Podcast Summary: The Ezra Klein Show
Episode: George Saunders on Anger, Ambition and Sin
Date: February 10, 2026
Host: Ezra Klein
Guest: George Saunders
Overview
In this episode, Ezra Klein sits down with acclaimed novelist George Saunders to discuss themes from Saunders’s new novel Vigil. Their conversation navigates the interconnected concepts of anger, ambition, sin, judgment, capitalism, climate change, and the nature of truth. They examine what lies beyond kindness, interrogate the modern temptation of greatness and power, and grapple with the tension between judgment and understanding—both in literature and in life.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
Saunders’s New Novel and the Shift Beyond Kindness
- The conversation opens examining Saunders’s reputation as a literary champion of kindness—a role that evolved after his viral commencement speech.
- Reading Saunders’s latest work, Vigil, Klein observes a shift:
- The novel centers on K.J. Boone, an oil tycoon on his deathbed, visited by angels and figures from his past, who try to prompt his self-examination.
- Klein notes, “Saunders is more interested in something else now. Not kindness, but the question of judgment… it’s about free will and whether or not we have it. There’s a very fundamental tension between the side of Saunders that does not want to judge, and the side that thinks judgment is necessary.” [02:20]
Ambition, Power, and Self-Delusion
- Saunders discusses the prayer Boone offers on his deathbed, thanking God for his uniqueness and power:
- “From my perspective, a moment of extreme delusion… where he’s getting exactly the wrong message from the moment he’s in.” [04:24]
- The pursuit of power as a response to deep insecurity, and how society prizes such striving:
- “If you say power is everything, if I get that power, I’m safe. That’s completely bs... There’s not a world where one person could have so much power as to be above suffering.” [05:55]
- Both host and guest reflect personally on the temptation to fall back on worldly validation and praise to protect against self-doubt.
Oil, Capitalism, and Exploitation
- Saunders shares his own past as a geophysical prospector and the Kafkaesque absurdity he witnessed:
- “[For] like 10 years they’ve been drilling, spending millions of dollars on this information and then randomizing it and drilling anyway, and then they just decided to keep it quiet. So Kafka.” [09:31]
- He acknowledges the thrill and adventure of that work during his youth, but now recognizes its environmental and cultural destructiveness.
- Saunders uses his experience as a corollary for Boone but also as a meditation on how early pride and adventure can become justification for systemic harm.
The “Great Men” of History
- Ezra probes how the recent cultural debate about historical “great men”—and the backlash against critiquing them—informs the book.
- Saunders focuses on specificity over abstraction:
- “When I think about the great men of history in general, I don’t come up with much… but if I locate it in the person of this K.J. Boone, then I can work through it.” [14:38]
- Reading from the novel, they explore how the comfort of modern life (e.g., air-conditioning, food from around the world) is both a miracle and the product of exploitative systems.
Complicity, Desire, and the Self
- Ezra and Saunders discuss the consumer’s complicity in these systems—not just as passive recipients, but as agents of desire.
- Saunders questions the very existence of the “I” who desires:
- “From any of the great traditions, the self is a temporary illusion that appears maybe at birth… So from the very beginning, if you define I the way we conventionally do… there’s a problem.” [25:00]
- The illusion of the self is seen as the source of much suffering and error.
Sin, Judgment, and Free Will
- Saunders’s view of sin as being “out of step with truth, whatever it might be,” diverges from traditional Catholic understandings. [30:01]
- The novel wrestles with whether people’s actions are inevitable and therefore unjudgeable:
- Quoting an angel from the novel: “He came to seem… inevitable. An inevitable occurrence upon which, therefore, it would be impossible, even ludicrous, to pass judgment.” [31:56]
- The struggle between compassion (understanding people as creations of their circumstances) and the necessity for moral judgment grounds both the novel and the conversation.
Comfort, Grace, and Truth
- Saunders and Klein debate the meaning of comfort:
- Saunders: “Truth. If you and I are in a cabin and we can hear there are wolves outside… if you look at each other and go, fuck, there’s wolves, that’s comfort.” [41:10]
- Klein oscillates between comfort as truth and comfort as presence and unconditional love (grace).
- Jill, the angelic figure in the book, is critiqued for offering “idiot compassion”—comfort that skirts painful truths or fails to foster needed moral reckoning. [47:44]
The Politics of Judgment and Understanding
- Klein connects the book’s tension to current political/moral dilemmas: How do we judge public figures—do we empathize or demand accountability?
- “Is it to look at J.D. Vance and his cruelties… and think, I see how much trauma you went through as a child, and I understand that on some level that all made you who you are today… Or is it to say, you’re an adult man imbued with enormous power… shape up, be who you claim to be?” [54:01]
- Saunders, citing a Buddhist teacher, suggests that true compassion means both protecting victims and stopping perpetrators for their own sake: “If you have compassion for the victims of this cruelty, that’s important… but if you run around the other side… when you think about the karmic consequences of the sins they’re committing… I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.” [55:02]
Specificity Versus Abstract Judgment
- Getting concrete about real people or situations “squeezes out facile judgment.”
- “If you move towards specificity, the facile judgment goes away.” [56:22]
- Specificity leads to diagnostic, actionable moral and practical judgments, not tribal, emotional reactions.
The Messiness of Empathy
- Empathy must be scientific and objective, not sentimental; it can clarify judgment, not necessarily soften it.
- “You can understand somebody deeply and dislike them, or, let’s say, oppose them.” [60:25]
- Host and guest agree that the delusion that “bad people look bad” is a persistent and dangerous one.
Kindness, Anger, and Truth
- Saunders reacts to his reputation as “the kindness guy,” expressing discomfort and clarifying that true kindness involves a much deeper, often harsher grappling with reality.
- He discusses his own struggles with anger and agitation:
- “Most days I’m just a little agitated and kind of entitled and pissed off… So in the Buddhist tradition, that’s a course. I mean, you have negative emotions. Who doesn’t? And the whole thing is to try to work with those somehow.” [67:52]
- Klein talks about finding wisdom in negative emotions like anger rather than suppressing them for the sake of kindness.
- Saunders reframes anxiety and anger as forms of high energy or high standards that can be redirected toward positive outcomes.
Truth in Writing and Life
- Klein observes a shift in Saunders’s central focus from kindness to truth.
- Saunders defines truth as “just the way things are, the way things actually are, for you now… but also with a dose of skepticism about the way my mind answers that question.” [73:14]
On Change, Surprise, and Aging
- Klein and Saunders trade notes on how aging affects their openness to change and surprise:
- “As you get older… your blind spots sit there very happily, and they just expand, you know, so that can be… scary. But I think that for me, writing is the one way where a lot of that gets overturned.” [83:26]
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
The Nature of Power and Safety
- “If you say power is everything, if I get that power, I’m safe. That’s completely bs… There’s not a world where one person could have so much power as to be above suffering.” — George Saunders [05:55]
On the Illusion of the Self
- “The self is a temporary illusion… from the very beginning, if you define I the way we conventionally do… there’s a problem.” — George Saunders [25:00]
- “The error is that… when you go looking for what that I consists of, there’s nothing there. It’s an illusion.” — George Saunders [26:12]
On Sin and Truth
- “Sin just means you’re out of step with truth, whatever it might be… Cause and effect is God. Basically, God acts by cause and effect.” — George Saunders [30:01]
On Judgment and Compassion
- “You can understand somebody deeply and dislike them, or, let’s say, oppose them… you can oppose somebody in this way we’re talking about, which is lacking facile judgment, but very firm.” — George Saunders [60:25]
Comfort as Truth
- “Truth. If you and I are in a cabin and we can hear there are wolves outside… if you look at each other and go, fuck, there’s wolves, that’s comfort.” — George Saunders [41:10]
Specificity Dismissing Easy Judgments
- “If you move towards specificity, the facile judgment goes away.” — George Saunders [56:22]
Suggested Book Recommendations
(from George Saunders, at [85:00])
- I Will Bear Witness by Victor Klemperer
- Red Cavalry by Isaac Babel
- The Place of Tides by James Rebanks
Noteworthy Timestamps
- [02:20] – Ezra Klein introduces themes of Saunders’ new novel and this transition from “kindness” to “judgment”
- [04:24] – Discussion of Boone’s deathbed prayer, ambition, and delusion
- [09:31] – Saunders recounts a Kafkaesque episode from his oil field days
- [16:41] – Saunders connects personal experience to the central drive of capitalism and avoidance of insecurity
- [25:00] – The conversation dives into the self as illusion and desire’s complicity
- [30:01] – Saunders defines sin as being out of alignment with truth
- [31:56] – On the inevitability of character and choices; the tension between determinism and judgment
- [41:10] – The nature of true comfort
- [54:01] – Political application of judgment versus understanding
- [56:22] – How specificity outcompetes abstract, tribal judgments
- [67:52] – Saunders’s relationship to anger and frustration with the “kindness” label
- [73:14] – Saunders’s working conception of truth: lowercase, contextual, skeptical
Tone and Style
The conversation is reflective, searching, and often self-deprecating. Saunders’s wry humor coexists with deep philosophical seriousness. Both Saunders and Klein frequently admit uncertainty, invite nuance, and push each other toward greater specificity and depth. The discussion is intellectually rich, philosophically wide-ranging, and animated by a humane, meditative spirit.