Today, Explained

Most people have a hard time imagining how empathy could ever be harmful. And therefore, if I'm the devil, where am I going to hide some of my most destructive tactics? It's under the thing that nobody expects to be bad.

Rigney argues that solid ground is objectivity. From a Christian perspective, it is the authority of Scripture, the authority of Jesus. And that is giving you the strength and the sort of solid ground to be able to pull someone in.

He teaches a seminar at Washington University in St. Louis called Dad Culture Studies. He's also a TV critic at the New Republic, and he's writing a book called Dad, A Pop History.

And this week, cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker joins me on my podcast Stay Tuned With Preet to discuss his latest book. It's called When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows.

My dad was a child psychologist and he wrote parenting books. And I later found out that he used me as an example in his parenting books.

So I'm not going to say I was being experimented on, but I was a little bit being experimented on because he had theories about child psychology and how to raise kids.

The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual and exhibited in the lives of many. It constitutes the true source of national vigor and strength.

Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.

Needs and expectations in our relationships that make us feel safe and comfortable.

Rigid boundaries is where we have these walls, we have these hard rules, and we keep everyone out. Everybody gets the same rule.

Cash Patel is an accomplished children's book author. The Plot Against the King is Russiagate for the young ones. Find it wherever you find your books.

My name is Ellie Reeve, I'm a correspondent for CNN and author of the book Black Pill.

Ellie Reeve is the author of Black Pill, How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics.

Zach Beauchamp is the author of The Reactionary Spirit, How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World.

I wrote a book called Win Every Argument. And the first chapter is know your audience, right? Know who you're going to be in front of. Know who you're going to be speaking to.

The slasher subgenre in Hollywood was really triggered by John Carpenter's Halloween.

And I think the reason that Halloween was so terrifying and somewhat different from even, you could say, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is, you know, because in this case, the horror is happening right here in our little quaint suburban subdivision.

even, like back in the day, you would have a movie like the original Halloween, which had a very modest budget, and then just became this box office juggernaut.

But for me, it would have to be George Romero's Night of the Living Dead from 1968. That movie traumatized me. It damaged me. It did permanent damage to my psyche.

And then there's the more cerebral films, you know, Get Out, Us, Jordan Peele's films.

From Zach Craig, who also directed Barbarian. Barbarian is a very lo-fi movie. I mean, there's these small, intimate situations that are scary because they are just that.

But generally, I always say, until now or until in the last maybe decade or so, I would always call horror the Rodney Dangerfield of genres. It can't get no respect. Well, that's the story of my life. No respect. Because a lot of times it would happen as a money grab, there's no better genre than horror, at least traditionally. With horror, it's so much in your head. And the situations don't necessarily require CGI, although of course that happens. But if you look at a movie like Weapons.

You know, I think of some of our most, you know, buzzy horror creators right now. I think of Jordan Peele of Get Out and Zach Kregor of Weapons.

I found the director of Heart Eyes, you know, which is a movie that is both a riff on, like, slasher movies and romantic comedies. He's like Cupid with a kink. It was directed by Josh Rubin, who worked at College Humor.

There's a pair of Australian brothers, the Phillippo brothers, who did that movie, talked to me about the kind of, like, hand that could let you see ghosts.

Today Explained is back with Kyle Spencer. Kyle is a journalist and the author of the book Raising Them Right, the untold story of America's ultra-conservative youth movement and its plot for power.

Look, I'm a Kubrick guy when it comes to The Shining, you know, I definitely like worship that movie.

I talked to Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd. She's the author of the book Southern Beauty. Race, ritual, and memory in the modern South.

You write in your book that rituals like Rush are these performative symbols of the South. What history is it that they're invoking, exactly?

They are invoking the privilege of the plantation.

I actually wrote about it on page 50. That actives, the ones rushing these potential new members, look for a certain look. Put together. Cute but conservative. At ease. Attractive but not flashy.