a little while.
1:15.5	And because my old friend and former boss at the American Enterprise Institute, Arthur Brooks,
1:21.7	who has a new book out that's coming out this spring. And we just wanted to get this in the can
1:26.4	when we could. And since, you know,
1:28.6	Arthur is a busy man. And if we didn't do it now, we'd probably have to wait for him to get
1:35.3	back from some pilgrimage to Sri Lanka or some, you know, spulunking and bat caves in Mexico or whatever
1:42.2	or pulling thorns out of wayward animals paws
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Dispatch, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Dispatch and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.