Are Americans Addicted to Conflict?

The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie is a libertarian podcast that goes deep with the artists, entrepreneurs, politicians, and visionaries who are defining the 21st century.

Today’s guest is Lionel Shriver, the provocative writer best known for novels like We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Mandibles, and, most recently, Mania.

We talked a few days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, an event whose lasting significance she cautioned against over-interpreting. “We want tragedies to mean something,” she said, “And maybe they don’t.” Shriver offers cutting critiques of Gen Z socialists, Tucker Carlson, Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump, whom she says is devoid of “any firm principles.”

In a New York Times op-ed a decade ago, she thanked Rand Paul for “nominally refurbishing libertarianism so that it is halfway respectable,” but now says the term has become too tarnished as “far right.” She tells Nick Gillespie that she is one of “those sad people who occasionally still says they would like a smaller government” and isn’t “interested in massive social control.” Yet she seems to be growing more conservative, making dismissive comments about “the trans thing” and arguing against large-scale immigration, which is also the topic of her next novel, titled A Better Life, and due out early next year.

This interview was recorded live at an event in New York City.

---

0:00–Introduction
1:44–Lionel Shriver’s health battles
4:06–The danger of overinterpreting events
11:02–Weaponizing identity for conflict
19:06–Shriver’s views on libertarianism
22:54–Donald Trump and Kamala Harris
27:51–Shriver’s novelist inspirations
32:27–Gen Z’s problematic relationship with history
41:59–Concerns on mass immigration