Few figures have literally and figuratively electrified American culture the way Bob Dylan has. He released his first album in 1962, won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, and continues to perform about 100 concerts a year at the ripe age of 83. His life is chronicled in the new movie A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet.

But what's the meaning—or meanings—of Bob Dylan, who sang at Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington, became a born-again Christian in the 1970s, and wrote a book called The Philosophy of Modern Song?

Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with Jeffrey Edward Green, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of the new book Bob Dylan: Prophet Without God. Green argues that Dylan's work embodies a uniquely American tension between commitments to individual self-expression, the pursuit of political and social justice, and being right with one's version of God. In this, he is akin to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and other figures who refused to subjugate their lives completely to a particular cause. Dylan's willingness to openly struggle with these conflicting demands—and his abiding interest in adapting past musical forms—helps explain why he remains so important to understanding where we've been as a country and where we might be headin'.

• Video Editor: Ian Keyser

The post Jeffrey Edward Green: Why Bob Dylan's Prophecies Continue To Fascinate appeared first on Reason.com.

Today's guest is Penny Lane, the acclaimed documentary filmmaker whose previous works include Listening to Kenny G and Hail Satan?, both of which formed the basis of previous Reason interviews linked in the show notes.

Her exceptional new film is Confessions of a Good Samaritan. It's currently streaming on Netflix and follows her experience as an "altruistic" kidney donor, or one who gives an organ away to an anonymous stranger. Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with Lane about how she came to make her decision; its effects on her body, mind, and finances; and the ethics of current policy, which prevents donors from being paid for giving away life-saving organs. "My instinct as more or less a libertarian is, yeah, pay people," Lane tells Reason. "It seems like a really obvious thing." But it's not a simple one, she explains, both because of current laws and medical history. They also talk about the state of documentary film making, if we're in a golden age for the genre, and whether audiences are becoming smarter consumers of media.

Previous appearances:

"Penny Lane: Can 75 Million Kenny G Fans Be Wrong?" December 1, 2021

"Hail Satan? A New Documentary Depicts Devil Worshipers as Unlikely Defenders of the First Amendment," April 26, 2019

00:00- Introduction

2:19- Penny Lane's altruistic kidney donation

4:21- Effective altruism's influence on Lane

6:12- Lane's obstacles before surgery

7:13- Recovering from surgery physically & psychologically

11:25- Parable of the Good Samaritan

15:43- Kidney donation policy

19:34- How financial incentives would change the equation

21:03- History of kidney transplants

24:17- Could man-made organ transplants be common soon?

28:49- 'Disgust' around selling organs

32:23- Starring in your own documentary

38:12- Are audiences more media literate now?

40:33- Lane's history with documentary filmmaking

41:46- Lane's documentarian heroes

48:06- Lane's current projects

• Video Editor: César Báez
• Audio Production: Ian Keyser

The post Penny Lane: Why I Gave a Kidney to a Total Stranger appeared first on Reason.com.

In late 2017, in the name of "zero tolerance," President Donald Trump introduced a policy of separating parents and children who crossed the Southern border and requested asylum in the United States. In all, an estimated 5,500 children were taken from their parents and many were held in detention facilities, some of which had been constructed by the Obama administration. Over 1,000 children are still unaccounted for by the federal government. The policy ended in 2018 after massive public outcry. The zero tolerance policy is the subject of Separated, a new documentary by Academy Award–winning filmmaker Errol Morris. It has aired on MSNBC and will be available for streaming on December 17.

Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with Morris and journalist Jacob Soboroff, whose book on the controversy inspired the film. They discuss how family separation became policy and whether it acted as a deterrent, America's long and ambivalent relationship with legal and illegal immigration, and what Trump's second term will mean for immigration policy.

0:00- Introduction

2:15- Trump's 'zero-tolerance' immigration policy

5:33- Jacob Soboroff's book

9:33- Who was really behind the child separation policy?

13:09- State-created orphans and the asylum process

15:04- Immigration policies through U.S. history

18:31- American attitudes towards immigration v implemented policies

21:21- Ad: ZBiotics

23:07- Anti-immigration rhetoric escalated during the 2024 election

29:15- 'Border Czar' Tom Homan

32:15- Stephen Miller, Elaine Duke & Kirsten Nielsen

37:35- Nielsen's replacement, Kristi Noem

39:42- The Dunning-Kruger administration?

40:57- Expertise vs. disruption

44:43- How to change attitudes toward immigration

Previous appearances:

• "Errol Morris on Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, Theranos, and Cancel Culture," November 8, 2019
• "Errol Morris on Donald Rumsfeld, The Unknown Known, and Evidence-Based Journalism," April 12, 2014

Today's sponsor:

• ZBiotics. ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic Drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by Ph.D. scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Make ZBiotics your first drink of the night, drink responsibly, and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Get 15 percent off by going to ZBiotics/TRI and using the code TRI at checkout.

• Video Editor: Ian Keyser

The post Errol Morris and Jacob Soboroff: Trump's Immigration Policies Are Indefensible appeared first on Reason.com.

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Today's guest is Brendan O'Neill, chief political writer for Spiked and the author of the bracing new book, After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation.

O'Neill and Reason's Nick Gillespie talk about the response in the United Kingdom and the United States to Hamas' attacks last year, Israel's ongoing military actions, and what's likely to come next in a postwoke world. "On October 7," says O'Neill, "the progressive left went from 'believe women' to 'believe fascists.' They took Hamas at its word over the testimonies of raped women."

They also discuss whether O'Neill's politics have changed over the years. At the start of his career a quarter-century ago, he was an unapologetic man of the left—a self-declared Trotskyist, in fact. But these days he seems to make more common cause with conservatives and libertarians. "My rallying cry remains the same," O'Neill insists. "Increase the power of man over nature and decrease the power of man over man."

0:00- Introduction

1:16- O'Neill's new book: "After The Pogrom"

5:48- Hamas is religious extremist movement

11:10- Islamism as extreme rejection of modernity

16:57- Is being anti-Zionist punk?

18:40- The 'cultural appropriation' of the Keffiyeh

21:17- Is Israel a white settler-colonialist state?

24:28- When did the left turn against Israel?

28:53- Is antisemitism connected to anti-capitalism?

32:30- The demonization of Israel

33:40- Palestine as the Omni-cause

35:34- The madness of Queers for Palestine

39:29- The catastrophe of post-Oct. 7 progressivism

43:34- Did Oct. 7 accelerate the collapse of wokeness?

46:40- How much should the west be supporting Israel's war effort?

51:28- O'Neill's political evolution

53:21- How gay liberation differed from the trans movement

58:22- Today's young activists seek institutional approval

1:00:50- How Marxism & Trotsky influenced O'Neill

1:04:14- Critics of Zionism in 1930s-40s Europe

Previous appearances:

"A Heretic's Manifesto: Spiked's leading polemicist defends J.K. Rowling, Brexit, and Enlightenment values of free speech and pluralism," June 21, 2023

"'The Real Threat to Free Speech Now Is Conformism and Cowardice': Spiked's Brendan O'Neill on free expression, environmentalism as 'an apology for poverty,' and why he is 'a Marxist libertarian,'" December 23, 2015

• Video Editor: Ian Keyser

The post Brendan O'Neill: The West Went Insane After October 7 appeared first on Reason.com.

Today's guest is Martin Gurri, a former CIA analyst who is a visiting fellow at the Mercatus Center and a columnist for The Free Press. A decade ago, in the wake of the Arab Spring and various "color" revolutions around the world, Gurri published The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium, which analyzed how social media empowered ordinary people to resist control from above and anticipated the rise of Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Brexit.

Reason's Nick Gillespie spoke with Gurri shortly after the 2024 election at The Reason Speakeasy, a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy in an age of intellectual conformity and groupthink. (Go here for information on Reason events.) They talked about why Gurri voted for Trump and why he's cautiously optimistic about the next four years.

0:00- Introduction

1:13- Why Gurri voted for Trump

4:46- Trump vs. Harris: Chaos vs. Control

8:40- Trump's first term 11:04- Trump's new coalition

14:33- Is authoritarianism coming to America?

19:00- Attention, Populism & Wild Hair

20:42- Colossal transformation awaits us

34:05- Creating communities of meaning in the digital age

36:22- The transformations enabled by the printing press

38:41- More chaos is coming 43:11- Lessons from Cuba

48:40- Arab Spring and the spark that overthrows a regime

50:37- Short term pessimistic, long term optimistic

Today's Sponsor:

• Reason Versus: "You Don't Have To Pick a Side in Politics": On Wednesday, December 18, you are invited to join Reason and our friends at The Bulwark for this new thought-provoking debate series in Washington D.C. at the Howard Theatre. Whether you've made up your mind about the necessity of choosing sides or are questioning the whole premise, this debate will challenge your assumptions and broaden your perspective.

• Video Editor: Ian Keyser

The post Martin Gurri: Political Chaos Brings Colossal Transformation appeared first on Reason.com.

Today's guest is Amanda Knox, an activist, writer, and host of the podcast Labyrinths. In 2007, while studying abroad in Italy, Knox was accused of murdering her roommate, Meredith Kercher, in what the lead prosecutor claimed was a bizarre sex game gone wrong. Despite mishandled DNA, a coerced confession, and a lack of credible evidence, Knox was convicted and spent nearly four years in an Italian prison before being exonerated in 2015. Her case was a media spectacle that sensationalized every aspect of her life.

Reason's Billy Binion talks with Knox about her views on true crime after her story became one of the biggest examples of the modern era. They also discuss the psychological impact of being imprisoned for something she didn't do; what Knox thinks the U.S. criminal justice system gets right and wrong; and how she reacts to people who still believe she's lying. What's more, she shares a fascinating tidbit about her relationship with the lead prosecutor on her case—something that will be featured more in her new book Free, which is available for preorder.

0:00—Introduction
1:10—Coping with a wrongful conviction
6:29—Life in prison
15:28—Knox's coerced confession
19:52—Knox's second conviction and failed retrial
25:55—The attempt to find "normalcy"
31:45—"Foxy Knoxy" and the vicious press
34:40—The need for greater media literacy and transparency
39:54—'The Single Victim Fallacy' and grieving Meredith Kercher
49:19— Italian vs. American criminal justice systems
53:26—The criminal justice reform movement
55:27—Police deception should be banned
58:36—Unrepentant prosecutors and Sandra Hemme
1:04:13—Prosecutor of Knox's case and her new book Free
1:08:11—Knox's relationship to True Crime
1:18:05—Knox's podcast Labyrinths and skeptical approach

• Video Editor: Ian Keyser

The post Amanda Knox: 'I Have Felt Utterly Exploited' by True Crime appeared first on Reason.com.

In the wake of massive victories by Donald Trump and Republicans, here's a question worth asking: What does today's GOP really stand for? Longstanding support for free trade and overseas wars seems to have been replaced with tariffs and non-interventionism.

Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis are the authors of The Myth of Left and Right. They argue that the way we talk about the political spectrum misleads and confuses us because it reduces complex special-interest coalitions to one or two issues that really aren't representative of what the parties actually stand for. As a result, they say that the next four years will be as fractious within the GOP (and the Democratic Party too) as the last four.

Today's Sponsor:

• ZBiotics. ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic Drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by Ph.D. scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Make ZBiotics your first drink of the night, drink responsibly, and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Get 15 percent off by going to ZBiotics/TRI and using the code TRI at checkout.

• Video Editor: Ian Keyser

The post Hyrum and Verlan Lewis: Stop Buying the 'Left v. Right' Myth appeared first on Reason.com.

Join Reason's Nick Gillespie live on election night at YouTube, X, and Reason.com, starting at 10 p.m. EST.

Will history be made? Will it end? Joining Gillespie are The Fifth Column's Kmele Foster, Bloomberg economics columnist Allison Schrager, and many more special guests, who will break down the weirdest—and possibly the most consequential—election season in any of our lifetimes.

• Audio Production: Ian Keyser

The post Live on Election Night! <em> The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie </em> appeared first on Reason.com.

Musa al-Gharbi is a sociologist at Stony Brook University and the author of the new book We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. Al-Gharbi argues that academics, journalists, and other elite professionals that he calls "symbolic capitalists" are disconnected from the marginalized and disadvantaged communities they claim to speak for—and that, by using the rhetoric of class solidarity drawn from the Occupy movement (which pitted the "99 percent versus the 1 percent"), progressive symbolic capitalists actually exploit those communities to maintain a relatively lush lifestyle.

Born and raised in a mixed-race military family in Arizona, al-Gharbi spoke with Reason's Nick Gillespie about wokeness transforming the college experience, his conversion from Catholicism to atheism to Islam, why black and Latino voters appear to be embracing former President Donald Trump in record numbers, and his highly public cancellation in 2014 after he was attacked by Fox News for criticizing U.S. foreign policy.

0:00— Introduction
1:09— New book: We Have Never Been Woke
4:04— Can 'wokeness' be defined?
8:35— The history of 'Great Awokenings'
9:30— Occupy Wall Street was an elite movement
11:02— 'Symbolic Capitalists' pretend not to be elites
15:57— Political splits among 'Symbolic Capitalists'
19:50— The primary function of elite schooling is to grant elite status
23:42— Cultural contradictions of 'symbolic professions'
25:20— Elite overproduction drives status anxiety
27:30— Elite overproduction and popular immiseration equal 'Great Awokening'
31:04— How Occupy Wall Street shifted to identity politics
34:46— Victims like George Floyd only become important to elites after symbolic martyrdom
39:22— Musa al-Gharbi's background
45:00— Being canceled by Fox News
49:00— Engaging with conservatives
53:18— Attending Columbia University
55:11— Working with Heterodox Academy
57:40— The latest 'awokening' is tapering off
1:00:29— Realignments among Black & Latino voters
1:06:42— Better living standards shift politics into 'post-materialist' frames
1:09:08— On not voting in the 2024 elections

Today's sponsor:
The Reason Speakeasy. The Reason Speakeasy is a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy that doubles as a taping of The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie. The next one takes place on November 18 and features Mercatus Center visiting fellow and former CIA analyst Martin Gurri, whose decade-old The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium remains one of the most important guides to the 21st century. Go to reason.com/events for information and tickets.

• Video Editor: Ian Keyser

The post Musa al-Gharbi: How Woke Elites Became Out of Touch appeared first on Reason.com.

Today's guest is Faisal Saeed Al Mutar, the co-founder of Ideas Beyond Borders (IBB), a nonprofit that translates books and articles about limited government, freedom of thought, and market economics into Arabic and other languages, and distributes them for free in the Middle East and other parts of the world. (Full disclosure: Reason's Nick Gillespie is on the board of IBB.)

Gillespie talked with Al Mutar about IBB's new book, Untold Stories of the Middle East, which celebrates entrepreneurs in Kurdistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere whom IBB has given startup grants; how the October 7 attacks on Israel and fighting in Gaza and Lebanon will affect the region for decades; and what it was like to grow up in Baghdad under Saddam Hussein, various Islamic terrorist groups, and the U.S. occupation. This conversation was taped in front of a live audience in New York.

0:00 - Introduction

1:26 - Untold Stories Of The Middle East

4:20 - Micro grants in the Middle East

6:20 - The hope of Kurdistan

9:00 - Beirut's post-explosion struggles & recovery

11:12 - Oil vs. the entrepreneurial spirit in the Middle East

14:20 - Building a vocabulary of freedom with Ideas Beyond Borders

18:20 - Censorship & internet access in the Middle East

19:39 - Hiring Middle Eastern translators

22:16 - A brief history of political upheaval in the Middle East

30:12 - The 'liberal minority' in Lebanon

33:29 - U.S. intervention in the Middle East

39:45 - Impact of October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel on peace processes in the region 44:00 - Funding schools for girls in Afghanistan

46:05 - The tragedy & hope of Afghanistan: The Graveyard of Empires

49:43 - 'Sanctions Boy': Growing up in 90s Baghdad

59:04 - 'We don't have the privilege to be depressed (about the Middle East)'

1:01:35 - Economic freedom & self-determination restore agency

Previous appearances:
Faisal Saeed Al Mutar, Melissa Chen: Bringing Enlightenment Values to the Middle East, May 25, 2022
Faisal Al Mutar Fights Radical Islam with Western Bestsellers, September 21, 2018

Today's sponsor:
The Reason Speakeasy. The Reason Speakeasy is a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy that doubles as a taping of The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie. Go to reason.com/events for information and tickets to the next one.

• Video Editor: Ian Keyser

The post Faisal Saeed Al Mutar: Peace In The Middle East Through Capitalism appeared first on Reason.com.

Today's guest is Meghan McCain, political commentator, former co-host of ABC's The View, and host of the podcast Citizen McCain.

Reason's Billy Binion talks with her about the changing GOP, bias in corporate media, the 2024 election, and what it's like to be a non-MAGA, nonpopulist member of today's Republican Party.

0:00- Introduction
0:21- Ad: St. John's College
1:36- Libertarians vs. the McCains
3:33- Being a non-MAGA, non-populist conservative
6:56- Obama lecturing black male voters
9:38- Kamala Harris' terrible press strategy
11:07- Meghan McCain does not have TDS
19:14- John McCain also didn't have TDS
25:34- Who wins 2024? Trump or Harris?
27:15- McCain's Republican Party
30:22- Bipartisan Write-A-Check politics
34:10- The gerontocracy & Biden's disastrous debate performance
39:52- The Democratic Party has big problems too
44:14- The CBS Ta-Nehisi Coates/Tony Dokoupil meltdown
51:06- Corporate legacy media is collapsing
55:14- Recovering from The View
1:02:47- Kari Lake traded her principles for failure
1:08:00- Being an early public supporter of gay marriage
1:12:24- 'America, You Sexy Bitch: A Love Letter To Freedom'
1:13:53- 'Nepo babies' contain multitudes!

Today's sponsors:

• St. John's College. Explore 3,000 years of human thought on campuses in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and in Annapolis, Maryland. From the Greek philosophers who are the wellspring of democratic ideals to America's Founding Fathers to contemporary critics who question everything: Each is welcome at St. John's College. In-person and online master's degree courses are offered, too.
• The Reason Speakeasy. The Reason Speakeasy is a monthly unscripted discussion in midtown New York City that doubles as a live taping of The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie. The next one is on Thursday, October 24, and features the Stony Brook sociologist Musa al-Gharbi, whose new book is We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. Tickets are $15 and include beer, wine, soft drinks, and light food. For more information and to buy tickets, go here. To watch or listen to past Speakeasys, go here.

• Video Editor: Ian Keyser

The post Meghan McCain: 'Trump Didn't Break My Brain. What's Your Excuse?' appeared first on Reason.com.