The Mattering Instinct (with Rebecca Newberger Goldstein)
1/12/20261 hr 5 min
Philosopher and author Rebecca Newberger Goldstein discusses her new book, The Mattering Instinct, which argues that our lives are a quest to validate our inherent self-centeredness. Tracing this essential longing from physics and biology through to ethics and politics, she explains to EconTalk's Russ Roberts why material success alone can never satisfy our deep-seated need to matter. She describes the four ways people seek significance--through transcendence, social connection, excellence, or competition--and explains how the unmet need to matter is at the heart of some of the biggest problems afflicting modern societies: loneliness, extremism, and polarization.
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First 90 secondsRuss Roberts· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Welcome to EconTalk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to econtalk.org, where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to two thousand and six. Our email address is mail@econtalk.org. We'd love to hear from you. [upbeat music] Today is December 3rd, twenty twenty-five, and my guest is philosopher and author Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. Her latest book, and the subject of today's episode, is The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us. Rebecca, welcome to EconTalk.
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein· Guest0:59
It's a pleasure to be here.
Russ Roberts· Host1:01
So what is the mattering instinct? What does that mean?
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein· Guest1:05
Uh, [chuckles] yes. So, uh, it is, it is longing to matter. Uh, it is a longing, uh, that I think makes our... It, it characterizes our species. I've been talking to people about mattering for decades now. Um, and, uh, there's a