The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Nov 18 2024 687 ep. 69 mins 39.4k
The Gray Area with Sean Illing Podcast artwork

The Gray Area with Sean Illing takes a philosophy-minded look at culture, technology, politics, and the world of ideas. Each week, we invite a guest to explore a question or topic that matters. From the the state of democracy, to the struggle with depression and anxiety, to the nature of identity in the digital age, each episode looks for nuance and honesty in the most important conversations of our time. New episodes drop every Monday.

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America’s reactionary moment

Nov 18 2024 78 mins  
What just happened? It’s been almost two weeks since the presidential election, and many Americans are still grappling with the result. The political reckoning will probably last for months, if not years, and we may never know exactly why voters made the choices they did. But one thing is clear: the roughly 75 million people who voted for Trump were saying “No” to something.

Well this is awkward

Nov 10 2024 61 mins  
Philosopher Alexandra Plakias says there are no awkward people, only awkward situations. In her book, Awkwardness: A Theory, Plakias explains the difference between embarrassment and awkwardness, how awkwardness can be used by people in power as a way of breaking social norms, and what exactly is happening when people aren’t on the same social script. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIll

What just happened, and what comes next

Nov 08 2024 54 mins  
This has been an unusual week. Sean and the TGA team are still sifting through it all and figuring out what to think about the presidential election. In the meantime, our colleague Jonquilyn Hill has leapt into action. She and her team from the Explain It to Me podcast collected lots of listener questions in the aftermath of Trump's victory, and took them to the Vox reporters who k

Does being "woke" do any good?

Nov 04 2024 56 mins  
What does it mean to be "woke"? It's become a catchall term to smear or dismiss anything that has any vague association with progressive politics. As a result, anytime you venture into an argument about “wokeness,” it becomes hopelessly entangled in a broader cultural battle. Today’s guest, journalist and professor Musa al-Gharbi, helps us untangle "wokeness" from its fraught

Is America collapsing like Ancient Rome?

Oct 28 2024 49 mins  
What can ancient Rome teach us about American democracy? The Roman Republic fell for a lot of reasons: The state became too big and chaotic; the influence of money and private interests corrupted public institutions; and social and economic inequalities became so large that citizens lost faith in the system altogether and gradually fell into the arms of tyrants and demagogues. It s

The world according to Werner Herzog

Oct 21 2024 60 mins  
Sean Illing speaks with one of his heroes: Werner Herzog. Herzog is a filmmaker, poet, and author of the memoir Every Man for Himself and God Against All. The two discuss "ecstatic truth," a term invented by Herzog to capture what he's really after in his work, why he's interested in Mars, and whether he thinks humanity is destroying itself. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host,

Ta-Nehisi Coates on complexity, clarity, and truth.

Oct 14 2024 73 mins  
How important is complexity? At The Gray Area, we value understanding the details. We revel in complexity. But does our desire to understand that complexity sometimes over-complicate an issue? Journalist and bestselling author Ta-Nehisi Coates thinks so. This week on The Gray Area, Sean talks to Coates about his new book The Message, a collection of essays about storytelling, moral

Your mind needs chaos

Oct 08 2024 51 mins  
In part three of our series on creativity, guest host Oshan Jarow speaks with philosopher of neuroscience Mark Miller about how our minds actually work. They discuss the brain as a predictive engine that builds our conscious experience for us. We’re not seeing what we see. We’re predicting what we should see. Miller says that depression, opioid use, and our love of horror movie

Musician Laraaji on the origin of creativity

Oct 08 2024 47 mins  
Sean revisits his interview with musician Laraaji, a pioneer of new age music who has recorded more than 50 albums since he was discovered busking in a park by Brian Eno. Laraaji and Sean discuss inspiration, flow states, and what moves us to create. This is the second conversation in our three shows in three days three-part series about creativity. Learn more about your ad choices

Is AI creative?

Oct 07 2024 41 mins  
What is the relationship between creativity and artificial intelligence? Creativity feels innately human, but is it? Can a machine be creative? Are we still being creative if we use machines to assist in our creative output? To help answer those questions, Sean speaks with Meghan O'Gieblyn, the author of the book "God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search fo