Luke Burgis in Conversation with David Brooks: The One and the Ninety-Nine

Social contagion. Tyler Cowen has called it “the most important phenomenon of our time.”

It drives viral crazes like the Tide Pod challenge, and may help explain rising rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide. It shapes political movements and belief systems. And, as Luke Burgis argues in his new book The One and the Ninety-Nine, it has a profound effect on our ability to form a healthy sense of self — one that remains true to our values while living in community and reckoning with our impact on others.

Burgis — author, entrepreneur, professor, and founder of The Cluny Institute — joins David Brooks for a timely conversation about resisting the pull of social contagion. We are surrounded by tribes, he argues: political, professional, online, ideological. Each offers belonging at a price. Join, and you risk dissolving into a ready-made identity. Refuse, and you risk isolation. Either way, modern life exerts the same pressure — toward a fragmented self that is easier to manage, market to, and recruit.

Brooks, who has written extensively about character and community in books like The Road to Character and The Second Mountain, engages Burgis on the book’s central ideas: that the defining crisis of our time is not just polarization or loneliness, but a crisis of formation. It’s increasingly difficult to build an identity strong enough to withstand the pressures of the crowd. They’ll also examine how social contagion spreads — through families, schools, and institutions — and why the hunger to belong can turn ordinary people into instruments of movements they barely understand.

Together, they’ll explore these dynamics and consider practical ways forward: how to recognize false belonging, escape coercive environments, and move through the kinds of formative experiences that cultivate integrity and courage.