George Saunders Says Breaking These 3 Delusions Can Save You | The Interview

Saunders’ Background and Vigil’s Premise

George Saunders discusses his new novel Vigil while expanding on recurring themes from his work—especially kindness, empathy, accountability, and the “delusions” that shape how people understand themselves, others, and death.

Saunders’ background and public reputation

• The interview begins by noting Saunders’ public reputation as both a craftsman and a moral voice.
• His Syracuse convocation speech on practicing kindness had a viral impact.

Vigil’s premise

• Vigil follows a climate-change denying oil magnate on his deathbed.
• The approaching death of the central character becomes a lens for exploring moral and philosophical questions, especially:
  • determinism
  • responsibility

Determinism, Moral Judgment, and What “Judgment” Looks Like

Saunders frames art as something that can correctly “formulate” a problem rather than fully solve it.

“Art doesn’t have to solve a problem—only formulate it correctly.”

Two contrasting viewpoints in the novel

The story includes characters representing different stances:

• KJ Boon, a younger denialist oil figure visited by multiple “ghosts,” including:
  • Jill, who argues:
    • no one is really to blame
    • people function as vessels shaped by karma
    • the focus should be comforting kindness rather than blame
• A Frenchman character associated with an opposing stance:
  • less fatalistic
  • more oriented toward judgment

Saunders on “judging” real-world analogues

When asked about judging figures like KJ Boon, Saunders explains:

• He sometimes wants a “hammer to drop,” but he doubts that definitive moral judgment is knowable—or takes the form people expect.
• He points to an internal, psychological kind of judgment:
  • you feel better when aligned with truth
  • you feel worse when you aren’t
• He emphasizes that writing can produce surprises and fairness the author can’t fully control in advance.

Why Literature Might Increase Empathy (and Its Limits)

Saunders challenges simplistic assumptions that artistic skill automatically produces personal goodness.

• Readers/writers can still be jerks.
• Still, literature can generate incremental “consciousness shifts”, not necessarily instant transformation.

How writing can shift perception

• For Saunders, writing changes the precision of thought and perception.
• Literature can reinforce human connection:

“You can know my mind and I can know yours.”

This can feel consoling and may foster:

• empathy
• patience
• engagement

Time-bound, localized effects

He acknowledges counterexamples but argues the effect can be:

• localized and time-bound
• when a story “rings the bell,” people may become more expansive briefly, then return toward baseline.

Empathy as a Writing Practice (and Its Risks)

Saunders describes a mechanics-based approach to empathy in fiction.

How fiction dissolves easy judgment

• Understanding characters more specifically makes it harder for “easy judgment” to work.
• The more you grasp the character’s particulars, the less simplistic condemnation functions.

Generating empathy for the un-empathizable

He asks whether empathy can be generated for people you believe you couldn’t empathize with, including:

• very violent or psychopathic figures
• and even the possibility of fictionalizing Trump

The risk of misrepresentation

He cautions that writing empathy often requires pretending to inhabit another person’s shoes, which can lead to:

• overly soft portrayal
• inaccuracies—unless the writer captures the person’s underlying drivers

A question raised by Vigil

• Saunders says he unexpectedly began liking the novel’s central character more than anticipated.
• That raises a difficult question: whether the response reflects genuine culpability—or distorts reality by over-humanizing.

Capitalism, Excuses, and “Turning Away”

Saunders describes himself as a believer in capitalism while criticizing how it can become a controlling mythology.

Capitalism as an internalized logic

• Success can sharpen awareness of unfairness, but capitalism can also become “gleaming.”
• People may internalize it and accept excuses like “shareholder value.”

A recurring moral mechanism

He describes a pattern:

• people recognize what’s right
• then “turn and do something else”
  • often due to convenience
  • or social conditioning

He connects this to broader cultural shifts:

• fewer blunt moral refusals
• more impersonality and performative distance

Kindness as Practice, Not Sainthood

Saunders resists the “secular saint” framing of kindness.

• Kindness is, in his view, difficult and constantly tested.
• He regrets everyday moments when he fails to be kind.
• He also describes himself as:
  • anxious
  • grumpy
  • busy

Even ordinary realities—like caring for a sick elderly dog—make kindness a daily struggle, not a permanent personality trait.

Buddhism, Meditation, and the “Three Delusions”

Saunders connects kindness to a cultivated form of awareness drawn from Buddhist practice.

Thoughts, distance, and choice

• Thoughts arise automatically and dominate attention.
• Awareness creates distance between the thinker and thoughts.
• In meditation, you can notice a thought as a thought and choose a different response.

Salvation as stepping out of delusion

He links this to “salvation” as any moment when you step out of three delusions:

1. being permanent
2. being the most important
3. being separate

Death anxiety and “realizing reality”

• Death anxiety, he suggests, is driven by those delusions.
• “Realizing reality” can be joyful or relieving—not purely frightening.

Death, Afterlife, and Salvation in Vigil

Saunders says he has been death-obsessed since childhood, tied to a felt sense of:

• permanence
• separateness

Careful about metaphysics

• He avoids certainty about the details of the afterlife.
• Instead, his fiction explores the psychological and spiritual mechanics of:
  • fear
  • attachment

Death as a reality check

Death functions as a “reality check” that undermines the three self-centered beliefs.

Literature’s Cultural Role and Teaching

In a second segment, Saunders returns to writing, teaching, and the cultural place of fiction.

• He rejects the idea that art must be justified beyond its own sake.
• Still, he supports literature in education because it teaches students to:
  • unpack texts
  • see more clearly

Fiction’s diminished influence (and students’ motivation)

• He suggests fiction’s cultural role may be weaker than in earlier eras.
• Yet students still feel pulled by the desire to:
  • discover their own voice

Teaching philosophy: avoiding harsh gatekeeping

• Saunders contrasts his approach with an “old model” of feedback that can crush potential.
• Instead, he favors gentle edits that:
  • reveal students’ habits
  • without eliminating possibilities

Karma and Long-Range Cause and Effect

Saunders interprets karma as cause and effect beyond what individuals can fully see.

• He emphasizes unseen consequences and long-range ripples.
• He also expresses skepticism about:
  • evil people necessarily receiving immediate retribution that matches moral expectations
  • individuals always being “aware” of their karmic consequences

Closing Reflections on a Life in Writing

Saunders revisits how he viewed his life at different stages:

• Early ambitions were “stupid dreams of being a prodigy,” but it remained meaningful that life contained happiness even without a guaranteed writing career.
• More recently, returning to an old university and seeing his younger self alongside his current life felt like confirmation that he “did it anyway,” even if he began later than he imagined.

Presenters or Contributors

• George Saunders (guest)
• David January (interviewer / host, New York Times Interview podcast)