The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Sean Illing is joined by reporter Jeff Sharlet, whose new book The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War takes readers on the ground across America right now, as all kinds of people seem to be preparing for a violent fight with other Americans. They discuss the killing of Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6 and how the story of her death has evolved, the religious nature of some "fringe" political beliefs, and what life is like living in what Jeff calls "the Trumpocene."

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet), reporter; author 

References: 

• The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet (W.W. Norton; 2023)
• The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet (Harper Collins; 2008)
• The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton (Vintage; 2005)
• A Brief History of Fascist Lies by Federico Finchelstein (University of California; 2020)
• "Ashli Babbitt a martyr? Her past tells a more complex story" by Michael Biesecker (AP; Jan. 3, 2022)
• "January 6 Was Only the Beginning" by Jeff Sharlet (Vanity Fair; June 22, 2022)
• "Man who rested feet on desk in Pelosi's office on Jan. 6 found guilty on 8 counts" by Hannah Rabinowitz and Holms Lybrand (CNN; Jan. 23)
• "Marjorie Taylor Greene got into a screaming match with Rep. Cheney over 'Jewish space lasers' comment" by Azmi Haroun (Insider; Oct. 21, 2021)
• "If you see an all-black American flag, what does that mean?" by Matt Gregory and Mia Salenetri (WUSA9; Nov. 12, 2021)
• "What does the end of Roe mean for IVF?" by Bridgit Bowden (Wisconsin Public Radio; July 6, 2022)
• "The Blast That Changed Everything" by Preston Schmitt and Doug Erickson (On Wisconsin magazine; Summer 2020)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Most of us don’t know how to truly listen, and it’s causing all sorts of problems. Sean Illing is joined by journalist Kate Murphy, the author of You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters, to discuss what it means to be a good listener, the problems that are caused when we don’t listen to each other, and the positive impacts on our health when we do.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Kate Murphy, author,You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters

References: 

• You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy (Celadon Books, 2020)
• “This is your brain on communication” by Uri Hasson (TED, 2016)

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• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
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Sean Illing is joined by Anand Giridharadas, author of The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy. Together they discuss how polarity is a threat to our democracy, the organizing efforts that are effective, and why there's hope for a less divisive future in America.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites), author 

References: 

• The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy by Anand Giridharadas (Penguin Random House, 202)
• Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World (Penguin Random House, 2022)
• Amanda Marcotte
• “Meet the woman behind Libs of TikTok, secretly fueling the right’s outrage machine” by Taylor Lorenz (The Washington Post, Apr. 19th, 2022) 
• Anat Shenker-Osorio
• People’s Action Institute 

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Rep. Katie Porter became well-known for using a whiteboard and asking tough questions during Congressional hearings. Her frank questions resonated with the public because they represented the concerns of so many Americans. In this episode, she joins Sean Illing to discuss her "brand" of authenticity, the problem with having so many millionaires in Congress, and her new book, I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter), U.S. Representative from the 47th Congressional District in Orange County, California.

References: 

• I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan by Representative Katie Porter (Penguin Random House, 2023)

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• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Guest host Alissa Wilkinson talks with Dorothy Fortenberry, a co-showrunner, executive producer, and writer on Extrapolations, the new star-studded anthology series on Apple TV+ that imagines the ravages of climate change deeper and deeper into the future. Alissa and Dorothy discuss the challenges of making film and television about the climate crisis, the role that religion plays on the show and in addressing the emotional responses to climate change in our lives, and how climate change can rob us not only of our future — but of our past.

Host: Alissa Wilkinson (@alissamarie), senior culture writer, Vox

Guest: Dorothy Fortenberry (@Dorothy410berry), writer/executive producer, Extrapolations on Apple TV+

References: 

• Extrapolations on Apple TV+
• "Laudato Si': On Care for our Common Home," encyclical of Pope Francis (May 24, 2015)
• "A Review: The Lotus Paradox at Warehouse Theatre" (Jan. 31, 2022)
• "Latin Mass, women priests, celibacy? Climate change will make all the church's arguments pointless" by Dorothy Fortenberry (America; Oct. 27, 2021)

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This episode was made by: 

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• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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What would drive someone to renounce all their possessions, relationships, and ambitions to join a religious community? Sean talks with Zena Hitz, whose new book A Philosopher Looks at the Religious Life explores this question — drawing from her own experience. They discuss the occasionally perplexing relationship between faith and reason, why Hitz thinks the act of renunciation is the pinnacle of Christian belief, and why the radicalism at the heart of Christianity seems so absent from mainstream practice.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Zena Hitz, (@zenahitz) author; tutor, St. John's College

References: 

• A Philosopher Looks at the Religious Life by Zena Hitz (Cambridge; 2023)
• Lost In Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life by Zena Hitz (Princeton; 2020)
• The Madonna House in Combermere, Ontario, Canada
• Confessions by St. Augustine (401 AD)
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Guest host Sigal Samuel talks with professor of philosophy and law Nita Farahany about her new book The Battle for Your Brain. In it, Farahany details the new brain-scanning tech that has already arrived, and the risks this poses to our privacy and freedom of thought. Sigal and Nita discuss what this technology can currently do (and what it can't), how new devices might be used by corporations or governments to infringe on our rights, and the prospect of using new technologies to rid ourselves of painful or traumatic memories — even, potentially, before they've been formed.

Host: Sigal Samuel (@SigalSamuel), Senior Reporter, Vox

Guest: Nita Farahany (@NitaFarahany), author; professor of philosophy & Robinson O. Everett Professor of Law, Duke University

References: 

• The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology by Nita A. Farahany (St. Martin's; 2023)
• "Your brain may not be private much longer" by Sigal Samuel (Vox; March 17)
• "BGU develops wearable advanced warning system for epileptic seizures" (Jerusalem Post; Sept. 29, 2020)
• "Elon Musk shows off updates to his brain chips and says he's going to install one in himself when they are ready" by Ashley Capoot (CNBC; Dec. 1, 2022)
• "Brain-implant companies balk at moves to regulate their nascent tech" by Sarah McBride (Los Angeles Times; Feb. 19)
• "NHS trials headset that claims to zap depression" by Katie Prescott (The Times; Jan. 23)
• "Australian man uses brain implant to send texts from his iPad" by Kristin Houser (Freethink; Nov. 12, 2022)
• "Is 'brain fingerprinting' a breakthrough or a sham?" by Russell Brandom (The Verge; Feb. 2, 2015)
• "China Claims It's Scanning Workers' Brainwaves to Increase Efficiency and Profits" by Samantha Cole (VICE; May 1, 2018)
• "Incriminating Thoughts" by Nita A. Farahany (Stanford Law Review, vol. 64 (2); Feb. 2012)
• John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty" (1859)
• Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (1788)
• "Non-conscious brain modulation may help PTSD patients forget their fears" by Brooks Hays (UPI; Feb. 23, 2021)
• No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering by Thich Nhat Hanh (Parallax Press; 2019)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Engineers: Patrick Boyd & Brandon McFarland
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Will the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News be a watershed moment? Is the media industry beyond repair? Sean Illing is joined by media reporter Brian Stelter, the former host of CNN’s Reliable Sources and the author of Hoax. Together, they reflect on the relationship of news, entertainment, and politics and what the consequences of the Dominion suit might be.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Brian Stelter, (@brianstelter) author; former TV news host; media reporter

References: 

• Hoax by Brian Stelter (Simon & Schuster, 2021)
• Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV by Brian Stelter (Grand Central, 2019)
• “How Not to Cover a Bank Run” by Brian Stelter (The Atlantic, March 2023)
• “I Never Truly Understood Fox News Until Now” by Brian Stelter (The Atlantic, February 2023)
• “Mass Delusion in America” by Jeffrey Goldberg (The Atlantic, January 2021)
• Brian Stelter’s Substack

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• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
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Sean Illing speaks with Matthew Jones, historian of science and technology, and co-author (with data scientist Chris Wiggins) of the new book How Data Happened. They discuss the surprisingly long history of data from the 18th century to today, in service of explaining how we wound up in a world where our personal information is mined by giant corporations for profit. They talk about how the allure of measurement and precision spread from astronomy to the social sciences, why advertising became so bound to the operation of the internet, and how we can imagine a more democratic future for us and our data, given the unprecedented power of today's tech companies.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Matthew L. Jones (@nescioquid), author; James R. Barker Professor of Contemporary Civilization, Columbia University

References: 

• How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms by Chris Wiggins and Matthew L. Jones (W.W. Norton; 2023)
• "How Alan Turing Cracked The Enigma Code" (Imperial War Museum)
• Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky (1988)
• "The manipulation of the American mind: Edward Bernays and the birth of public relations" by Richard Gunderman (The Conversation; July 9, 2015)
• On Herbert Simon (The Economist; Mar. 20, 2009)
• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff (Profile; 2019)
• Jeffrey Hammerbacher quoted in "This Tech Bubble Is Different" by Ashlee Vance (Bloomberg Businessweek; Apr. 14, 2011)

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• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Engineers: Patrick Boyd & Brandon McFarland
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Is our society's fixation with success hindering our ability to find humility? Sean Illing speaks with Costica Bradatan about his new book In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility, which explores failure through the lives of historical figures like Gandhi and the philosopher Simone Weil. They discuss the benefits of engaging with our limits and what we can learn from those who've embraced failure.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Costica Bradatan, Professor at Texas Tech University and Honorary Research Professor of Philosophy at University of Queensland in Australia, Religion/Philosophy editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books, and author of In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility.

References: 

• In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility by  Costica Bradatan (Harvard University Press, 2023)
• The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, translated by Justin O'Brien (Vintage Books, 1991)
• The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Walter Kaufman (1872)
• The Trouble with Being Born by E.M. Cioran, translated by Richard Howard (Arcade Publishing, 1973)

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• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing speaks with poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, whose new book The Wonder Paradox asks: if we don't have God or religion, what — if anything — do we lose? They discuss how religion accesses meaning — through things like prayer, ceremony, and ritual — and Jennifer speaks on the ways that poetry can play similar roles in a secular way. They also discuss some of the "tricks" that poets use, share favorite poems, and explore what it would mean to "live the questions" — and even learn to love them — without having the answers.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Jennifer Michael Hecht (@Freudeinstein), poet, historian; author

References: 

• The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives by Jennifer Michael Hecht (FSG; 2023)
• Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht (HarperOne; 2004)
• Rainer Maria Rilke, from a 1903 letter to Franz Kappus, published in Letters to a Young Poet (pub. 1929)
• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1855)
• "Why do parrots live so long?" by Charles Q. Choi (LiveScience; May 23, 2022)
• "The survival of poetry depends on the failure of language," from The Tree of Meaning: Language, Mind, and Ecology by Robert Bringhurst (Counterpoint; 2009)
• "Traveler, There Is No Road" ("Caminante, no hay camino") by Antonio Machado (1917)
• "A Free Man's Worship" by Bertrand Russell (1903)
• Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority by Emmanuel Levinas (1961)

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• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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In America, there's been an increase of available jobs, and there's also been a series of high-profile layoffs, strikes, and calls for unionization. The social safety net for workers is disappearing, so what can people do? Sean Illing speaks with Alissa Quart about her new book, Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream, about why people need to rid themselves of the American Dream's individualistic ideals and embrace dependence in order to succeed.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Alissa Quart (@lisquart), author of nonfiction and poetry, and co-creator of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project

References: 

• Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream by Alissa Quart (Harper Collins, 2023)
• Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America by Alissa Quart (Harper Collins, 2019)
• Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America’s Fifty-Year Fall–And Those Fighting To Reverse It by Steven Brill (Penguin Random House, 2018)

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• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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The giant panda is no longer endangered. This, of course, is good news. But the model of conservation that worked to protect these iconic bears has failed to help the countless other threatened species on Earth, most of which are far less charismatic. Guest host Benji Jones talks with Jason Gilchrist, a wildlife ecologist. They discuss if there is another way we should approach conservation, what exactly we should be trying to save, and why.

Host: Benji Jones (@BenjiSJones), Senior Environmental Reporter, Vox

Guest: Jason Gilchrist (@jgilchrist13), ecologist and lecturer at Edinburgh Napier University

References: 

• “We pulled pandas back from the brink of extinction. Meanwhile, the rest of nature collapsed.” by Benji Jones (Vox, 2023)

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This episode was made by: 

• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall
• Special thanks to Katelyn Bogucki

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Sean Illing speaks with marriage and family therapist Vienna Pharaon, whose new book The Origins of You aims to help us identify and heal the wounds that originated from our family, which shape our patterns of behavior in relationships and throughout our lives. Sean and Vienna talk about how we can spot and name our "origin wounds," discuss practical wisdom to help break free from the ways these pains grip us, and Sean directly confronts some real issues from his upbringing and family life.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Vienna Pharaon (@mindfulmft), marriage & family therapist; author

References: 

• The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love by Vienna Pharaon (G.P. Putnam's Sons; 2023)
• When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress by Dr. Gabor Maté (Wiley; 2011)

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• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Guest host Alissa Wilkinson talks with Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman about her new book, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar. Dr. Coleman is the Vice President & Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer at Northwestern University, where she is a Professor of Communication Studies. Together, they discuss the tropes in Black horror, and how inequity in Hollywood has shaped the attitudes of a nation toward Black people.

Host: Alissa Wilkinson (@alissamarie), senior culture writer, Vox

Guest: Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman (@MeansColeman), co-author of The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar, Vice President & Associate Provost for Diversity & Inclusion, Professor of Communication Studies

References: 

• The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar by Robin R. Means Coleman and Mark H. Harris (Simon & Schuster, 2023)
• Horror Noire: A History Of Black Horror  (Xavier Burgin, 2021)

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Sean Illing talks with political science professor Matt McManus about the political thought of Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th-century German philosopher with a complicated legacy, despite his crossover into popular culture. They discuss how Nietzsche's work has been interpreted — and misinterpreted — since his death in 1900, how his radical political views emerge from his body of work, and how we can use Nietzsche's philosophy in order to interpret some key features of our contemporary politics.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Matt McManus (@MattPolProf), lecturer, University of Michigan; author

Referenced works by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900):

• Ecce Homo (1888; published posthumously), Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Twilight of the Idols (1888), The Birth of Tragedy (1872), The Antichrist (1888; published posthumously), The Gay Science (1882)

References: 

• Nietzsche and the Politics of Reaction: Essays on Liberalism, Socialism, and Aristocratic Radicalism, ed. Matthew McManus (Palgrave; 2023)
• The Political Right and Equality: Turning Back the Tide of Egalitarian Modernity by Matthew McManus (Routledge; forthcoming)
• Nietzsche's Great Politics by Hugo Drochon (Princeton; 2016)
• Nietzsche's Letter to Georg Brandes (Dec. 2, 1887)
• Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist by Walter Kaufmann (Princeton; 2013)
• “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?” from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, §125 (1882; tr. W. Kaufmann)
• "Atheist bus campaign spreads the word of no God nationwide" by Riazat Butt (The Guardian; Jan. 6, 2009)
• "Since Copernicus man has been rolling from the center toward X," from Nietzsche's The Will To Power, published posthumously in 1901.
• Immanuel Kant, Metaphysics of Morals (1797)
• Kierkegaard's Attack Upon "Christendom", 1854-1855 (tr. Walter Lowrie)
• Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel by Domenico Losurdo (Brill; 2019)
• Joseph de Maistre, Considerations on France (1797)
• "Does Liberalism Mean Supporting Communism?" by Matthew McManus (Liberal Currents; Jan. 4, 2022)
• Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1963)
• United States of Socialism by Dinesh D'Souza (All Points; 2020)
• "The alt-right is drunk on bad readings of Nietzsche. The Nazis were too" by Sean Illing (Vox; Dec. 30, 2018)
• The Third Reich series by Richard J. Evans
• Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (1957)

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Sean Illing speaks with Malcolm Harris, a journalist, critic, and author of the new book Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World. Together, they discuss the weird history of the city that's birthed Stanford University, Hewlett Packard, Theranos, and the model of capitalism that's made an impact across the globe.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Malcolm Harris (@BigMeanInternet), journalist, critic and author

References: 

• Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World by Malcolm Harris (Little Brown; 2023)
• Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials by Malcolm Harris (Little Brown; 2017)
• "CDC investigates why so many students in wealthy Palo Alto, Calif., commit suicide" by Yanan Wang (The Washington Post, Feb. 16th, 2016)
• “The undocumented workers who built Silicon Valley” by Louis Hyman (The Washington Post, Aug. 30th, 2018)
• Stanford University Land Acknowledgement
• "Meet The PayPal Mafia, the Richest Group Of Men In Silicon Valley" by Charlie Parrish (The Telegraph, Sep. 20th, 2014)

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Guest host Rebecca Jennings talks with Justin Charity, cultural critic and senior staff writer at The Ringer, about what it means to be dubbed a "hater" on the internet. Rebecca and Justin talk about the role of criticism and the evolving ways in which critics and fans clash online. They discuss how a bad review (or a review seen as bad) can spark a far-ranging backlash, how the meme-ified cry of "let people enjoy things" has been taken from its original context, and what — if anything — might change the dynamics between fans and critics.

Host: Rebecca Jennings (@rebexxxxa), senior correspondent, Vox

Guest: Justin Charity, senior staff writer, The Ringer; co-host of the Sound Only podcast

References: 

• "'Hater' doesn't have to be a dirty word" by Rebecca Jennings (Vox; Jan. 18)
• "2022 Was the Year of the Metaverse — Until It Wasn't" by Justin Charity (The Ringer; Dec. 29, 2022)
• "Why Did Everyone Claim to Enjoy Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp A Butterfly'?" by Justin Charity (Complex; Nov. 3, 2015)
• "Jake Paul Exposed as $2.2M Serial Crypto Scammer" by Robert D. Knight & Levy Prata (Beincrypto; Mar. 8, 2022)
• "Taylor Swift Super Fans Are Furious About a Good Review" by Gita Jackson (Vice; July 31, 2020)
• "The YouTubers are not okay" by Rebecca Jennings (Vox; May 10, 2022)
• "How 'let people enjoy things' became a fight against criticism" by Constance Grady (Vox; May 16, 2019)
• The original "let people enjoy things" webcomic, by Adam Ellis (Feb. 3, 2016)
• "Like This or Die" by Christian Lorenzen (Harpers; Apr. 2019)
• @talialichtstein on TikTok
• "Meet the most obsessive Bill Simmons fans online" by Luke Winkie (The Outline; Jan. 2, 2020)

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Sean Illing speaks with Rosa Brooks, a former reserve police officer and current law professor at Georgetown University. Brooks wrote Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City about her experience going through the police academy and becoming a cop on the streets of Washington, DC. They discuss what she saw during her time on the force, some of the differences between how cops see their jobs and how things are, and what could be done differently to fix American policing.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Rosa Brooks (@brooks_rosa), author; professor of law and policy, Georgetown University

References: 

• Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City by Rosa Brooks (Penguin; 2021)
• “Any situation can turn lethal in an instant, and other lessons I learned at the police academy” by Rosa Brooks (Los Angeles Times; Feb. 21, 2021)
• "New Perspectives in Policing: From Warriors to Guardians" by: Sue Rahr and Stephen K. Rice (PDF; NIJ and The Harvard Kennedy School)

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• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
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Guest host Fabiola Cineas talks with author, lawyer, and organizer Derecka Purnell about her recent book Becoming Abolitionists. They discuss Derecka's journey to defending the idea of police abolition, and what that position really entails. They explore questions about the historical and social role of policing in society, how to imagine a future where we radically rethink our system of criminal justice, and how we can acknowledge and incorporate current data about crime — while still rethinking our inherited assumptions about police.

This was originally released in Jan. 2022 as an episode of Vox Conversations.

Host: Fabiola Cineas (@FabiolaCineas), reporter, Vox.com

Guest: Derecka Purnell (@dereckapurnell), author

References: 

• Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom by Derecka Purnell (Astra House; 2021)
• Police shootings database 2015-2023 (Washington Post)
• The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James (Vintage; 1989)
• Black Reconstruction in America 1860–1880 by W.E.B. Du Bois (1935)
• "One American city's model of policing reform means building 'social currency'" by Nathan Layne (June 12, 2020; Reuters)
• "The Camden Police Department is Not a Model for Policing in the Post-George Floyd Era" by Brendan McQuade (June 12, 2020; The Appeal)
• "Murder Rose by Almost 30% in 2020. It's Rising at a Slower Rate in 2021" by Jeff Asher (Sept. 22, 2021; New York Times)

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• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Engineers: Patrick Boyd & Paul Robert Mounsey
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing speaks with Alana Newhouse, the editor-in-chief of Tablet magazine. They discuss her recent essay on "brokenism," a term she coined in an effort to redefine political divisions in America. Newhouse argues that the most salient divide right now is between those who want to fix the institutions we have and those who want to burn it all down and start fresh.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Alana Newhouse (@alananewhouse) editor-in-chief, Tablet

References: 

• “Brokenism” by Alana Newhouse (Tablet, Nov. 21, 2022)
• “Everything is Broken” by Alana Newhouse (Tablet, Jan. 14, 2021)
• "See Workers as Workers, Not as a College Credential" by The New York Times Editorial Board (Jan. 28)

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• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing talks with Noah Hawley, the creator and showrunner of the anthology drama Fargo on FX, as well as a celebrated novelist whose newest book is Anthem (2022). They discuss themes stemming from Hawley's recent piece in the Atlantic about myths, stories, and tropes from the Old West (and Hollywood) that are still powerful and active in shaping American society. Hawley also talks about why we're drawn to shows like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, what to expect on the forthcoming fifth season of Fargo, and what his new novel says about the future.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Noah Hawley (@noahhawley), novelist; tv/film director

References: 

• "It's High Noon in America" by Noah Hawley (The Atlantic; Dec. 19, 2022)
• Anthem by Noah Hawley (Grand Central; 2022)
• Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
• "'Duck Dynasty' vs. 'Modern Family': 50 Maps of the U.S. Cultural Divide" by Josh Katz (New York Times; Dec. 27, 2016)
• "The sex-trafficking investigation of Matt Gaetz, explained" by Amber Phillips (Washington Post; Jan. 27, 2022)
• The Trial by Franz Kafka (1925)

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Sean Illing talks with Glory Liu, the author of Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher became an Icon of American Capitalism. Smith is most well-known for being the “father of capitalism,” but as Liu points out in her book, his legacy has been misappropriated — especially in America. They discuss his original intentions and what we can take away from his work today.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Glory Liu (@miss_glory), author; lecturer, Harvard University

References: 

• Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher became an Icon of American Capitalism by Glory Liu (Princeton; 2022)
• Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life by Nicholas Phillipson (Yale; 2012)
• Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton & Rose Friedman (Harcourt; 1980)
• “Adam Smith’s ‘History of Astronomy’ and view of science” by Kwangsu Kim (Cambridge Journal of Economics v. 36; 2012)

Works by Adam Smith:

• The Wealth of Nations (1776)
• Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
• Lectures on Jurisprudence (1763)

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• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
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Guest host Sigal Samuel talks with Holden Karnofsky about effective altruism, a movement flung into public scrutiny with the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried and his crypto exchange, FTX. They discuss EA’s approach to charitable giving, the relationship between effective altruism and the moral philosophy of utilitarianism, and what reforms might be needed for the future of the movement.

Note: In August 2022, Bankman-Fried’s philanthropic family foundation, Building a Stronger Future, awarded Vox’s Future Perfect a grant for a 2023 reporting project. That project is now on pause.

Host: Sigal Samuel (@SigalSamuel), Senior Reporter, Vox

Guest: Holden Karnofsky, co-founder of GiveWell; CEO of Open Philanthropy

References: 

• "Effective altruism gave rise to Sam Bankman-Fried. Now it's facing a moral reckoning" by Sigal Samuel (Vox; Nov. 16, 2022)
• "The Reluctant Prophet of Effective Altruism" by Gideon Lewis-Kraus (New Yorker; Aug. 8, 2022)
• "Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself" by Kelsey Piper (Vox; Nov. 16, 2022)
• "EA is about maximization, and maximization is perilous" by Holden Karnofsky (Effective Altruism Forum; Sept. 2, 2022)
• "Defending One-Dimensional Ethics" by Holden Karnofsky (Cold Takes blog; Feb. 15, 2022)
• "Future-proof ethics" by Holden Karnofsky (Cold Takes blog; Feb. 2, 2022)
• "Bayesian mindset" by Holden Karnofsky (Cold Takes blog; Dec. 21, 2021)
• "EA Structural Reform Ideas" by Carla Zoe Cremer (Nov. 12, 2022)
• "Democratising Risk: In Search of a Methodology to Study Existential Risk" by Carla Cremer and Luke Kemp (SSRN; Dec. 28, 2021)

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• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing talks with writer and reporter Jerusalem Demsas about the causes of homelessness in America. They discuss our ideas of home ownership, and how our country’s cultural expectations and policies are working against us. 

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Jerusalem Demsas (@JerusalemDemsas) staff writer, The Atlantic

References: 

• “The Homeownership Society Was a Mistake” by Jerusalem Demsas (The Atlantic; Dec. 20, 2022)
• “The Obvious Answer to Homelessness and Why Everyone’s Ignoring It” by Jerusalem Demsas (The Atlantic; Dec. 12, 2022)
• “The Billionaire’s Dilemma” by Jerusalem Demsas (The Atlantic; Aug. 4, 2022)
• “Stuck! The Law and Economics of Residential Stagnation” by David Schleicher (Yale Law Review; Oct. 2017)
• “Black Americans And The Racist Architecture of Homeownership” by Alisa Chang, Christopher Intagliata, and Jonaki Mehta (NPR; May 8, 2021)

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• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing talks with author Thomas Chatterton Williams about race and identity in America. Thomas has analyzed racial identity through the lens of his own upbringing, and the performativity and pressures he experienced. In conversation with Sean, Thomas speaks about how he sees these identities as restrictive connections to the racial oppressions of the past, whether it's possible to achieve liberation without sacrificing solidarity, and on the complex interplay between race and class.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Thomas Chatterton Williams (@thomaschattwill), author; contributing writer, The Atlantic

References: 

• Self-Portrait in Black and White: Family, Fatherhood, and Rethinking Race by Thomas Chatterton Williams (W.W. Norton; 2019)
• Losing My Cool: Love, Literature, and a Black Man's Escape from the Crowd by Thomas Chatterton Williams (Penguin; 2011)
• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo (Beacon; 2018)
• "Camus' Stance on Algeria Still Stokes Debate in France" by Eleanor Beardsley (NPR; Nov. 7, 2013)
• The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World; 2018)
• South to a Very Old Place by Albert Murray (Vintage; 1991)
• "The limits of anti-racism" by Adolph Reed (2009)

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• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing talks with Timnit Gebru, the founder of the Distributed AI Research Institute. She studies the ethics of artificial intelligence and is an outspoken critic of companies developing new AI systems. Sean and Timnit discuss the power dynamics in the world of AI, the discriminatory outcomes that these technologies can cause, and the need for accountability and transparency in the field.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Timnit Gebru (@timnitGebru), founder, Distributed AI Research Institute

References: 

• “The Exploited Labor Behind Artificial Intelligence" by Adrienne Williams, Milagros Miceli, and Timnit Gebru (Noema; Oct. 13, 2022)
• “Effective Altruism is Push a Dangerous Brand of ‘AI Safety’” by Timnit Gebru (Wired; Nov. 30, 2022)
• Datasheets for Datasets by Timnit Gebru, et al. (CACM; Dec. 2021)
• “In Emergencies, Should You Trust a Robot?” by John Toon (Georgia Tech; Feb. 29, 2016)
• “We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google. Here’s what it says” by Karen Hao (MIT Technology Review; Dec. 4, 2020)
• “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?” by Timnit Gebru, et al. (Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency; March 2021)

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• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
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• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Guest host Sigal Samuel talks with philosopher and author Martha Nussbaum about her new book, Justice for Animals. Martha discusses several different ethical, legal, and metaphysical theories for how we humans should treat other non-human animals, and offers her own distinct new approach.

Host: Sigal Samuel (@SigalSamuel), Senior Reporter, Vox

Guest: Martha Nussbaum, author; Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy, U. Chicago

References: 

• Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility by Martha Nussbaum (Simon & Schuster; 2022)
• Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights by Steven M. Wise (Basic; 2003)
• Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved by Frans de Waal (Princeton; 2006)
• Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals by Peter Singer (1975)
• Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to Other Animals by Christine Korsgaard (Oxford; 2018)
• Political Liberalism by John Rawls (1993)
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
• "Ag-Gag" Laws in the United States (Animal Legal Defense Fund)
• Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka (Oxford; 2011)

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• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
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Sean Illing talks with Cornel West about the American philosophical tradition known as pragmatism. They talk about what makes pragmatism so distinctly American, how pragmatists understand the connection between knowledge and action, and how the pragmatist mindset can invigorate our understanding of democratic life and communal action today. Cornel West also talks about the ways in which pragmatism has influenced his work and life, alongside the blues, Chekhov, and his Christian faith.

This was an episode of The Philosophers, a series from Vox Conversations, originally released in May.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), Interviews writer, Vox

Guest: Cornel West (@CornelWest), author; Dietrich Bonhoeffer professor of philosophy & Christian practice, Union Theological Seminary

References to works by American pragmatists: 

• Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882): "Self-Reliance" (1841)
• William James (1842–1910): Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907); The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902); "Is Life Worth Living?" (1895)
• Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914): "The Fixation of Belief" (1877)
• John Dewey (1859–1952): The Quest for Certainty (1929); "Emerson—The Philosopher of Democracy" (1903); The Public and Its Problems (1927)
• Richard Rorty (1931–2007): "Pragmatism, Relativism, and Irrationalism" (1979); "Solidarity or Objectivity?" (1989)

Other references: 

• Cornel West Teaches Philosophy (MasterClass)
• The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism by Cornel West (Univ. of Wisconsin Press; 1989)
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
• Plato, Republic (refs. in particular to Book 1 and Book 8)
• The Phantom Public by Walter Lippmann (1925)
• Leopardi: Selected Poems of Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837), tr. by Eamon Grennan (Princeton; 1997)
• "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus (1942; tr. 1955)
• Democracy & Tradition by Jeffrey Stout (Princeton; 2003)

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• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
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• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing talks with Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan about his new book The Paradox of Democracy, which he co-authored with media studies professor Zac Gershberg. Sean and Margaret discuss the relationship between free expression and democratic society, talk about whether or not the January 6th hearings are doing anything at all politically, and discuss some potential ways to bolster democratic values in the media ecology of the present.

This was originally released as an episode of Vox Conversations in July.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), Interviews Writer, Vox

Guest: Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview), media columnist, Washington Post

References: 

• The Paradox of Democracy: Free Speech, Open Media, and Perilous Persuasion by Zac Gershberg and Sean Illing (Chicago; 2022)
• Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy by Margaret Sullivan (Columbia Global Reports; 2020)
• "Four reasons the Jan. 6 hearings have conquered the news cycle" by Margaret Sullivan (Washington Post; July 22)
• Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan (1964)
• Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman (1985)
• Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) from an Ink-Stained Life by Margaret Sullivan (St. Martin's; Oct. 2022)

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• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Guest host Alissa Wilkinson talks with Katelyn Beaty, author of the new book Celebrities for Jesus, about how the dynamics of fame, influence, and new media are changing our experience of religious faith. They discuss how celebrities like Billy Graham set the tone for a lionization of celebrity in the Evangelical Church, why faith leaders cultivate distance from their congregations and build influencer-style social media presences, and share their thoughts on the future of the Church in our perhaps increasingly celebrity-obsessed culture.

Host: Alissa Wilkinson (@alissamarie), senior culture writer, Vox

Guest: Katelyn Beaty (@KatelynBeaty), author

References: 

• Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits Are Hurting the Church by Katelyn Beaty (Brazos; 2022)
• "Inside Hillsong, the Church of Choice for Justin Bieber and Kevin Durant" by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (GQ; Dec. 17, 2015)
• "After Columbine, martyrdom became a powerful fantasy for Christian teenagers" by Alissa Wilkinson (Vox; Apr. 17, 2019)

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• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing talks with author, researcher, and Brookings Institution senior fellow Richard V. Reeves about his new book Of Boys and Men, which documents the ways that males all over the industrialized world are struggling — and what to do about it. Sean and Richard talk about how this crisis among men has its roots in the progress societies have made toward gender equality, about what has been exposed as the playing field has become more level, and about how to challenge our traditional understandings of masculinity and fatherhood in order to address the crisis — which, Reeves says, will be to everybody's benefit.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Richard V. Reeves (@RichardvReeves), author; senior fellow, Brookings Institution; director, Future of the Middle Class Initiative

References: 

• Of Boys And Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It by Richard V. Reeves (Brookings; 2022)
• "The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss" by Daniel A. Cox (American Survey Center; June 8, 2021)
• Unbound: How Inequality Constricts Our Economy and What We Can Do about It by Heather Boushey (Harvard; 2019)
• "Gender Achievement Gaps in U.S. School Districts" by Sean F. Reardon et al. (American Educational Research Journal vol. 56 (6); Apr. 25, 2019)
• "The GOP's masculinity panic: David French on the cult of toughness on the Trumpist right" by Sean Illing (Jan. 5; episode here or here)
• "Infrastructure Bill Must Create Pathways for Women To Enter Construction Trades" by Marina Zhavoronkova and Rose Khattar (Center for American Progress; Sept. 20)
• 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson (Random House Canada; 2018)
• "Few Good Men" by Kathryn Edin (American Prospect; Dec. 19, 2001)
• "Redshirt the Boys: Why boys should start school a year later than girls" by Richard V. Reeves (The Atlantic; Sept. 14)
• "What might interrupt men's suicide? Results from an online survey of men" by Fiona L. Shand et al. (BMJ vol. 5 (10); Oct. 15, 2015)

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• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing talks with Michael Sacasas, an author and teacher exploring the relationship between technology and society in his newsletter, The Convivial Society. This conversation is all about attention: what it exactly is, what its purpose is, and how it is under threat by the technology of modern society and its ubiquitous distractions. Michael calls upon venerated philosophers (like Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch) as well as contemporary writers (like Nicholas Carr and Jenny Odell) to make the case that figuring out how to command our attention is a matter of great moral significance, and is a crucial component of living a good life.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: L. Michael Sacasas (@LMSacasas), author of the newsletter The Convivial Society on Substack; associate director, Christian Study Center of Gainesville

References: 

• The Frailest Thing: Ten Years of Thinking About the Meaning of Technology by L.M. Sacasas (Gumroad; 2019)
• "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut (1961)
• "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicholas Carr (The Atlantic; July/August 2008)
• Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan (1964)
• Blaise Pascal on Diversion, from the Pensées (1670)
• "Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God" by Simone Weil (1942)
• "The idea of perfection" by Iris Murdoch (1964)
• "Against Dryness" by Iris Murdoch (1961)
• Simone Weil, letter to Joë Bousquet, Apr. 13, 1942: "Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."
• "On Two Ways of Relating to the World" by L.M. Sacasas (The Convivial Society, Nov. 22)
• How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell (Melville House; 2019)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing talks with James Fallows, veteran reporter and editor at The Atlantic, about the state of political journalism in America. Fallows has been covering the relationship between media and democracy since the mid-nineties, when his book Breaking the News presciently documented the roots of a growing mistrust in news media. Sean and James talk about the dangers facing the political press today, why national political news is not useful to most Americans, and what can be done to regain the people's trust in journalism.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: James Fallows (@JamesFallows), author of the newsletter, Breaking the News: Dispatches from a Veteran Reporter on Substack

References: 

• Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy by James Fallows (Vintage; 1996)
• Ashley Parker's tweet (Nov. 22)
• "Exclusive: Naomi Biden On Her White House Wedding" by Chloe Malle (Vogue; Nov. 22)
• Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America by James Fallows and Deborah Fallows (Vintage; 2018)
• Our Towns (HBO; 2021)
• Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers
• "Leslie Moonves on Donald Trump: 'It May Not Be Good for America, but It's Damn Good for CBS'" by Paul Bond (Hollywood Reporter; Feb. 29, 2016)
• Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann (1922)
• "Correcting the Record; Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception" by Dan Barry et al. (New York Times; May 11, 2003)
• "Weapons of Mass Destruction? Or Mass Distraction?" by Daniel Okrent (New York Times; May 30, 2004)
• "3 Truths About Trump" by James Fallows (The Atlantic; July 13, 2015)
• The Paradox of Democracy by Zac Gershberg and Sean Illing (U. Chicago; 2022)

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This episode was made by: 

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• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing talks with technology writer and philosopher Ian Bogost about the state of social media — especially in the wake of Elon Musk's recent acquisition of Twitter. They discuss the recent but surprising history of the platforms that have come to dominate the lives of so many, and note a crucial shift that made social media what is today. Sean and Ian also talk about how Silicon Valley views "scale," whether Twitter should be treated as a public utility, and how — as a society — we might be able to quit.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Ian Bogost (@ibogost), contributing writer, The Atlantic; professor and director of film & media studies, Washington University of St. Louis

References: 

• "The Age of Social Media Is Ending" by Ian Bogost (The Atlantic; Nov. 10)
• "The Madness of Twitter" by Ian Bogost (The Atlantic; Nov. 22)
• "People Aren't Meant to Talk This Much" by Ian Bogost (The Atlantic; Oct. 22, 2021)
• "Facebook Is A Doomsday Machine" by Adrienne LaFrance (The Atlantic; Dec. 15, 2020)
• Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan (1964)
• The Paradox of Democracy: Free Speech, Open Media, and Perilous Persuasion by Zac Gershberg & Sean Illing (U. Chicago; 2022)

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• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing talks with Dr. Gabor Maté, a physician, speaker, and bestselling author who has written on subjects like addiction, stress, and attention deficit disorder. In Maté's new book, The Myth of Normal, he argues that the Western paradigm of health is fundamentally flawed in its attempt to separate inner, emotional well-being from bodily health. Sean and Dr. Maté discuss how our society and culture can contribute to illness. They also talk about the adverse effects of trauma, the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, and parenting.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Dr. Gabor Maté (@DrGaborMate), author; physician

References: 

• The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Maté, MD, with Daniel Maté (Avery; 2022)
• "Mothers Are the 'Shock Absorbers' of Our Society" by Jessica Grose (New York Times; Oct. 14, 2020)
• "'It's Life or Death': The Mental Health Crisis Among U.S. Teens" by Matt Richtel (New York Times; Apr. 23)
• Scattered Minds: The Origin and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder by Gabor Maté, MD (Jan. 2023; Avery. Previously published as Scattered, 2000)
• "The brutal mirror: What the psychedelic drug ayahuasca showed me about my life" by Sean Illing (Vox; Feb. 19, 2018)
• "How to discipline your child and toddler, without hitting - Jordan Peterson" (YouTube; Mar. 15, 2018)
• Hold On to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté, MD (Ballantine; 2006)
• "A Theory of Human Motivation" by Abraham H. Maslow (Psychological Review vol. 50; 1943)

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Sean Illing talks with economic historian Brad DeLong about his new book Slouching Towards Utopia. In it, DeLong claims that the "long twentieth century" was the most consequential period in human history, during which the institutions of rapid technological growth and globalization were created, setting humanity on a path towards improving life, defeating scarcity, and enabling real freedom. But... this ran into some problems. Sean and Brad talk about the power of markets, how the New Deal led to something approaching real social democracy, and why the Great Recession of 2008 and its aftermath signified the end of this momentous era.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: J. Bradford DeLong (@delong), author; professor of economics, U.C. Berkeley

References: 

• Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century by J. Bradford DeLong (Basic; 2022)
• The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich von Hayek (1944)
• The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi (1944)
• Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy by Joseph Schumpeter (1942)
• "A Short History of Enclosure in Britain" by Simon Fairlie (This Land Magazine; 2009)
• "China's Great Leap Forward" by Clayton D. Brown (Association for Asian Studies; 2012)
• What Is Property? by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1840)
• The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order by Gary Gerstle (Oxford University Press; 2022)
• Apple's "1984" ad (YouTube)
• The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes (1936)
• "The spectacular ongoing implosion of crypto's biggest star, explained" by Emily Stewart (Vox; Nov. 18)
• "Did Greenspan Add to Subprime Woes? Gramlich Says Ex-Colleague Blocked Crackdown" by Greg Ip (Wall Street Journal; June 9, 2007)
• "Families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same," from President Obama's 2010 State of the Union Address (Jan. 27, 2010)
• "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" by Karl Marx (1852)
• Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein (Simon & Schuster; 2020)
• The Paradox of Democracy: Free Speech, Open Media, and Perilous Persuasion by Zac Gershberg and Sean Illing (U. Chicago; 2022)

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Sean Illing talks with neuroscientist Gregory Berns, author of The Self Delusion. Berns claims that the idea of a unified, persistent self is a kind of illusion, and that we are better understood as multiple selves at different moments in time, tied together by a story — which is what we call our identity. Sean and Greg also talk about whether the brain is a computer, how perception works, the limits of thinking too much about thinking, and what psychedelics can do to disrupt and change the stories we tell about ourselves.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Gregory Berns (@gberns), author; professor of psychology and distinguished professor of neuroeconomics, Emory University

References: 

• The Self Delusion: The New Neuroscience of How We Invent — and Reinvent — Our Identities by Gregory Berns (Basic; 2022)
• More on the "Ship of Theseus" by Noah Levin
• "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness" by David Chalmers (Journal of Consciousness Studies 2; 1995)
• More on "The Hard Problem of Consciousness" by Josh Weisberg (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• "The extraordinary therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs, explained" by Sean Illing (Vox; Mar. 8, 2019)

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Sean Illing talks with veteran political strategist James Carville about the U.S. midterm elections — and the surprising success for Democrats that was a far cry from the "red wave" of Republican victories widely predicted by pundits. They talk about why the results differed so vastly from these expectations, what lessons both parties should be drawing from the outcomes, and whether or not the Democratic party, despite their victories, still have a systematic problem with political messaging.

This conversation took place mid-day on Wednesday, November 9th.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: James Carville (@JamesCarville), political strategist; co-host, Politics War Room podcast

References: 

• Fall 2022 Harvard Youth Poll (Oct. 27)
• Exit poll data from ABC News and CNN
• "'Wokeness is a problem and we all know it': James Carville on the state of Democratic politics" by Sean Illing (Vox; Apr. 27, 2021)
• "GOP to use debt limit to force spending cuts, McCarthy says" by Eugene Robinson (Washington Post; Oct. 18)
• 2022 abortion-related ballot measures (Ballotpedia)
• "Democrats' Long Goodbye to the Working Class" by Ruy Teixeira (The Atlantic; Nov. 6)
• "Is John Fetterman the Future of the Democratic Party?" by Michael Sokolove (New York Times; May 18)
• On Carville's role in the abortion referendum campaign in Kansas: "The Most Consequential Vote in Recent American History is Happening Today and the News Media Is Ignoring It" by Colby Hall (Mediaite; Aug. 2nd)
• "How a 10-Year-Old Rape Victim Who Traveled for an Abortion Became Part of a Political Firestorm" by Solcyre Burga (Time; July 15)
• "Democrats still have a path to keep the House — but it's tough" by Andrew Prokop (Vox; Nov. 10)

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• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing talks with technologist, media theorist, and author Douglas Rushkoff, whose new book Survival of the Richest explains how the ultra-wealthy are obsessed with preparing for the end of the world — and the troubling mindset that leads many rich and powerful people down this road. They discuss the blend of tech utopianism and fatalism behind this doomsday prepping, how Silicon Valley and "tech bro" culture have incentivized a kind of misanthropy, and why the world's billionaire class can't see that the catastrophes they fear are of their own making.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Douglas Rushkoff (@rushkoff), author; professor, media studies, CUNY Queens College

References: 

• Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires by Douglas Rushkoff (W.W. Norton; 2022)
• "Epson boobytrapped its printers" by Cory Doctorow (Medium; Aug. 7)
• "Cosmism: Russia's religion for the rocket age" by Benjamin Ramm (BBC; Apr. 20, 2021)
• The Selfish Gene (1976) and The God Delusion (2006) by Richard Dawkins
• Francis Bacon, Redargutio Philosophiarum (1608), tr. by Benjamin Farrington in The Philosophy of Francis Bacon (1964): "Nature must be taken by the forelock . . . lay hold of her and capture her" (p. 130).
• "Power changes how the brain responds to others" by Jeremy Hogeveen, et al., Journal of Experiential Psychology (Apr. 2014)
• What We Owe the Future by William MacAskill (Basic Books; 2022)
• Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff (W.W. Norton; 2021)

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• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing talks with Nicole Hemmer, history professor and author of the new book Partisans. In it, she gives a reinterpretation of the Reagan presidency and what followed, and shows how the conservative political movement entangled with media figures and became what it is in the 1990s. They discuss the doomed but influential presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan, the rise to dominance of conservative talk radio, and the enduring dangers of political violence.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Nicole Hemmer (@pastpunditry), author; professor, Vanderbilt University

References: 

• Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s by Nicole Hemmer (Basic; 2022)
• "The Man Who Won the Republican Party Before Trump Did" by Nicole Hemmer (New York Times; Sept. 8)
• Talk Radio's America: How an Industry Took Over a Political Party That Took Over the United States by Brian Rosenwald (Harvard; 2019)
• On the Fairness Doctrine (First Amendment Center; MTSU)
• GOP Reagan Library Debate (CNN; Sept. 16, 2015)

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• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing talks with Yuval Noah Harari, historian and bestselling author, about how humanity came to be the dominant species on earth, and what our future might hold. Sean and Yuval discuss mankind's imaginative "superpower," the threats to democracy across the globe, the future of artificial intelligence — and plenty more.

Yuval's new book Unstoppable Us adapts many of his macro-historical insights from Sapiens for younger readers, and is the first in a planned four-volume series.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Yuval Noah Harari (@harari_yuval), author; professor, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

References: 

• Unstoppable Us, Volume 1: How Humans Took Over the World by Yuval Noah Harari; illustrated by Ricard Zaplana Ruiz (Bright Matter; 2022)
• Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari (Harper; 2017)
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (Harper; 2015)
• "Nationalism vs. globalism: the new political divide | Yuval Noah Harari" (TED; YouTube)

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• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing talks with reporter Katie Engelhart, whose book The Inevitable is an up-close look at physician-assisted dying. This is the practice of receiving state-sanctioned medical aid to end one's life — a practice now legal in 10 U.S. states, Canada, and elsewhere around the world. They discuss the details of the procedure — including why people fight for this right and exercise it — as well as many of the moral and legal questions that it raises.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Katie Engelhart (@katieengelhart), journalist; author

References: 

• The Inevitable: Dispatches on the Right to Die by Katie Engelhart (St. Martin's; 2021)
• Brittany Maynard's legislative testimony

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• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineers: Patrick Boyd, Paul Robert Mounsey
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Sean Illing talks with Jonathan Lear, a psychoanalyst and philosopher, about his new book Imagining the End: Mourning and Ethical Life. How can we continue to live a good life in a world beset by catastrophe, crisis, and chaos? Sean and Jonathan discuss the role of imagination and culture in the ways we make meaning in the world, the idea of mourning as a confrontation with our uniquely human ability to love, and how to turn away from the path of despair, towards hope — and to what Lear calls "committed living towards the future."

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Jonathan Lear, author; professor, Committee on Social Thought & Dept. of Philosophy, University of Chicago

References: 

• Imagining the End: Mourning and Ethical Life by Jonathan Lear (Harvard; Nov. 15, 2022)
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
• Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death (1849; published under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus)
• Sigmund Freud, Mourning and Melancholia (1917)
• "The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy" by Cora Diamond (2003)
• Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation by Jonathan Lear (Harvard; 2008)
• "Envy and Gratitude" by Melanie Klein (1957; published in The Writings of Melanie Klein, Volume III, Hogarth Press; 1975)
• "A Lecture on Ethics" by Ludwig Wittgenstein (lecture notes from 1929-1930, published in The Philosophical Review v. 74 no. 1, 1965)

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• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
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Sean Illing talks with historian and author Peniel Joseph about his new book The Third Reconstruction, which argues that the time we're currently living in can be understood as on a continuum with the civil rights era of the '50s and '60s. and the original American Reconstruction following the Civil War. Sean and Peniel discuss the Black Lives Matter movement, the Obama presidency — and important differences between the two — as well as the dangers of American exceptionalism and the importance of maintaining hope in the ongoing fight for racial justice.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Peniel Joseph (@PenielJoseph), author; founding director, Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin

References: 

• The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century by Peniel E. Joseph (Basic; 2022)
• "DeSantis claims it was only the American Revolution that caused people to question slavery" by Graig Graziosi (The Independent; Sept. 23)
• Black Reconstruction in America by W.E.B. Du Bois (1935)
• "The Undoing of Reconstruction" by W. Archibald Dunning (The Atlantic; Oct. 1901)
• Barack Obama's Speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention (C-SPAN; YouTube)
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (New Press; 2010, updated 2020)
• Shelby County v. Holder (570 US 529; 2013), in which the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965
• "Harming Our Common Future: America's Segregated Schools 65 Years after Brown" by Gary Orfield, et al. (Civil Rights Project; 2019)
• Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (551 US 701; 2007)
• "A North Carolina city begins to reckon with the massacre in its white supremacist past" by Scott Neuman (NPR; Nov. 10, 2021)
• How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (One World; 2019)
• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo (Beacon; 2018)
• "Why I hope 2022 will be another 1866" by Manisha Sinha (CNN; Oct. 12)
• President Kennedy's Televised Address to the Nation on Civil Rights (June 11, 1963)

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Sean Illing talks with Reza Aslan, scholar of religions and author of multiple bestselling nonfiction works, to discuss the state of religion in America today. Sean and Reza discuss the relationship between politics and religion, why it can be hard to separate the emotional experiences of faith from the symbolic language of organized religion, and how new religious identities are being forged along principles of Christian nationalism.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Reza Aslan (@rezaaslan), author

References: 

• An American Martyr in Persia: The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville by Reza Aslan (Norton; 2022)
• The Leftovers TV series (HBO; 2014–2017)
• "Can Religion & Reason Be Reconciled? | Reza Aslan & Sam Harris debate" (Jan. 25, 2007; C-SPAN YouTube)
• Pew Research Center Religious Landscape Study (Jan. 14, 2021)
• The 2020 Census of American Religion (PRRI; July 8, 2021)
• "'Pro-Life' Herschel Walker Paid for Girlfriend's Abortion" by Roger Sollenberger (The Daily Beast; Oct. 4)
• President George W. Bush's remarks on the morning of Sept. 12, 2001: "This will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil. But good will prevail."

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Sean Illing talks with war reporter and New Yorker contributing writer Luke Mogelson about his new book The Storm Is Here. In it, Luke shares his on-the-ground reporting across America — from anti-lockdown protests in Lansing, Michigan, to the uprising in Minneapolis after the murder of George Floyd — to explain how the forces that animated the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021 came to gather strength. In this discussion, Sean and Luke talk about what happened, how it happened, and how Luke's experience at the Capitol on the 6th shaped his view of what's coming next.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Luke Mogelson, author; contributing writer, The New Yorker

References: 

• The Storm Is Here: An American Crucible by Luke Mogelson (Penguin; 2022)
• "A Reporter's Footage from Inside the Capitol Siege | The New Yorker" (YouTube; Jan. 17, 2021)
• "Michigan Sheriff Compares Lockdown Order He's Supposed to Enforce to Mass Arrest" by Tracy Connor (The Daily Beast; May 19, 2020)

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• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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On this first episode of The Gray Area, Sean Illing talks with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who takes on many of our most vexing societal problems in his new book Starry Messenger. According to Neil, if we all were to adopt a more scientific approach to politics, many of our social problems would be easier to identify, talk about, and solve. In this conversation, Sean challenges that claim, and they discuss what the limits of both politics and science might be, as tools to use in crafting an improved society.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson), astrophysicist; author 

References: 

•  Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization by Neil deGrasse Tyson (Henry Holt; 2022)
• "Neil deGrasse Tyson lets the science deniers have it: 'The beginning of the end of an informed democracy'" by Sean Illing (Salon; Oct. 20, 2015)

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Resist certainty, embrace ambiguity. The Gray Area is a philosophical take on culture, politics, and everything in between with host Sean Illing. We don’t pretend to have the answers, but we do offer a space for real dialogue. Get some cool takes on a very hot world. New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday.

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In this episode originally recorded in July 2021, Vox's Zack Beauchamp talks with Columbia law professor Jamal Greene about his book How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession With Rights Is Tearing America Apart. They discuss how the US obsession with rights and their protections gives too much power to judges and the courts, makes it difficult for ordinary citizens to find reasonable solutions to legitimate problems, and has made this country's legal system not only nonsensical but dangerous.

Vox Conversations will return on Thursday, Oct. 13th — but under a new name, and with a new look. Stay tuned for The Gray Area with Sean Illing: a philosophical take on culture, politics, and everything in between.

Host: Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp), Senior Correspondent, Vox

Guest: Jamal Greene (@jamalgreene), Dwight Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

References: 

• How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession With Rights Is Tearing America Apart by Jamal Greene (HMH Books; 2021)
• "From Guns to Gay Marriage, How Did Rights Take Over Politics?" by Kelefa Sanneh (New Yorker; May 24, 2021)
• Lochner v. New York, 198 US 45 (1905)
• Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 584 US __ (2018)
• District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 US 570 (2008)
• "Texas's radical anti-abortion law, explained" by Ian Millhiser (Vox; Sept. 2, 2021)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Editor: Amy Drozdowska
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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