Robert Wright | |
|---|---|
 Wright in 2007 | |
| Born | (1957-01-15)January 15, 1957 (age 68) Lawton, Oklahoma, U.S. |
| Other names | Bob Wright |
| Education | Princeton University |
| Notable credit(s) | The Moral Animal,Nonzero,The Evolution of God |
| Spouse | Lisa Wright |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | bloggingheads meaningoflife nonzero |
Robert Wright (born January 15, 1957) is an American author and journalist known for his wide-ranging interests in philosophy, society, science (especiallyevolutionary psychology), history, politics, international relations, and religion. He has published five books:Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information (1988),The Moral Animal (1994),Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny (1999),The Evolution of God (2009), andWhy Buddhism is True (2017). Wright has taught atPrinceton University and theUniversity of Pennsylvania; more recently, in 2019 he was Visiting Professor of Science and Religion atUnion Theological Seminary, New York.[1]
In addition to teaching, lecturing, books, and journalism, Wright has been an innovator in the development of content on the Internet. He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief ofBloggingheads.tv, the founder and editor-in-chief ofMeaningoflife.tv, the founder and chief correspondent of the Nonzero Newsletter and Nonzero Podcast, and the creator of the Nonzero Foundation.
Wright was born in Lawton, Oklahoma, into aSouthern Baptist[2] family and attended public secondary schools in San Francisco, California, and San Antonio, Texas. A self-described "Army brat",[3] Wright attendedTexas Christian University for a year in the late 1970s, before transferring to Princeton University, where he studiedsociobiology, a precursor toevolutionary psychology.[2] His teachers at Princeton included authorJohn McPhee, whose style influenced Wright's first book,Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information.
Wright was employed as Senior Editor atThe Sciences andThe New Republic,[4] and as an editor atThe Wilson Quarterly.[5] As a contributing editor atThe New Republic, he co-authored the "TRB" column.[6] He has also worked atTime,[7] andSlate,[8] and has written forThe Atlantic Monthly,[9]The New Yorker,[10] andThe New York Times Magazine. He has occasionally contributed toThe New York Times, putting in a stint as guest columnist in April 2007 and in 2010 acting as a contributor to The Opinionator,[11] a web-only opinion page. Wright assumed the title of senior editor ofThe Atlantic on January 1, 2012.[12] In February 2015 the magazine's author page describes him as "a former senior editor atThe Atlantic."[13]
In early 2000s, Wright taught occasionally at Princeton University and theUniversity of Pennsylvania, leading a graduate seminar called "Religion and Human Nature" and teaching an undergraduate course called "The Evolution of Religion." At Princeton, Wright was aLaurence S. Rockefeller Visiting Fellow[14] and co-taught a graduate seminar withPeter Singer on the biological basis of moral intuition.[15] In 2014, Wright taught a six-weekCourseraMOOC on "Buddhism and Modern Psychology".[16] In 2019, Wright was a Visiting Professor of Science and Religion atUnion Theological Seminary, New York.[1] Also in 2019, Wright was a Senior Fellow at thethink tankNew America.[17]
In 2002, Wright ventured into video-on-Internet with hisMeaningofLife.tv website, developed by Greg Dingle,[18] where he interviewed a range of thinkers on their ideas about science, philosophy,meditation, spirituality, and other topics.Meaningoflife.tv is sponsored bySlate magazine, and made possible through funding by theTempleton Foundation.[19] Other hosts includeJohn Horgan, Daniel Kaufman, Nikita Petrov, and Aryeh Cohen-Wade.
On November 1, 2005, Wright, bloggerMickey Kaus, and Greg Dingle launched Bloggingheads.tv,[20] a current-eventsdiavlog. Bloggingheads diavlogs are conducted via webcam, and can be viewed online or downloaded either asWMV orMP4 video files or asMP3 sound files. New diavlogs are posted approximately 5-10 times a week and are archived. While many diavlogs feature Wright, other hosts at Bloggingheads.tv includeGlenn Loury,John McWhorter,Bill Scher,Matt Lewis, Kat Rosenfield, Phoebe Maltz-Bovy, and Aryeh Cohen-Wade.
Wright has written extensively on the topic ofreligion, particularly inThe Evolution of God. In 2009, When asked byBill Moyers if God is a figment of the human imagination, Wright responded:[21]
I would say so. Now, I don't think that precludes the possibility that as ideas about God have evolved people have moved closer to something that may be the truth about ultimate purpose and ultimate meaning... Very early on, apparently, people started imagining sources of causality, imagining things out there making things happen. And early on there wereshamans who had mystical experiences that even today aBuddhist monk would say were valid forms of apprehension of the divine or something. But by and large I think people were making up stories that would help them control the world.
OnThe Colbert Report, Wright said he was "not an atheist" but did not subscribe to any of the three Abrahamic religions.[22] He opposescreationism, includingintelligent design. Wright has a materialist conception ofnatural selection; however, he is intrigued by the possibility of some larger purpose unfolding, natural selection possibly being itself the product of design,[23] in the context ofteleology.[24] Wright describes what he calls the "changing moods of God," arguing that religion is adaptable and based on the political, economic, and social circumstances of the culture, rather than strictly scriptural interpretation.[25]
Wright has also been critical of organized atheism. He has described himself as asecular humanist.[26] Wright makes a distinction between religion being wrong and bad and resists the notion that its bad effects necessarily outweigh its good effects. He sees organized atheism as attempting to actively convert people in the same way as many religions do. Wright has said that it is counterproductive to think of religion as being the root cause of today's problems.[27]
InWhy Buddhism is True, Wright investigates a secular, Westernized form ofBuddhism focusing on the practice ofmindfulnessmeditation and stripped of the element ofreincarnation.[28] He believes Buddhism's diagnosis of the causes of human suffering is largely vindicated byevolutionary biology andevolutionary psychology, justifying his book's title.[29] He further argues that the modern psychological idea of themodularity of mind resonates with the Buddhist teaching of no-self (anatman).[29]
Wright lives inPrinceton, New Jersey, with his wife Lisa; they have two daughters.[3] Two of their dogs, named Frazier[30] and Milo,[31] have been featured in Bloggingheads.tv episodes.
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