The Gray Area with Sean Illing13 Jan 2020

An “uncomfortable” conversation with Cory Booker

There is a moral radicalism to the way Cory Booker lives out his politics. He lived for years in a housing project. He leads hunger strikes. He challenges political machines. He’s a vegan. He has a more ambitious policy vision than is often discussed. But beneath that is a far more radical ethical vision than he gets credit for. I think there’s a reason for that. When Booker turns his politics turn outward, they lose clarity. He shies away from drawing bright lines, his answers double back to blur out potential offense. As a result, his arguments for a politics of radical love end up emphasizing his love in ways that obscure his radicalism. As admiring as I am of what Booker demands of himself, I often can’t tell what he’s asking of me. In this conversation, I wanted Booker to risk my discomfort, not just his own. And in his answers, I think you can hear both the remarkable promise and power of Booker’s politics, and some of the challenges that ultimately led him to suspend his campaign. References/Book recommendations: Tightrope by Nicholas Kristof “Who Killed the Knapp Family” by Nicholas Kristof The Violence Inside Us by Chris Murphy My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com. Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com You can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits: Producer and Editor - Jeff Geld Engineer- Cynthia Gil Researcher - Roge Karma Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(791)

How memory changes you

We like to think of memory as a record of the past. But that’s not really what it is. Memory doesn’t keep the past — it can also remake it. It stitches fragments into stories, and those stories — true...

21 Aug 59min

Freud was right about one thing

Sigmund Freud is probably the most famous psychoanalyst. Yet many of his theories have been critiqued or discredited. So is there anything we can still learn from the father of psychoanalysis? In tod...

17 Aug 58min

Why straight dating feels bleak

The internet is rife with chatter about “heteropessimism,” the feeling that gender relations are broken and heterosexual relationships are doomed. But is this just cynical discourse, like a coping mec...

14 Aug 57min

We’re postliterate

What happens when we read less? What does that do to our ability to understand complex ideas, or even think for ourselves?In today’s episode, guest host Jonquilyn Hill speaks with Atlantic staff write...

10 Aug 51min

What does a parent owe their child?

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 Noam Hassenfeld and ...

7 Aug 27min

The vanishing pleasures of daily life

Sean talks with writer and philosopher Ian Bogost about his new book The Small Stuff. They discuss what modern life has lost in its pursuit of convenience, efficiency, and optimization. From stick shi...

3 Aug 47min

How Google broke the internet

The internet is changing. For years our primary gateway to the internet has been search engines: we ask a question, a list of websites pops up, and we choose which ones to click on. But we are rapidly...

31 Juli 41min

The illusion of the ‘self’

Sean Illing talks with neuroscientist Gregory Berns, author of The Self Delusion. Berns claims that the idea of a unified, persistent self is a kind of illusion, and that we are better understood as m...

27 Juli 43min