November 19, 2025 • 21 mins
In this episode of The Karol Markowicz Show, Karol sits down with City Journal contributing editor and The Power of Bad author John Tierney for a candid conversation on recycling myths, COVID-era groupthink, and the cultural dominance of negativity. Tierney breaks down why he challenges mainstream environmental narratives, how he shifted from traditional liberalism to outspoken contrarian, and what the pandemic revealed about public discourse. He also shares practical ways to stay optimistic, push back on fear-driven messaging, and focus on what’s actually going right in the world. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Wednesday & Friday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is John Tierney. John is a contributing
editor to City Journal and a former columnist for The
New York Times. He is the co author of Willpower,
Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength and the Power of Bead.
How the negativity effect rules us and how we can
rule it. Hi, John, so nice to have you buy me.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm a huge fan.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm a huge fan. I was just going to say,
I am a huge, huge fan. And it's rare that
I remember the very first thing I read by somebody.
But I remember the first column I read by you,
and maybe you can guess what it is. It was
sort of a big deal. It was thirty years ago.
I was in college, and of course it was recycling
is garbage. It was the first time, and you know,
(00:45):
I was already a conservative, but it was the first
time that I realized, Wow, we could be told total
nonsense by experts. So you really opened my eyes to
that and led me, you know, have that sensation throughout
my life. What was the huge controversy about that piece?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It well, it set a record for hate mail at
the New York Times magazine was the cover story recycling
his Garbage, which I don't think they'd ever run today.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
No, definitely not, although they didn't did their credit.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
That was like in ninety seven or something like that.
Ninety six, and then in twenty seventeen they asked me
to come back and re visited for the you know,
the Sunday Review section, and you know, and it was
a recycling looked even worse. But you know, the idea
was this garbage bag, this garbage bar is like in
the early nineties, couldn't find a place to put the
(01:39):
garbage because they just tightened up all these environmental roles
and there weren't and there wasn't space in the existing land.
They were closing landfill and so this turned into the
garbage crisis, that we were running out of space and
that we had to recycle and there was no short
there's so much room in this country to bury garbage.
And it was ridiculous and I always call it it
was a solution in search of a problem. They've been
(02:01):
doing it ever since, they keep and then it became
obvious that we're not running out of all these resources.
There's no short is it paper? You know, there's no
shortness of trees, and it became obvious that there's plenty
of landfill space to put it way on the country.
The communities that get this garbage are happy because it's
a ton of revenue for them that they beautiful school.
(02:22):
I visited a landfill in this rural county and they
had this brand new school, much better than anything in
New York thanks to the revenue that we give them
for taking our garbage. And you can't even find this
landfill unless you know where it is. It's just you know,
off in the state, so you know. Ever since then,
it's just you know. And then it became well, it's, oh,
(02:43):
it's for climate change. You know, that's their new one.
And it really makes virtually no difference. A lot of
this stuff, I think probably increases emissions. And of course
now in New York we have this absurd thing. This
year we have to do composting, which makes even less
sense than everything else, so expensive, it's sets a pain
to do, and there's it's just I mean, the city
(03:04):
is going broke and we're wasting money and wasting people's time.
It's just incredible. But you know what I really learned
from it I guess is that it's a religion, you know,
and you can't really change people's mind.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, do you recycle?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
No, well, I mean I do it with paper, probably
because I don't want my building the garbage police to
do it. And it's fairly easy with paper, you just
you know, I mean you put the newspapers in a
stack and you put them in a bag. But otherwise, no,
I do not.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Do recycle because I'm afraid of getting a ticket. I
don't know if they would do that in Florida, but
my mom got a ticket in Brooklyn and it like
traumatized me. She didn't wrap her newspaper the right way
or something a number of years ago, and that's it.
Ever since then, I've.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Been it's unbelievable with people going around doing this, you know,
and now they're supposed to be going around looking for
like food grounds, and I can imagine the job of
doing that, and you're digging through garbage to do it,
and there's so many things that have to be down
in the city. It's just I mean, but you know,
but what also happened it's probably a religion with individuals
white people. It's 'es basically people all were wasting. I
(04:09):
hate to waste things. But also it's now just become
this recycling industrial complex, these activist groups, environmentalists to do it,
and then there are these companies that are now you know,
because we spend so much more money to recycle. There's
money to be made by people.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Absolutely, did you always want to be the kind of
writer that destroys the faith of college students in the experts.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I guess I've always sort of been a contrarian. But
I really think what happened to me was I mean,
in college, I was a sort of conventional liberal, you know.
I think I even went door to door from a governor.
I think, in my heart, I was always really a libertarian,
you know, but I didn't. But I remember as a freshman,
I even went to a meeting of the Young Socialist Club,
you know, whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
That's where the pretty girls were or I have no money.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Socialism sounded grace right, right, okay? And then but I
was so.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Put off by the people you know there, just you know,
the kind of activists that run that that I never
went back. And I also as a freshman, once I
went to Yale and William slung coffin the famous, you know,
left wing a reverend. He led us down to protest
the bombing in Cambodia at the time. We all wrote
Buzzes Down. We visited Congressman and you know, and I was,
(05:25):
you know, anti war. I you know, I had a
draft number. It wasn't particularly eager to go, but just
that experience of seeing the leaders on the bus talking,
I just realized I don't like these people. You know,
they're really out for power that you know they're using
this to do it. So that turned me off. And
then what really happened to me, though, was as a journalist.
(05:46):
You know, I did want to go into journalism, and
as I was reporting stories, I just kept finding that
if you actually went out and looked, you saw that
the facts bore no relation to the.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Narrative, Right, what might you have done instead? The writing
thing not worked out well.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I went to college as a math major. I liked it,
and then really it took first and I took you know,
sort of a class, an advanced class freshman year because
I passed the ap for calculus, so.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Rare, like writers usually have no math skills. I mean,
so many people that I've spoken to on this show
say that they are a bad at math. Just I
think it usually goes hand in hand. That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
No, but I got in this class and I just
was with upperclassmen, and I realized, you know, with math,
when you don't get it, you know, there's nothing like it.
Either you get it or you don't. I realized I'd
better find something else to do. And I met in
my freshman year Williams Injured. You know the name who
wrote the book on writing Well.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
It's so million, Yes, yes, I do know the book.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yes, he actually I think growth like. He was a
writer for Life magazine who then wanted to teach nonfiction writing.
At the time, this was like something nobody did. And
he wrote letters like a hundred colleges and no, but
he was interested except Yale was one. There was one
other little place somewhere, so he went there and taught
this class on writing well, where you do these writing exercises,
(07:09):
and then he turned that class into this book I'm
Writing Well, which is a great book. And I and
he came to like a coffee in my dorm. It
was nice of him to do it, and I talked
to him and at the class was hard to get into.
He kind of for some reason, he said, I'll let
you in my class next semester. And I remember walking
home and walking back to my dorm from that class
(07:29):
thinking I could be a magazine writer. Yeah, that seemed
like the most glamorous thing in the world to me, right,
and also I don't have to do math. And then
I managed to get summer jobs at newspapers. And it
was really hard to get summer jobs when I was
in college, but the internships are one way to do it,
so and that's how I got started.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
So where did you get your start? What was the first?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I got a summer job at the Pittsburgh Press. I
grew up in Pittsburgh after living in the Midwestern and
South America for a little bit. And then and then
I got a summer job at the Philadelphia Bulletin. And
then I got a summer job at the Minneapolis Tribune,
which would not give me a and I was out.
I graduated then, and they did not want to give
me a job because they had an ombusman who was
(08:13):
obsessed with corrections. They kept a talent and I made
three or four little mistakes, but that was enough to
do me so and then I came back I worked
at the Bergen Record and then the Washington Star, and
then I went into magazine writing in the eighty science writing.
So I always liked science, and so you know, I
did that, yeah a while, and then joy the Times finally.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So would you say that your beat, like I think
at the Times, your beat was maybe looking at science
and other fields through a more realistic lens. Do you
think that that's still your beat or has that changed?
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Well? At the Times, I started out in the Metro section,
and I actually the first column I wrote there was
called the Big City. There was about New York. So
I did that, and then I did it up ed column,
and then I did the science column for about six
years or something. And so I've always liked science writing,
but I've always liked writing about other stuff too. And
you asked about how how I changed my ideas, and
(09:11):
it really was like it was like during magazine writing
that I met the scientists and a lawyer who were libertarians,
and like they made me high X book road to
serve them, and it was really like Esquire Magazine sent
me to do it. They did a thing called Man
at his Best or no Men of the Year or
something whatever. It was they did men we like, you know,
(09:33):
and they assigned me and I got the lawyer I
think his name was Van Osteen, who brought the case
to the Supreme Court that allowed lawyers to advertise. And
so I met him and he was like a libertarian,
you know, you know, And I met other people who
were and I met Julian Simon mcconast just through my work,
and you meet them and you'd see stuff on what
(09:54):
was actually happening and realize, you know, I mean it
was really kind of those people and the facts. I
so that changed my mind.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Yeah, I would say, it's funny. I very rarely hear
the story that somebody came around to libertarianism because of
the libertarians. It's actually quite the opposite. Usually it's like
I like libertarianism, but not libertarians. It's interesting that you
had the reverse effect happened to you.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Well, I kind of met guys that I really respected,
you know, people, and then and once you start looking
at the facts and you start reading, go, yeah, that
makes a lot of it. And I realized my own
liberalism was more, you know, keep the government out of
my private life. It wasn't that I thought big government
was great. You know. I mean another thing once that
I got a summer job in Pittsburgh working for the
(10:42):
Parks Department and we had this fishing pond and we
handed out fishing poles, and it was it was during
Nixon had this neighborhood youth course and to employ minority
kids and poor neighborhoods, and we had like twenty four people.
There was enough work for one or two people. We
had like twenty four kids doing stuff that we would
just send home because they didn't there was really nothing
(11:04):
for them to do. And then at one point my
coworker he started leaving early and he said, you know,
why should we both stay here till nine o'clock? So
he would go home some nights and I would go
home with the other. It turned out when I was
going home, he was also going home and we got caught.
And well, I'm quaking because I'd worked in a drug
store and I thought, oh my god, we're really in
(11:25):
trouble now. And the county supervisor comes out and says,
if this ever happens again, you won't be paid for
that time.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
And you're like, what, Yeah, this is the government and
also the people.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I knew that, I mean you know kids in school
who got jobs with the state, you know, transportation Department.
They all just bragged how nobody worked, you know, right, So.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
What are we doing? Why how come we don't have
government jobs and not work. I feel like I'm doing
this all wrong, Like I have to work. We're going
to take a quick break and be right back on
the Carol Marcowitch Show. So what would you say like
your your books, especially The Power of Bad I found it.
I loved it, by the way. I read it a
number of years ago. I thought it was so excellent.
(12:08):
Do you feel like I feel like your style is
very like you think it's like this, but it's really
like this. And I enjoyed that a lot because I
like having my opinions challenged. Do you feel like that's
your style?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Absolutely, you're exactly right. I did a science blog at
the Times called Tierney Lab, and the two founding principles
we had on the I had on the main page
was just because an idea appeals to a lot of
people doesn't mean it's wrong. Number two, but that's a
good working hypothesis. And I love the fact that conventional
wisdom was coined by John Kempy and it doesn't mean
(12:43):
what everybody The original meaning was not just what everybody believed,
but what is convenient for everybody to believe, you know,
and in so many things that just you know, people
want to believe it.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
So, yeah, what are you most proud of in your life?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
I guess it the fact of kind of you know,
find you know, standing up and saying, you know this,
this stuff is wrong. I mean exactly what you said
there that and and doing things on my own and
you know, it's hard. It was kind of hard to
do some of that at the times. The readership has
hated me, you know, for doing that. But I and
I was really proud during COVID being a city journal
(13:20):
that that was one of the few places and I
think we were like the almost the first that came
out and said lockdowns are and say.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Hey, hey New York Post.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
You know, yeah, you guys were good, but we were,
you know, and I was, you know, I remember, I
was proud of, you know, because at the time there
was sets panic. Nobody can say anything, you know, you'll
kill people.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Yeah, So so.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
I think and I think by then I knew the
public health world. I mean I wrote a piece like
back in two thousands. I don't know, you know, many
years ago on the corruption of public health, that it
was so hopelessly politicized. So I really knew, don't believe
these people.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
So has it been a challenge other than the hate
mail at the Times? Like have you been canceled? Have
you you know, had calls for your head?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I'm trying to you know what I was at the Times?
It was kind of pre canceled. Yeah, I mean it was.
I mean I knew that most of the people there
didn't like it, and I mean, you know, when I
started writing the bed column, I got I got a
note from Al Hunt, who was the liberal columnist on
the Wall Street Journal page, and he said, it's a
great gig, you know, being the contrarian on you know,
(14:28):
it keeps you on us. And that's one thing I
really do. I mean, you just have to cover your
clients when you're doing this, you know, you have to
be so careful. Yeah, but he said, it's a great gig.
It keeps you honest. But don't read the mail.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So funny, so funny, because I remember really disliking Al
Hunt when I was in college. I'm being like, why
does the Wall Street Journal publish this guy, and now,
you know, I think it's good to publish a variety
of opinions to make myself angry in the morning.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
You know. But I mean when I you know, when
I wrote this a bed column at the Times, you know,
I stopped looking at the comments. I did follow his advice,
but when I looked at them, sometimes there were like
five people who would gather at the column every day
and just talking about how much they hated me. And
I always wondered, like, you don't have to read.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
It, right, those are your biggest fans. That's what's so funny,
Like I you know, the people who obsessed negatively about
my work. I love them because they're so into it.
They read all of my stuff. They know everything I've
ever said. It's like that is spandom right there.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
You are great. Well that's a tribute to you, you know.
But do you read their comments?
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I love it. I thrive on the negative comments. The
more you hate me as long as you're reading me,
the more I enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Well, that's great, that's good. You know. I wrote a
piece like a year or two ago that I may
turn into a book with Ory Baummeister called The misogyny myth,
and it's it's really has this idea that there is
a misogyny. Actually both sexes are biased against man really
and and I was hoping, you know, I assumed i'd
be attacked by feminists, But I think the left's new
(16:04):
thing is we just ignore it. You know.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah, that's worse to me. That is so much worse.
I'd rather they hate it and say so and write
screeds against me. Ignoring the arguments. Is that that's really
where they get into an echo chamber, and it leads
us to an echo chamber because we don't feel like
we're talking to them anymore. You know. Just one of
the things that my co host and my other show
(16:27):
normally Mary Katherine, him and I always say is that
we know everything about the left. We know all of
their opinions, we know everything they believe, and they know
so little about us it actually harms them.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
It says a disparity because you can't watch TV, you
can't watch a movie on climate exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Yeah, you know, I can't go to synagogue without getting
a lecture on climate change. It's it's bad.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
How do you you know? How do you feel? You know?
When you're writing how much you have to. I mean
one thing, when I wrote for The Times, you just
had to feel they and I've had to do this
very gently. I know you think this, and this seemed
really reasonable, but just just consider a couple things, you know,
(17:11):
and I like more city and maybe I should do it,
but the City Journal our audiences more he just you know,
But I always thought I was pulling my punches, you.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Know, whereas I someone Birklan could.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Just ramt and make you know as much as he wants.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
You know, I remember that being your style, like the
very like I know you think this, but it's actually this,
you know.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Yeah, I you know.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
I don't had to do that even with the Post's
audience at the beginning of COVID, because like you, I
very early, very early saw that the lockdowns were a problem.
I will admit that in March twenty twenty, I called
for schools to close because my husband had stopped going
to work. Everybody had stopped going to work, but the
schools were still open. It just made no sense. I
(17:54):
didn't realize that that nothing would ever make sense for
the next two years. But as soon as you know,
I saw that it wasn't going to be two weeks
I started calling for things to open, and of course
that meant I wanted people to die. Even among conservatives
and libertarians. I think people were not quite ready to
hear that. In April of twenty twenty, had to do
(18:16):
a little bit of like I take COVID seriously, but
you know, give us your five year out prediction. Could
be about the country, the world, music are anything.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Well. I'm a real optimist. I mean, one of the
themes that I've written about is that if you look
at long term trends, everything's getting better now. You can
argue right now that polarization politics seems particularly ugly. I
think what's going on in politics now is that the
old elite is losing its grip, you know, on institutions,
and they're just splashing out. They're being violent, they're just
(18:50):
they want to cancel everyone. So but I think that
you know that they're I don't think they can stop it.
So so I think in that sense, it's wonderful that
there's so many more voices now and so much more freedom,
and I think it's going to be hard. I mean,
there are a lot of movements in Trump I don't
like some of the stuff he does as far as
expanding government power. But I think in general, it's very
(19:13):
hard to stop this because you know, there are places
all over the world it's very hard to acquatch that.
So that I think things will continue to get better.
I mean, I worry about the deficit. I mean, I
think that's a problem, But in general, I think technology
and I'm very optimistic about AI. Well, I think things
are you know, life will continue to get better, people
will get richer, better educated, and so so I'm optimistic.
(19:39):
I just think things will get better. And I think
maybe the polarization, I don't know. I think as they
lose their grip, they might actually have to get a
little more sensible. I mean, the Democrats can't go on
with this craziness now.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
They can't, and I hope Republicans don't follow them completely
down the crazy path, which you know, some Republicans definitely
seem like they might want to. Yeah, yeah, I agree,
it's getting better all the time. All signs are pointing up.
I think it's an extremely optimistic moment. Yeah, I'm with
you definitely. Well, I've loved this conversation. John, You are
(20:15):
really one of my all time favorites. Leave us here
with your best tip for my listeners on how they
can improve their lives.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I guess I would. I mean, in the book The
Power of the Bad, when we talked about the rule
of four that bad it has so much more impact
on you in every way, and that it takes four
good things to overcome a bad then, and I think
the main thing is, you know, and there's a thing
called positive illusions, and basically just focusing on the positive
will make your life so much better. Curating social media
(20:45):
so you're not just reading this negative stuff, you know,
be careful what you watch on mainstream media, and just
remember that, you know, there's so much more good, so
many more good things happening in the world and bad,
And yet our brain is wired to just focus on
the bad. Everybody always thinks the world's going to hell.
And there's like people who don't want to have kids today,
(21:06):
Like when is it ever a better time?
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Right?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
No, there is no better time.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
I mean they used to half of them used to
die by I mean, so I just remember that things
are getting better, you know, and don't project your own
unhappiness under the world.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, be an optimist and read The Power of Bad
It really did help me control negative thinking. I enjoyed
that book a lot. He is John Tierney read him
at City Journal. Check out his two books, Will Power,
Rediscovering the greatest human strength and the power of Bad.
How the negativity effect rules us and how we can
rule it. Thank you so much, John.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Thank you. Cur had a great time.
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is John Tierney. John is a contributing
editor to City Journal and a former columnist for The
New York Times. He is the co author of Willpower,
Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength and the Power of Bead.
How the negativity effect rules us and how we can
rule it. Hi, John, so nice to have you buy me.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm a huge fan.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm a huge fan. I was just going to say,
I am a huge, huge fan. And it's rare that
I remember the very first thing I read by somebody.
But I remember the first column I read by you,
and maybe you can guess what it is. It was
sort of a big deal. It was thirty years ago.
I was in college, and of course it was recycling
is garbage. It was the first time, and you know,
(00:45):
I was already a conservative, but it was the first
time that I realized, Wow, we could be told total
nonsense by experts. So you really opened my eyes to
that and led me, you know, have that sensation throughout
my life. What was the huge controversy about that piece?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It well, it set a record for hate mail at
the New York Times magazine was the cover story recycling
his Garbage, which I don't think they'd ever run today.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
No, definitely not, although they didn't did their credit.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
That was like in ninety seven or something like that.
Ninety six, and then in twenty seventeen they asked me
to come back and re visited for the you know,
the Sunday Review section, and you know, and it was
a recycling looked even worse. But you know, the idea
was this garbage bag, this garbage bar is like in
the early nineties, couldn't find a place to put the
(01:39):
garbage because they just tightened up all these environmental roles
and there weren't and there wasn't space in the existing land.
They were closing landfill and so this turned into the
garbage crisis, that we were running out of space and
that we had to recycle and there was no short
there's so much room in this country to bury garbage.
And it was ridiculous and I always call it it
was a solution in search of a problem. They've been
(02:01):
doing it ever since, they keep and then it became
obvious that we're not running out of all these resources.
There's no short is it paper? You know, there's no
shortness of trees, and it became obvious that there's plenty
of landfill space to put it way on the country.
The communities that get this garbage are happy because it's
a ton of revenue for them that they beautiful school.
(02:22):
I visited a landfill in this rural county and they
had this brand new school, much better than anything in
New York thanks to the revenue that we give them
for taking our garbage. And you can't even find this
landfill unless you know where it is. It's just you know,
off in the state, so you know. Ever since then,
it's just you know. And then it became well, it's, oh,
(02:43):
it's for climate change. You know, that's their new one.
And it really makes virtually no difference. A lot of
this stuff, I think probably increases emissions. And of course
now in New York we have this absurd thing. This
year we have to do composting, which makes even less
sense than everything else, so expensive, it's sets a pain
to do, and there's it's just I mean, the city
(03:04):
is going broke and we're wasting money and wasting people's time.
It's just incredible. But you know what I really learned
from it I guess is that it's a religion, you know,
and you can't really change people's mind.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, do you recycle?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
No, well, I mean I do it with paper, probably
because I don't want my building the garbage police to
do it. And it's fairly easy with paper, you just
you know, I mean you put the newspapers in a
stack and you put them in a bag. But otherwise, no,
I do not.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Do recycle because I'm afraid of getting a ticket. I
don't know if they would do that in Florida, but
my mom got a ticket in Brooklyn and it like
traumatized me. She didn't wrap her newspaper the right way
or something a number of years ago, and that's it.
Ever since then, I've.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Been it's unbelievable with people going around doing this, you know,
and now they're supposed to be going around looking for
like food grounds, and I can imagine the job of
doing that, and you're digging through garbage to do it,
and there's so many things that have to be down
in the city. It's just I mean, but you know,
but what also happened it's probably a religion with individuals
white people. It's 'es basically people all were wasting. I
(04:09):
hate to waste things. But also it's now just become
this recycling industrial complex, these activist groups, environmentalists to do it,
and then there are these companies that are now you know,
because we spend so much more money to recycle. There's
money to be made by people.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Absolutely, did you always want to be the kind of
writer that destroys the faith of college students in the experts.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I guess I've always sort of been a contrarian. But
I really think what happened to me was I mean,
in college, I was a sort of conventional liberal, you know.
I think I even went door to door from a governor.
I think, in my heart, I was always really a libertarian,
you know, but I didn't. But I remember as a freshman,
I even went to a meeting of the Young Socialist Club,
you know, whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
That's where the pretty girls were or I have no money.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Socialism sounded grace right, right, okay? And then but I
was so.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Put off by the people you know there, just you know,
the kind of activists that run that that I never
went back. And I also as a freshman, once I
went to Yale and William slung coffin the famous, you know,
left wing a reverend. He led us down to protest
the bombing in Cambodia at the time. We all wrote
Buzzes Down. We visited Congressman and you know, and I was,
(05:25):
you know, anti war. I you know, I had a
draft number. It wasn't particularly eager to go, but just
that experience of seeing the leaders on the bus talking,
I just realized I don't like these people. You know,
they're really out for power that you know they're using
this to do it. So that turned me off. And
then what really happened to me, though, was as a journalist.
(05:46):
You know, I did want to go into journalism, and
as I was reporting stories, I just kept finding that
if you actually went out and looked, you saw that
the facts bore no relation to the.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Narrative, Right, what might you have done instead? The writing
thing not worked out well.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I went to college as a math major. I liked it,
and then really it took first and I took you know,
sort of a class, an advanced class freshman year because
I passed the ap for calculus, so.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Rare, like writers usually have no math skills. I mean,
so many people that I've spoken to on this show
say that they are a bad at math. Just I
think it usually goes hand in hand. That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
No, but I got in this class and I just
was with upperclassmen, and I realized, you know, with math,
when you don't get it, you know, there's nothing like it.
Either you get it or you don't. I realized I'd
better find something else to do. And I met in
my freshman year Williams Injured. You know the name who
wrote the book on writing Well.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
It's so million, Yes, yes, I do know the book.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yes, he actually I think growth like. He was a
writer for Life magazine who then wanted to teach nonfiction writing.
At the time, this was like something nobody did. And
he wrote letters like a hundred colleges and no, but
he was interested except Yale was one. There was one
other little place somewhere, so he went there and taught
this class on writing well, where you do these writing exercises,
(07:09):
and then he turned that class into this book I'm
Writing Well, which is a great book. And I and
he came to like a coffee in my dorm. It
was nice of him to do it, and I talked
to him and at the class was hard to get into.
He kind of for some reason, he said, I'll let
you in my class next semester. And I remember walking
home and walking back to my dorm from that class
(07:29):
thinking I could be a magazine writer. Yeah, that seemed
like the most glamorous thing in the world to me, right,
and also I don't have to do math. And then
I managed to get summer jobs at newspapers. And it
was really hard to get summer jobs when I was
in college, but the internships are one way to do it,
so and that's how I got started.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
So where did you get your start? What was the first?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I got a summer job at the Pittsburgh Press. I
grew up in Pittsburgh after living in the Midwestern and
South America for a little bit. And then and then
I got a summer job at the Philadelphia Bulletin. And
then I got a summer job at the Minneapolis Tribune,
which would not give me a and I was out.
I graduated then, and they did not want to give
me a job because they had an ombusman who was
(08:13):
obsessed with corrections. They kept a talent and I made
three or four little mistakes, but that was enough to
do me so and then I came back I worked
at the Bergen Record and then the Washington Star, and
then I went into magazine writing in the eighty science writing.
So I always liked science, and so you know, I
did that, yeah a while, and then joy the Times finally.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So would you say that your beat, like I think
at the Times, your beat was maybe looking at science
and other fields through a more realistic lens. Do you
think that that's still your beat or has that changed?
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Well? At the Times, I started out in the Metro section,
and I actually the first column I wrote there was
called the Big City. There was about New York. So
I did that, and then I did it up ed column,
and then I did the science column for about six
years or something. And so I've always liked science writing,
but I've always liked writing about other stuff too. And
you asked about how how I changed my ideas, and
(09:11):
it really was like it was like during magazine writing
that I met the scientists and a lawyer who were libertarians,
and like they made me high X book road to
serve them, and it was really like Esquire Magazine sent
me to do it. They did a thing called Man
at his Best or no Men of the Year or
something whatever. It was they did men we like, you know,
(09:33):
and they assigned me and I got the lawyer I
think his name was Van Osteen, who brought the case
to the Supreme Court that allowed lawyers to advertise. And
so I met him and he was like a libertarian,
you know, you know, And I met other people who
were and I met Julian Simon mcconast just through my work,
and you meet them and you'd see stuff on what
(09:54):
was actually happening and realize, you know, I mean it
was really kind of those people and the facts. I
so that changed my mind.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Yeah, I would say, it's funny. I very rarely hear
the story that somebody came around to libertarianism because of
the libertarians. It's actually quite the opposite. Usually it's like
I like libertarianism, but not libertarians. It's interesting that you
had the reverse effect happened to you.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Well, I kind of met guys that I really respected,
you know, people, and then and once you start looking
at the facts and you start reading, go, yeah, that
makes a lot of it. And I realized my own
liberalism was more, you know, keep the government out of
my private life. It wasn't that I thought big government
was great. You know. I mean another thing once that
I got a summer job in Pittsburgh working for the
(10:42):
Parks Department and we had this fishing pond and we
handed out fishing poles, and it was it was during
Nixon had this neighborhood youth course and to employ minority
kids and poor neighborhoods, and we had like twenty four people.
There was enough work for one or two people. We
had like twenty four kids doing stuff that we would
just send home because they didn't there was really nothing
(11:04):
for them to do. And then at one point my
coworker he started leaving early and he said, you know,
why should we both stay here till nine o'clock? So
he would go home some nights and I would go
home with the other. It turned out when I was
going home, he was also going home and we got caught.
And well, I'm quaking because I'd worked in a drug
store and I thought, oh my god, we're really in
(11:25):
trouble now. And the county supervisor comes out and says,
if this ever happens again, you won't be paid for
that time.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
And you're like, what, Yeah, this is the government and
also the people.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I knew that, I mean you know kids in school
who got jobs with the state, you know, transportation Department.
They all just bragged how nobody worked, you know, right, So.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
What are we doing? Why how come we don't have
government jobs and not work. I feel like I'm doing
this all wrong, Like I have to work. We're going
to take a quick break and be right back on
the Carol Marcowitch Show. So what would you say like
your your books, especially The Power of Bad I found it.
I loved it, by the way. I read it a
number of years ago. I thought it was so excellent.
(12:08):
Do you feel like I feel like your style is
very like you think it's like this, but it's really
like this. And I enjoyed that a lot because I
like having my opinions challenged. Do you feel like that's
your style?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Absolutely, you're exactly right. I did a science blog at
the Times called Tierney Lab, and the two founding principles
we had on the I had on the main page
was just because an idea appeals to a lot of
people doesn't mean it's wrong. Number two, but that's a
good working hypothesis. And I love the fact that conventional
wisdom was coined by John Kempy and it doesn't mean
(12:43):
what everybody The original meaning was not just what everybody believed,
but what is convenient for everybody to believe, you know,
and in so many things that just you know, people
want to believe it.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
So, yeah, what are you most proud of in your life?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
I guess it the fact of kind of you know,
find you know, standing up and saying, you know this,
this stuff is wrong. I mean exactly what you said
there that and and doing things on my own and
you know, it's hard. It was kind of hard to
do some of that at the times. The readership has
hated me, you know, for doing that. But I and
I was really proud during COVID being a city journal
(13:20):
that that was one of the few places and I
think we were like the almost the first that came
out and said lockdowns are and say.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Hey, hey New York Post.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
You know, yeah, you guys were good, but we were,
you know, and I was, you know, I remember, I
was proud of, you know, because at the time there
was sets panic. Nobody can say anything, you know, you'll
kill people.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Yeah, So so.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
I think and I think by then I knew the
public health world. I mean I wrote a piece like
back in two thousands. I don't know, you know, many
years ago on the corruption of public health, that it
was so hopelessly politicized. So I really knew, don't believe
these people.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
So has it been a challenge other than the hate
mail at the Times? Like have you been canceled? Have
you you know, had calls for your head?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I'm trying to you know what I was at the Times?
It was kind of pre canceled. Yeah, I mean it was.
I mean I knew that most of the people there
didn't like it, and I mean, you know, when I
started writing the bed column, I got I got a
note from Al Hunt, who was the liberal columnist on
the Wall Street Journal page, and he said, it's a
great gig, you know, being the contrarian on you know,
(14:28):
it keeps you on us. And that's one thing I
really do. I mean, you just have to cover your
clients when you're doing this, you know, you have to
be so careful. Yeah, but he said, it's a great gig.
It keeps you honest. But don't read the mail.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So funny, so funny, because I remember really disliking Al
Hunt when I was in college. I'm being like, why
does the Wall Street Journal publish this guy, and now,
you know, I think it's good to publish a variety
of opinions to make myself angry in the morning.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
You know. But I mean when I you know, when
I wrote this a bed column at the Times, you know,
I stopped looking at the comments. I did follow his advice,
but when I looked at them, sometimes there were like
five people who would gather at the column every day
and just talking about how much they hated me. And
I always wondered, like, you don't have to read.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
It, right, those are your biggest fans. That's what's so funny,
Like I you know, the people who obsessed negatively about
my work. I love them because they're so into it.
They read all of my stuff. They know everything I've
ever said. It's like that is spandom right there.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
You are great. Well that's a tribute to you, you know.
But do you read their comments?
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I love it. I thrive on the negative comments. The
more you hate me as long as you're reading me,
the more I enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Well, that's great, that's good. You know. I wrote a
piece like a year or two ago that I may
turn into a book with Ory Baummeister called The misogyny myth,
and it's it's really has this idea that there is
a misogyny. Actually both sexes are biased against man really
and and I was hoping, you know, I assumed i'd
be attacked by feminists, But I think the left's new
(16:04):
thing is we just ignore it. You know.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah, that's worse to me. That is so much worse.
I'd rather they hate it and say so and write
screeds against me. Ignoring the arguments. Is that that's really
where they get into an echo chamber, and it leads
us to an echo chamber because we don't feel like
we're talking to them anymore. You know. Just one of
the things that my co host and my other show
(16:27):
normally Mary Katherine, him and I always say is that
we know everything about the left. We know all of
their opinions, we know everything they believe, and they know
so little about us it actually harms them.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
It says a disparity because you can't watch TV, you
can't watch a movie on climate exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Yeah, you know, I can't go to synagogue without getting
a lecture on climate change. It's it's bad.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
How do you you know? How do you feel? You know?
When you're writing how much you have to. I mean
one thing, when I wrote for The Times, you just
had to feel they and I've had to do this
very gently. I know you think this, and this seemed
really reasonable, but just just consider a couple things, you know,
(17:11):
and I like more city and maybe I should do it,
but the City Journal our audiences more he just you know,
But I always thought I was pulling my punches, you.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Know, whereas I someone Birklan could.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Just ramt and make you know as much as he wants.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
You know, I remember that being your style, like the
very like I know you think this, but it's actually this,
you know.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Yeah, I you know.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
I don't had to do that even with the Post's
audience at the beginning of COVID, because like you, I
very early, very early saw that the lockdowns were a problem.
I will admit that in March twenty twenty, I called
for schools to close because my husband had stopped going
to work. Everybody had stopped going to work, but the
schools were still open. It just made no sense. I
(17:54):
didn't realize that that nothing would ever make sense for
the next two years. But as soon as you know,
I saw that it wasn't going to be two weeks
I started calling for things to open, and of course
that meant I wanted people to die. Even among conservatives
and libertarians. I think people were not quite ready to
hear that. In April of twenty twenty, had to do
(18:16):
a little bit of like I take COVID seriously, but
you know, give us your five year out prediction. Could
be about the country, the world, music are anything.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Well. I'm a real optimist. I mean, one of the
themes that I've written about is that if you look
at long term trends, everything's getting better now. You can
argue right now that polarization politics seems particularly ugly. I
think what's going on in politics now is that the
old elite is losing its grip, you know, on institutions,
and they're just splashing out. They're being violent, they're just
(18:50):
they want to cancel everyone. So but I think that
you know that they're I don't think they can stop it.
So so I think in that sense, it's wonderful that
there's so many more voices now and so much more freedom,
and I think it's going to be hard. I mean,
there are a lot of movements in Trump I don't
like some of the stuff he does as far as
expanding government power. But I think in general, it's very
(19:13):
hard to stop this because you know, there are places
all over the world it's very hard to acquatch that.
So that I think things will continue to get better.
I mean, I worry about the deficit. I mean, I
think that's a problem, But in general, I think technology
and I'm very optimistic about AI. Well, I think things
are you know, life will continue to get better, people
will get richer, better educated, and so so I'm optimistic.
(19:39):
I just think things will get better. And I think
maybe the polarization, I don't know. I think as they
lose their grip, they might actually have to get a
little more sensible. I mean, the Democrats can't go on
with this craziness now.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
They can't, and I hope Republicans don't follow them completely
down the crazy path, which you know, some Republicans definitely
seem like they might want to. Yeah, yeah, I agree,
it's getting better all the time. All signs are pointing up.
I think it's an extremely optimistic moment. Yeah, I'm with
you definitely. Well, I've loved this conversation. John, You are
(20:15):
really one of my all time favorites. Leave us here
with your best tip for my listeners on how they
can improve their lives.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I guess I would. I mean, in the book The
Power of the Bad, when we talked about the rule
of four that bad it has so much more impact
on you in every way, and that it takes four
good things to overcome a bad then, and I think
the main thing is, you know, and there's a thing
called positive illusions, and basically just focusing on the positive
will make your life so much better. Curating social media
(20:45):
so you're not just reading this negative stuff, you know,
be careful what you watch on mainstream media, and just
remember that, you know, there's so much more good, so
many more good things happening in the world and bad,
And yet our brain is wired to just focus on
the bad. Everybody always thinks the world's going to hell.
And there's like people who don't want to have kids today,
(21:06):
Like when is it ever a better time?
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Right?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
No, there is no better time.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
I mean they used to half of them used to
die by I mean, so I just remember that things
are getting better, you know, and don't project your own
unhappiness under the world.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, be an optimist and read The Power of Bad
It really did help me control negative thinking. I enjoyed
that book a lot. He is John Tierney read him
at City Journal. Check out his two books, Will Power,
Rediscovering the greatest human strength and the power of Bad.
How the negativity effect rules us and how we can
rule it. Thank you so much, John.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Thank you. Cur had a great time.
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