# Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, "The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us" (Liveright Publishing, 2026)

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-critical-theory-962622/rebecca-newberger-goldstein-the-mattering-instinct-how-our-deepest-longing-drives-us-and-divides-us-liveright-publishing-2026
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-critical-theory-962622/rebecca-newberger-goldstein-the-mattering-instinct-how-our-deepest-longing-drives-us-and-divides-us-liveright-publishing-2026.md
Podcast: [New Books in Critical Theory](https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-critical-theory-962622)
Published: 2026-05-12T08:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK9258355907.mp3?updated=1778467864
Audio file: https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK9258355907.mp3?updated=1778467864
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-critical-theory-962622/episodes/rebecca-newberger-goldstein-the-mattering-instinct-how-our-deepest-longing-drives-us-and-divides-us-liveright-publishing-2026
Duration seconds: 2626

## Resource

MacArthur Fellow and National Humanities Medalist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex and The Mind-Body Problem, returns with a revelatory book about the primal drive that in our species alone has been transformed into one of our most persistent and universal motivations: the longing to matter. Drawing on biology, psychology, and philosophy, in The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us (Liveright Publishing, 2026) Goldstein argues that this need to matter―and the various “mattering projects” it inspires―is the source of our greatest progress and our deepest conflicts: the very crux of the human experience.Goldstein brings this profound idea to life through unforgettable stories of famous and not-so-famous people pursuing their unique mattering projects: the ragtime genius Scott Joplin, whose dedication to his ignored masterpiece, Treemonisha, ended in tragedy; the pioneering psychologist William James, who rose above the depression of his young adulthood to become perhaps the first great theorist of mattering; an impoverished Chinese woman who rescued abandoned newborns from the trash; and a neo-Nazi skinhead who as a young man dealt racial violence to feel he mattered but ultimately renounced that hateful past after realizing that mattering isn’t a zero-sum game. These portraits illuminate how our instinct for significance shapes identity, relationships, culture, and conflict―and they point the way to a future where we all might see that there is, fundamentally, enough mattering to go around.Deeply revealing and insightful, and decades in the making, The Mattering Instinct is a must read for those curious about why we seek to matter to ourselves and others―and how this insatiable longing that drives us apart ma…

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-critical-theory-962622/episodes/rebecca-newberger-goldstein-the-mattering-instinct-how-our-deepest-longing-drives-us-and-divides-us-liveright-publishing-2026/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-critical-theory-962622/rebecca-newberger-goldstein-the-mattering-instinct-how-our-deepest-longing-drives-us-and-divides-us-liveright-publishing-2026.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.