Sep 6, 2026 · 1 hr 7 min · 12 segments
Why does anger seem to rule the world today? Pankaj Mishra traces our age of anger to the collision of Enlightenment promises of liberty and equality with empire, nationalism and capitalism. He asks…
Pankaj MishraGuestMohamed HassanHostWhat happens when anger takes over a human being so that every thought, every emotion, every decision, every sense of self is ruled by it? What happens when anger takes over a community, a society, a country, a world? Does that resemble the world that we live in today? Between the reemergence of political violence in the US, religious nationalism in Israel and India, and a global movement for Palestine questioning the media, the justice system, the very fabric of the rules-based order that failed to prevent genocide, and it feels that anger is a defining sentiment of the world that we live in today.
But is that feeling rooted in the present moment or in our past? In the beginning of modernity? The ideas of enlightenment, liberty, and revolution that shaped Europe and then the world in its image.
Were we always destined to find ourselves here? My name is Mohamed Hassan, and this is Deja Vu.
You are the author of a number of phenomenal pieces of fiction, as well as some searing indictments of Western society, of modernity, of the present moment.
And before that, a few years ago, you published Age of Anger, which really felt like it captured the moment that you saw it back in 2017 and today feels even more relevant.
When you examine the world today, you're somebody that reflects a lot about the state of the world.
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What happens when anger takes over a human being so that every thought, every emotion, every decision, every sense of self is ruled by it? What happens when anger takes over a community, a society, a country, a world? Does that resemble the world that we live in today? Between the reemergence of political violence in the US, religious nationalism in Israel and India, and a global movement for Palestine questioning the media, the justice system, the very fabric of the rules-based order that failed to prevent genocide, and it feels that anger is a defining sentiment of the world that we live in today.
But is that feeling rooted in the present moment or in our past? In the beginning of modernity? The ideas of enlightenment, liberty, and revolution that shaped Europe and then the world in its image.
Were we always destined to find ourselves here? My name is Mohamed Hassan, and this is Deja Vu.
You are the author of a number of phenomenal pieces of fiction, as well as some searing indictments of Western society, of modernity, of the present moment.
And before that, a few years ago, you published Age of Anger, which really felt like it captured the moment that you saw it back in 2017 and today feels even more relevant.
When you examine the world today, you're somebody that reflects a lot about the state of the world.
