The Gray Area with Sean Illing

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The case for not killing yourself Jun 12, 2023

Show notes

Sean Illing talks with Clancy Martin, professor of philosophy at University of Missouri Kansas City, about his powerful new book How Not to Kill Yourself, which combines personal memoir and philosophical analysis to explore what it means to pursue self-destruction. They discuss wisdom from the Buddha and Albert Camus, Clancy's view that he is a suicide "addict," and concrete strategies for escaping the grip of suicidal thoughts.

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, the suicide and crisis lifeline can be reached by dialing 988.

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

Guest: Clancy Martin, professor of philosophy, University of Missouri-Kansas City; author

References:

How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind by Clancy Martin (Pantheon; 2023)
Facts about suicide (from the CDC, and the WHO
James Hillman, Suicide and the Soul (1973)
"Lessons from jumping off the Golden Gate bridge—survivor shares his story to help others" by Keisha Reynolds (MyCG; Sept. 8, 2022)
Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Suffering of the World (1850)

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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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What comes after Black Lives Matter? Jun 08, 2023

Show notes

What is the future of the racial justice movement in America? Sean Illing talks with Cedric Johnson, professor and author of After Black Lives Matter, about building a protest movement that meaningfully recognizes the underlying economic causes of the social inequities highlighted by the BLM movement. They discuss the demonstrations of Summer 2020, the prospects of building a multiracial class-conscious coalition, and viewing urban policing as a symptom of larger systemic problems.

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

Guest: Cedric Johnson, professor of Black Studies and Political Science, University of Illinois Chicago

References:

After Black Lives Matter: Policing and Anti-Capitalist Struggleby Cedric G. Johnson (Verso; 2023)
"Amid Protests, Majorities Across Racial and Ethnic Groups Express Support for Black Lives Matter Movement" (Pew Research Center; June 12, 2020)
"Veto-proof majority of Minneapolis council members supports dismantling police department" by Brandt Williams (MPR; June 7, 2020)
"'I'm not angry at all': Owner of looted Chicago photo shop vows to rebuild" by Ben Harris (Times of Israel; June 3, 2020)
"Notes Toward a New Society: Rousseau and the New Left" by Marshall Berman (Partisan Review, 38 (4); Fall 1971)
"Marshall Berman's Freestyle Marxism" by Max Holleran (The New Republic; Apr. 14, 2017)
Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America by Richard Rorty (Harvard University Press; 1999)
Violence Work: State Power and the Limits of Police by Micol Seigel (Duke University Press; 2018)
"The systemic issues revealed by Jordan Neely's killing, explained" by Nicole Narea and Li Zhou (Vox; May 12)
The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker's Notebookby James Boggs (1963)
"Official Poverty Measure Masks Gains Made Over Last 50 Years" by Arloc Sherman (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Sept. 2013)
"300 transit ambassadors become new sets of eyes and ears for LA Metro" by Steve Scauzillo (Daily News; Mar. 6)

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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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Clickbait’s destructive legacy Jun 05, 2023

Show notes

Have clicks, likes, and shares driven media and democracy to the point of disrepair? Sean Illing is joined by Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of Semafor and the author of "Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral." Together, they discuss how newsrooms were transformed by social media and the pursuit of traffic, and what the future of the industry might look like.

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

Guest: Ben Smith (@semaforben), editor-in-chief of Semafor, author of Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral

References:

Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral by Ben Smith (Penguin Random House, 2023)
“How corporations got all your data” by The Gray Area (Vox, Mar. 2023)

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This episode was made by:

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

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Simone Weil’s radical philosophy of love and attention Jun 01, 2023

Show notes

Sean Illing speaks with history professor Robert Zaretsky about Simone Weil, a 20th-century French writer and activist who dedicated her life to a radical philosophy of love and attention. They discuss how she inspired her contemporaries — like Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir — and how her revolutionary ideas have remained relevant and important.

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

Guest: Robert Zaretsky, history professor, The University of Houston

References:

The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas by Robert Zaretsky (The University of Chicago Press, 2021)
“The Philosophers: Resisting Despair” by Sean Illing (Vox, May 2022)
The Ethics of Attention: Engaging the Real with Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza (Routledge, 2022)

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This episode was made by:

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

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Peter Singer on his ethical legacy May 25, 2023

Show notes

Can we live a good life in a world where animals are factory farmed? Guest host Dylan Matthews talks with the world-famous ethicist Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation Now, the newly revised edition of his movement-founding 1975 work. They talk about the progress made by the animal rights movement — and the issues it still faces. Dylan also questions Singer on other aspects of his career as an outspoken popularizer of philosophy and ethics, including his positions on physician-assisted dying, abortion rights, and effective altruism.

Host: Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt), senior correspondent, Vox

Guest: Peter Singer (@PeterSinger), Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University; author

References:

Animal Liberation Nowby Peter Singer (Harper Perennial; 2023), an updated version of Animal Liberation by Peter Singer (HarperCollins; 1975)
Peter Singer Live on Stage: tickets and more info
"Animal Liberation" by Peter Singer (New York Review of Books, Apr. 5, 1973)
Unsanctifying Human Life: Essays on Ethics by Peter Singer (Wiley-Blackwell; 2002)
Practical Ethicsby Peter Singer (Cambridge; 1979)
"Unspeakable Conversations" by Harriet McBryde Johnson (NYT Magazine; Feb. 16, 2003)
"Famine, Affluence, and Morality" by Peter Singer (Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol. 1 no. 3; Spring, 1972)
Giving What We Can
Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)
"Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself" by Kelsey Piper (Vox; Nov. 16, 2022)
The St. Petersburg Paradox
Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics(1874)
Moral Thinking by R.M. Hare (Oxford; 1982)
Ethics and the Limits of Philosophyby Bernard Williams (Harvard; 1986)

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Support The Gray Area by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

This episode was made by:

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

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Why the poor in America stay poor May 22, 2023

Show notes

Are we responsible for keeping poor people poor? Sean Illing is joined by Matt Desmond, a sociology professor at Princeton University and the author of the books Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City and Poverty, by America. They discuss why most Americans are unaware of their privilege and how their choices perpetuate poverty. They also discuss the power and hope that can come from bringing awareness to these choices and why abolishing poverty is possible.

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

Guest: Matthew Desmond, Sociology professor, and author of Poverty, by America

References:

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond (Penguin Random House, 2023)
Evicted: Poverty And Profit In The American City by Matthew Desmond (Penguin Random House, 2017)
“Why even brilliant scholars misunderstand poverty in America” by Dylan Matthews (Vox, Mar. 2023)

Enjoyed this episode? Rate The Gray Area ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

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Support The Gray Area by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

This episode was made by:

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

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The spiritual roots of our strange relationship to work May 18, 2023

Show notes

The pandemic caused many to rethink our relationship to work. But how did that relationship develop in the first place? Sean Illing talks with George Blaustein, professor of American Studies, about the legacy and influence of Max Weber, the German theorist whose best-known work is The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) — which, Blaustein says, is often misunderstood. In the summer of 2020, George wrote an essay interpreting Weber's ideas on the psychology of work, the origins of capitalism, and the isolation of modernity — just as it looked like everything might change.

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

Guest: George Blaustein (@blauwsteen), senior lecturer of American Studies and History, University of Amsterdam; editor, European Review of Books

References:

"Searching for Consolation in Max Weber's Work Ethic" by George Blaustein (The New Republic; July 2, 2020)
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber (1905; tr. by Talcott Parsons, 1930)
The Vocation Lectures, by Max Weber: "Science as a Vocation" (1917) & "Politics as a Vocation" (1919). Published together as Charisma and Disenchantment: The Vocation Lectures (NYRB, 2020; translated by Damion Searls)
Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin (1536)
Der Amerikamüde by Nikolaus Lenau (1855)
The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848)
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber (Simon & Schuster; 2018)
"Bullshit jobs: why they exist and why you might have one" by Sean Illing (Vox; Nov. 9, 2019)

Enjoyed this episode? Rate The Gray Area ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

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Support The Gray Area by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

This episode was made by:

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

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Mysteries of the mind May 15, 2023

Show notes

What do we know — and what don't we know — about how the human mind works? Sean Illing talks with Paul Bloom, professor of psychology and author of the new book Psych: The Story of the Human Mind. In this conversation, Sean and Paul talk about some of the most interesting and confounding questions in psychology. They discuss the problematic theories of some giants in the history of the field, the way that AI might change psychology, and whether or not the discipline is any closer to understanding the nature of mental illness.

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

Guest: Paul Bloom (@paulbloomatyale), Professor of Psychology, University of Toronto; Professor Emeritus, Yale University; author

References:

Psych: The Story of the Human Mind by Paul Bloom (Ecco; 2023)
The Replication Crisis (Psychology Today)
Freud's "primal scene" is taken from his "From the History of an Infantile Neurosis" (a.k.a. the "Wolf Man" case) (1918)
The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature by Geoffrey Miller (Anchor; 2001)
Aspects of the Theory of Syntax by Noam Chomsky (MIT Press; 1965)
On Geoffrey Hinton: "'The Godfather of A.I.' Leaves Google and Warns of Danger Ahead" by Cade Metz (New York Times; May 1)
"The looming threat of AI to Hollywood, and why it should matter to you" by Alissa Wilkinson (Vox; May 2)
"Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness" by David Chalmers (1995)
A.I. Artificial Intelligence, dir. by Steven Spielberg (2001)
"Development of the default-mode network during childhood and adolescence" by F. Fan et al. (Neuroimage; Feb. 2021)
The Infant Cognition Center at Yale
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

Enjoyed this episode? Rate The Gray Area ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

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Support The Gray Area by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

This episode was made by:

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

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Why we can’t just blame capitalism for everything May 11, 2023

Show notes

There are many debates within the American left, but the fundamental dispute is over the viability of the current system. Part of the left wants a revolution, and part wants reform. Sean Illing is joined by Eric Levitz, a features writer for New York magazine’s Intelligencer. They discuss the revolution versus reform divide and what can be done to navigate the US’s capitalist and constitutional systems in order to advance the left’s agenda.

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

Guest: Eric Levitz (@EricLevitz), features writer, New York Magazine’s Intelligencer

References:

“Blaming ‘Capitalism’ Is Not an Alternative to Solving Problems” by Eric Levitz (April, 2023 New York Magazine)

Enjoyed this episode? Rate The Gray Area ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of The Gray Area. Subscribe in your favorite podcast app.

Support The Gray Area by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

This episode was made by:

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

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Being human in the age of AI May 08, 2023

Show notes

Will AI change what it means to be human? Sean Illing talks with essayist Meghan O'Gieblyn, author of God, Human, Animal, Machine, a book about how the way we understand human nature has been interwoven with how we understand our own technology. They discuss the power of metaphor in describing fundamental aspects of being human, the "transhumanism" movement, and what we're after when we seek companionship in a chatbot.

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

Guest: Meghan O'Gieblyn, essayist; author

References: