The Gray Area with host Sean Illing is a philosophical take on culture, politics, and everything in between. We don’t pretend to have the answers, but we do off... More
The Gray Area with host Sean Illing is a philosophical take on culture, politics, and everything in between. We don’t pretend to have the answers, but we do off... More
Available Episodes
5 of 609
Clickbait’s destructive legacy
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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2023-06-05
52:42
Simone Weil’s radical philosophy of love and attention
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)
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
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
2023-06-01
56:52
Peter Singer on his ethical legacy
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 Now by 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 Ethics by 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 Philosophy by Bernard Williams (Harvard; 1986)
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:
Producer: Erikk Geannikis
Engineer: Patrick Boyd
Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
2023-05-25
1:05:13
Why the poor in America stay poor
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.
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
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
2023-05-22
54:46
The spiritual roots of our strange relationship to work
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.
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:
Producer: Erikk Geannikis
Engineer: Patrick Boyd
Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Gray Area with host Sean Illing is a philosophical take on culture, politics, and everything in between. We don’t pretend to have the answers, but we do offer a space for real dialogue. Resist certainty, embrace ambiguity, and get some cool takes on a very hot world. Formerly the Vox Conversations podcast. New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday.