Welcome to a special edition of the Breakpoint podcast.

Thrilled to welcome back here, someone who's no stranger to the Breakpoint audience.

That's author, social, critic, public intellectual, thought leader, all around great guy.

Oz, I'm out of adjectives to describe you, Oz Guinness, but always great to have you on the program.

Thank you. General Leibabout and good friend of yours.

But that's a good way to put it.

But I've appreciated Oz for so long.

I think all the audience knows how much I've relied on your analysis.

Of the cultural moment, you and I are going to be together in Phoenix for an event there in January, and we'll be talking about that here in just a second.

It'll be an event that folks in Phoenix can join us live, but also will be available over live stream.

And really, what we're trying to get at is kind of a lay of the land.

I think a lot of people are just sensing or have the

sense that this is just a chaotic cultural moment. I mean, there's times when things are kind of

boring. You kind of think back in the 90s and, you know, the things that we're capturing our

attention were these kind of salacious details of, you know, kind of voyeuristic

looks into our, you know, celebrities, things like that. And now you talk about international,

you talk about domestic, you talk about everything from a global pandemic to economic,

you know, unsettlement. Things don't seem okay. And I know culture ebbs and

flows, but how would you describe, you know, what people are sensing and feeling right now?

Well, I think this is truly what's called a civilizational moment. So America is experiencing

its deepest crisis since the Civil War, but equally, it's

part of the overall crisis of the Western world today. And so I think we need to really appreciate

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