About this episode
Oct 30
Is America a gerontocracy?
What does the country lose when one generation refuses to yield power? In this episode, Vox host Jonquilyn Hill talks with Idrees Kahloon, staff writer at the Atlantic, about why he believes America has become a gerontocracy – a government whose rulers are older than the rest of ... Show More
47m 7s
Oct 26
Inside the secret race to build artificial intelligence
What is happening behind the scenes of America’s largest AI companies? How could the squabbles, ideologies, and goals of their CEOs and engineers shape our future? In today’s episode, guest host Christine Emba sits down with technology journalist Kevin Roose to discuss his new bo ... Show More
44m 14s
Oct 23
What makes a life good enough?
What does it mean to have a good life when so much feels wrong? In this episode of The Gray Area, guest host Jonquilyn Hill speaks with Vox journalist Rachel Wilkerson Miller about her forthcoming book, The Nice Life. Rachel argues that even when we feel anxious or unsettled, we ... Show More
44m 4s
Nov 2024
John Gray on the US Election and a World After Liberalism, Part Two
This is the second instalment of a three-part episode. We once thought liberalism could and should be universal. But recent decades have shown that this presumption could be flawed. Now, with the re-election of Donad Trump in the US, liberalism has fallen out of favour at the bal ... Show More
39m 41s
Apr 2025
110 | What is Liberalism? Part VI. Possessive Individualism and the Collapsing Order
<p>In this episode, the boys talk about C.B. Macpherson’s insightful text <em>The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism</em>. Macpherson holds that liberal political theory from Hobbes to Locke is correct in its premises, since like it or not we basically all are defined b ... Show More
54m 47s
Aug 2025
Ep. 374: Discussing Liberalism (Lincoln, et al) with Walter Sterling (Part One)
What's the crisis of liberal democracy? Dylan, Wes and Seth are joined by St. John's College President J. Walter Sterling to discuss Abraham Lincoln's "On the Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions" (1838) plus the beginnings of Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now (2018), Patri ... Show More
46m 38s
Jun 2023
67 TEASER | What is Liberalism? III. John Rawls and Political Liberalism
<p>In this episode we finally get down and dirty with the big dog of Anglophone political philosophy, John Rawls. We discuss his 1993 book <em>Political Liberalism</em>, which expands on his earlier theory of justice to develop an account of the pluralistic tolerance at the heart ... Show More
16m 54s
Apr 2023
Is there such a thing as a rules-based international order?
26m 44s
Oct 2023
Rethinking Democracy w/ Lea Ypi
This week David and Lea resume their conversation – and their differences of opinion – about how to understand politics in the modern world. What is it reasonable to expect of democracy? Are its failures because of bad design or bad faith? And why don’t we have more democracy at ... Show More
54m 5s
Jul 2022
The Meanings of Conservatism
'We're witnessing a major change in British politics,' writes John Gray. 'But to what?' With Boris Johnson on the way out, many Conservatives, he says, believe the party needs a new 'big idea'. But that is a fundamental error, he believes. 'What the party needs is not another new ... Show More
10m 12s
Oct 2023
Conservative socialism?
What will American politics look like after Trump? Sean Illing is joined by Sohrab Ahmari to discuss his new book, Tyranny, Inc. Ahmari is one of the conservative intellectuals trying to map out a post-Trump future for the Republican Party, and his book is an attempt to justify a ... Show More
56m 29s
Aug 2025
644. Has America Lost Its Appetite for the Common Good?
1h 16m
Sep 2025
Ep. 374: Discussing Liberalism (Lincoln, et al) with Walter Sterling (Part Two)
Continuing our discussion of the dangers to and weak points of liberal democracy, including consideration of Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed (2018) Francis Fukuyama's "Liberalism and Its Discontents" (his 2020 essay), and Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now (2018). Get more ... Show More
48m 50s
What exactly is the basis for democracy?
Arguably Iiberalism, the belief that the government serves the people, is the stone on which modern democracy was founded. That notion is so ingrained in the US that we often forget that America could be governed any other way. But political philosopher John Gray believes that liberalism has been waning for a long, l ... Show More
<p>Gideon talks to the US political theorist John Ikenberry about why the Ukraine war has been both a challenge and a spur for those who want to see liberal democratic values thrive. <em>Clip: Global News</em></p><br><p><strong>More on this topic:</strong></p><p><a href="htt ... Show More
<p>Patrick Deneen, a political philosopher at Notre Dame, says yes. He was a Democrat for years, and has now come to be seen as an “ideological guru” of the Trump administration. But that only tells half the story ...</p><p> </p><ul><li><strong>SOURCES:</strong><ul><li><a href="h ... Show More
