The Myth of Normal (Robert Wright & Gabor Maté)

Robert Wright's Nonzero

Nonzero

News & Politics, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.7 • 618 Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2023

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

1:02 Gabor’s new book The Myth of Normal, about trauma and mental and physical illness in modern Western society7:40 Are we all victims of a “toxic” culture?14:09 Gabor’s early years in Nazi- and then Soviet-occupied Hungary21:30 What Gabor thinks standard theories of addiction get wrong24:02 Can trauma ever be a good thing?26:34 Was Bob’s childhood traumatic? And if so, how?39:46 Trauma, attachment, and authenticity46:57 Is modern society hostile to community?53:43 The difference between healthy and unhealthy anger57:32 A primer on “compassionate inquiry”1:02:16 The time Gabor was leading an ayahuasca retreat and got deposed by shamans1:06:53 Gabor on why cognitive empathy is difficult but essential1:12:40 What Gabor sees as the essence of the book

Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Gabor Maté (Scattered Minds, When the Body Says No, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts). Recorded January 26, 2023.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, Gabor.
0:02.8	Hi, Bob. Nice to be with you.
0:04.8	Good to be with you. Thanks for taking the time. Let me introduce us.
0:07.6	I'm Robert Wright, publisher of the Non-Zero newsletter. This is the Non-Zero podcast.
0:12.1	You're a Gabor Matte, actually. Probably a commonly mispronounced name, I would think.
0:17.6	Don't a lot of people say Mate, and it's really Mate?
0:21.5	Actually, people,
0:27.8	most often missima is my first name. They call it Gabor rather than Gabor. Well, that's thanks to Eva and Jaja, right? That's thanks to them, yeah, fellow Hungarians. Yeah. But anyway, I think I now
0:36.0	have it 100% correct, Gabor Mate.
0:39.3	And you're a very well-known physician and writer, known for writing about physical health, mental health, the connections between the two.
0:48.9	You know, some years back, I think, gained a lot of prominence as an expert on addiction,
0:56.0	wrote a book called In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts about that. But the book we're going to
1:00.3	be talking about today is your new one. It's called The Myth of Normal, trauma, illness, and
1:04.7	healing in a toxic culture. It's a collaboration with your son, Daniel, who also did the narration on the audio. He did a very
1:14.0	good job, I got to say. He may have a second calling there. It must be very gratifying to have a book
1:20.9	that's not only a New York Times bestseller, but a collaboration with one of your children,
1:25.3	right? It is.
1:28.3	And, you know, I'm an accomplished writer myself, but I really couldn't have written this book
1:34.0	without Daniel's help.
1:36.1	It was just a big topic, and it needed lightning up, and it needed a, you know, a different
1:42.5	perspective sometimes.
1:43.9	So it was a real pleasurable, sometimes difficult,
	...

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