The Gray Area
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 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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Carrie Jenkins on what philosophy can teach us about love and heartbreak.
How “the sense of defeat over the Black freedom struggle” shaped the Supreme Court justice’s thinking.
Adolph Reed on why talk about reparations is counterproductive.
Economist William “Sandy” Darity and folklorist Kirsten Mullen on how the United States can compensate Black Americans.
A data scientist on what truly makes us happy.
How the US can create a better future by reconciling the past.
Lawyer and activist Nkechi Taifa explains why reparations is a policy issue “whose time has come.”
Financial planning isn’t only for people who have a lot of money.
Relationships aren’t always easy to preserve. Boundaries can help.
Postmodernism could’ve been revolutionary. But neoliberalism neutered it.
Minda Harts and Julia Furlan discuss equity and demanding space for yourself in the workplace.
A Harvard law professor on the evolution of the Court and what Congress can do to make it more democratic.
A conversation with Brea Baker on starting small and getting involved.
Margaret Sullivan and I talk about my new book, The Paradox of Democracy.
Stoicism, explained.
Historian Timothy Snyder on the war in Ukraine and the future of democracy.
Michael Ian Black on how to raise better men.
Francis Fukuyama on liberal democracy and its discontents.
Pragmatism is America’s homegrown philosophical tradition. Its lessons are as urgent as ever.
“The Supreme Court is only as good as the people who are on it,” the lawyer and scholar tells Vox.
A new book examines the downsides of sex positivity — and explores the alternatives to our unhappy sexual culture.
Revisiting Hannah Arendt’s ideas about social isolation and mass resentment.
How a society that is so good at creating knowledge can be so bad at applying it.
An old book makes an interesting case for parenting as a spiritual practice.
A philosopher on the complicated role of forgiveness in a polarized society.
David Cross on political humor, how standup has changed, and why complaints about cancellation are “bullshit.”
A Q&A with a pro-gun journalist about guns and tribalism, the blind spots on both sides, and where the debate might go from here.
Peter Pomerantsev on whether Putin’s ability to manufacture reality may have reached its limits in Ukraine.
Co-writer (and Academy Award nominee) David Sirota on what the movie is really about.
We live in the most distracted time in human history. Can we reclaim our attention spans?
Dan Pfeiffer on the Democratic brand and how to revive it.
Philosopher David Chalmers on the significance of digital worlds and why we’re maybe living in a simulation.
Jamie Raskin lost his son. He didn’t want to lose American democracy too.
David French on the cult of toughness on the Trumpist right.
The conversations that challenged me the most and got me thinking about a difficult problem or provocative idea.
Psychologist Paul Bloom on the importance of suffering, the shortcomings of hedonism, and why he would never plug into the Matrix.
Robert Bullard joined Vox Conversations to discuss the global struggle to keep this world safe to live in, and how racism gets in the way.
Historian Jill Lepore on the strange but familiar appeal of “Muskism.”