The Gray Area with Sean Illing7 Feb 2019

Leftists vs. liberals, with Elizabeth Bruenig

What separates Obama-era liberalism from Sanders-style democratic socialism? What are the fights splitting and transforming the Democratic Party actually about? This is a conversation I’ve wanted to have for a while, in part because I often find myself simultaneously in these debates and confused by them. Sometimes, arguments that are framed as deep ideological disagreements seem to actually be about differing political judgments about what public and political institutions will permit. But perhaps those political judgments are just ideology posing as pragmatism. It’s easy to fall down the rabbit hole here. Elizabeth Bruenig is an opinion columnist at the Washington Post, co-host of the podcast The Bruenigs, and a thoughtful champion of the democratic socialist worldview. I asked her on the show to help me trace the boundaries of this debate and highlight where the divides really are. This is a conversation about ideology, but it’s also about the limits of persuasion, whether civility is a weapon wielded by the powerful, what Medicare-for-all means, the left’s definition of freedom, the contradictions of being “socially liberal and fiscally responsible,” Howard Schultz, and much more. Book Recommendations: The Confessions of Saint Augustine by Saint Augustine Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky The Malaise of Modernity by Charles Taylor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Episoder(765)

American democracy's structural flaw

Back in 2015, before President Donald Trump, before January 6, before all the craziness of the last decade, Matt Yglesias made a blunt prediction: American democracy is doomed. Guest host Zack Beauch...

17 Apr 38min

The contradictions of wokeness

What does it mean to be “woke”? It's become a catch-all term to smear or dismiss anything that has any vague association with progressive politics. So anytime you venture into an argument about “woken...

13 Apr 53min

How to forgive yourself

It’s easy to forgive other people because you don’t have to live inside their head. Forgiving yourself is different and much, much harder. Sean Illing is joined by philosopher Myisha Cherry to talk a...

10 Apr 41min

The revolution will be memed

Kalle Lasn has been trying to jam consumer culture for decades. Now he thinks that was only the beginning. Sean talks with the Adbusters founder about advertising, culture jamming, meme warfare, surv...

6 Apr 48min

How we standardized music

The Gray Area is taking a short break this week — but we’ve got something special for you. We’re dropping an episode from one of our favorite podcasts, Unexplainable. In it, host Emily Siner explores...

3 Apr 29min

Why humans need to matter

Why do humans have this deep need to feel like we matter? Sean Illing talks with the philosopher Rebecca Goldstein about why “mattering” is not the same thing as being important, how the hunger for ...

30 Mar 47min

A brief update on the AI apocalypse

Something is definitely happening in the AI world, but how seriously should we take it? Is this another hype cycle or a genuine inflection point? Sean Illing talks with journalist Kelsey Piper (forme...

27 Mar 36min

Consciousness is a mystery

What is consciousness, really? We don’t know. Scientists aren’t sure. Philosophers can’t agree. All we have is the fact that it feels like something to be you right now. Beyond that, human consciousn...

16 Mar 39min