A.O. Scott: The fantasy that I would use to comfort myself [as a child, about death] was…that I’d become other people. I would still be me, but I would inhabit different bodies…and eventually I would just get to see what it was like to be everybody.

Jason Gots: That’s a critic’s fantasy.

A.O. Scott: Yeah! And you discover shortcuts to do that...through works of art.

A.O. Scott's new book Better Living Through Criticism playfully and artfully examines what critics do and why. On this week's episode, he and host Jason Gots dig into these ideas, then react to surprise clips from Jesse Ventura, MIT professor Sherry Turkle, and philosopher John Grey.

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