Lawrence Wright: America’s Misadventures in Wars, Cults, and Panics

Reason Podcasts

Today's guest is the legendary journalist and New Yorker staffer Lawrence Wright. He is the author of Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief; The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11; and The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid. Wright talks with Reason's Nick Gillespie about The Human Scale, his new novel set in the war-torn Middle East, and why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict keeps burning even as most of the 20th century's conflicts have cooled. They also go deep on Wright's exposés on the war on terror, satanic panics, and how our craving for belief can lead us to madness. Then they turn to Texas, Wright's home state and the place he says is the future of America. What exactly does it mean that we're all becoming more like Lone Star State? This discussion took place at a live event in New York City. 0:00— Introduction 1:20— Texas: the future of American politics 3:17— 'The Human Scale' 5:38— Why the Israel-Palestine conflict endures 12:12— 'Thirteen Days In September' and the Camp David Accords 23:37— America as both egocentric bully and colony for the rest of the world 26:17— 'Remembering Satan' and the 'recovered memories' panic 33:29— How abortion anxiety may have fueled a moral panic 37:07— Insurance companies ended the panic by denying quack psychiatric treatments 39:15— The will to believe often overrides logic and evidence 40:55— Wright's teenage religious fervor led to interest in Scientology 42:19— How Scientology seduced Hollywood 47:26— 'Going clear' and Scientology backlash 50:03— Getting Paul Haggis on the record about Scientology 52:55— Texas in American mythology Subscribe at YouTube: http://youtube.com/reasontv Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magazine Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason Visit the archive: https://reason.com/tags/reason-podcast