You know, there's psychopaths out there. There's monsters out there, but most people aren't. Most people are just a mess.

Good people do stupid things. Stupid people do good things. and that's just a healthier way to perceive our

fellow humans than, you know, creating, as we did on Twitter, a stage for constant artificial high drama where everybody's either a magnificent

hero or a sickening villain it's it's not true. I'm John Favro. I'm Max Fisher and you just heard from today's guest journalist

author and filmmaker John Ronson. John's the host of the BBC radio's Podcast Things Fell Apart, a series that explores the origins of different culture wars.

The newest season is specifically about the culture wars that started during the pandemic when being stuck at home glued to our

screens made us all a little crazy. I heard about that. Yeah, yeah. But John's been

covering topics like these culture wars, public shaming, conspiracy theories long before we all had to pay attention to them

in 2001 he followed a small-time radio host by the name of Alex Jones for a film and book

about extremists in 2015 2015, he published,

So You've been Publicly Shamed,

which was a first of its kind book,

exploring cancel culture, before it was called cancel culture.

John has a real six cents for these types of stories and really an incredible ability to get all kinds of people to open up to him.

He's amazing. I love his work so much. He's so great on Mike. I have been following him since I was in college. I'm a huge

fan. Just a lovely thoughtful man. We had a fantastic conversation. We talked

about why cultural wars are such an American phenomenon, the lingering effects of the pandemic on our national

psyche, whether public shaming still works, and what the hell happened to Alex Jones.

So much. So much, and so little.

But first, Max, it looks like Congress is making another run at banning Tik-Tock.

A really sincere run.

They're really going for it.

...