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Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller
Kerri Miller and Kelly Gordon

How to defeat 'The Age of Grievance'

side by side of a man and a book
In his new book, "The Age of Grievance," columnist Frank Bruni argues our inability to discern between petty complaint and legitimate grievance is poisoning our culture.
Book courtesy Simon & Schuster

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The first sentence of Frank Bruni’s new book says it all. It reads, “Let me tell you how I’ve been wronged.”

More and more Americans are living mired in resentment, says Bruni, convinced that they are losing because someone else is winning. And it’s poison to our collective culture.

In his new book, “The Age of Grievance,” he writes: “[Grievance] turns everything — beer, M&M’s, Skittles, restaurant chains, theme parks, athletic teams, athletic competitions — into cultural battlefields. For many Americans, the war zone is infinite.”

This week, Bruni joins host Kerri Miller on Big Books and Bold Ideas, as part of our Democracy in America series, to discuss how we got here and how we move forward. In the age of toxic social media and divided national politics, can we learn to inoculate ourselves and our communities against grievance?

Guest:

  • Frank Bruni is a longtime correspondent and opinion columnist for The New York Times. In 2021, he started teaching at Duke University’s school of public policy. His new book is “The Age of Grievance.”

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