The Gray Area with Sean Illing

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

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.

Episodes

Whatever this is, it isn’t liberalism

April 14, 2025 • 57 mins
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, long time. He joins Sean to discuss the great liberal thinker Thomas Hobbes...
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A new way to listen

April 11, 2025 • 1 min
We have an exciting announcement! Vox Members now get access to ad-free podcasts. If you sign up, you’ll get unlimited access to reporting on vox.com, exclusive newsletters, and all of our podcasts — including The Gray Area — ad-free. Plus, you’ll play a crucial role in helping our show get made. Check it out at vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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The beliefs AI is built on

April 7, 2025 • 50 mins
There’s a lot of uncertainty when it comes to artificial intelligence. Technologists love to talk about all the good these tools can do in the world, all the problems they might solve. Yet, many of those same technologists are also warning us about all the ways AI might upend society, how it might even destroy humanity. Julia Longoria, Vox host and editorial director, spent a year trying to understand that dichotomy. The result is...
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Stop comparing yourself to AI

March 31, 2025 • 55 mins
Why do we keep comparing AI to humans? Jaron Lanier — virtual reality pioneer, digital philosopher, and the author of several best-selling books on technology — thinks that we should stop. In his view, technology is only valuable if it has beneficiaries. So instead of asking "What can AI do?," we should be asking, "What can AI do for us?" In today’s episode, Jaron and Sean discuss a humanist approach to AI and how changing our u...
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Democrats need to do something

March 24, 2025 • 54 mins
American government has a speed issue. Both parties are slow to solve problems. Slow to build new things. Slow to make any change at all. Until now. The Trump administration is pushing through sweeping changes as fast as possible, completely changing the dynamic. And the Democrats? They’ve been slow to respond. Slow to mount a defense. Slow to change tactics. Still. Ezra Klein — writer, co-founder of Vox, and host of The Ezra Kle...
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How to live in uncertain times

March 17, 2025 • 52 mins
Humans hate uncertainty. It makes us feel unsafe and uneasy. We often organize our lives to avoid it. When it's foisted upon us, we don’t always know how to act. But writer and journalist Maggie Jackson argues that uncertainty can actually be good for us, and that we’re doing ourselves a disservice by avoiding it. She tells Sean that embracing uncertainty can spark creativity, improve problem solving skills, and help us lead better...
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How to sink into silence

March 10, 2025 • 50 mins
How often do you find silence? And do you know what to do with it when you do? Today’s guest is essayist and travel writer Pico Iyer. His latest book is Aflame: Learning From Silence, which recounts his experiences living at a Catholic monastery in California after losing his home in a fire. He speaks with Sean about the restorative power of silence, and how being quiet can prepare us for a busy and overstimulated world. Host: Sean...
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How to change your personality

March 3, 2025 • 43 mins
If you could change anything about your personality, anything at all, what would it be? And why would you want to change it?Writer Olga Khazan spent a year trying to answer those questions, and documented the experience in her new book Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change. In this episode Sean speaks with Olga about the science of personality change, the work it takes to change yourself, and what makes up a...
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Is ignorance truly bliss?

February 17, 2025 • 38 mins
Are you ever happier not knowing something? As Aristotle famously claimed, “All human beings want to know.” But denial and avoidance are also human impulses. Sometimes they’re even more powerful than our curiosity. In this episode Sean speaks with professor Mark Lilla about when we’re better off searching for knowledge and when we’re better off living in the dark. Lilla’s new book is called Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to ...
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Is America broken?

February 10, 2025 • 53 mins
What do you think of America’s institutions? Alana Newhouse, founder and editor-in-chief of Tablet Magazine, says that may be the most important political question in America. In an essay published more than two years ago, Newhouse argued that there is a new political divide, one in which your place — and the place of your allies and adversaries — is determined by whether you believe that America’s institutions should be fixed or d...
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The cost of spending time alone

February 3, 2025 • 45 mins
Americans are spending an historic amount of time alone, a phenomenon that is often referred to as an "epidemic of loneliness." But are we actually lonely? Or do we prefer being by ourselves? And if we do, what does that mean for us and our society? Today’s guest is journalist Derek Thompson, who, in a recent essay for the Atlantic, challenges the conventional wisdom around loneliness. He argues that Americans prefer solitude, and ...
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Attention pays (with Chris Hayes)

January 27, 2025 • 54 mins
Where is your attention right now? Where was it a minute ago? A second ago? Where will it be a minute from now? One of the primary features of this age — the age of the internet and smartphones and algorithmic feeds — is that our attention is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. This is no accident. Our devices and apps are engineered to constantly alert us to things that are important and to things that are not. That’s because...
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How to be happy

January 20, 2025 • 70 mins
What does it take to be happy? Professor of psychology Laurie Santos just might have the answer. This week The Gray Area takes a break from its regular programming to bring you an episode of another podcast that we love. In this episode of Stay Tuned With Preet, host Preet Bharara interviews Laurie Santos, a psychology professor at Yale University, about what we all can do to be happier. The two discuss how to maximize your happi...
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The screens between us

January 13, 2025 • 49 mins
What is the first thing that you touch in the morning? What about the last thing you touch before you go to sleep? For many of us, it’s our phone. Digital devices are with us constantly, often putting a digital layer between us and the world. The benefits of this are enormous: convenience, efficiency, and constant stimulation. But is there a personal cost to living in a mediated reality? Today’s guest is Christine Rosen, a senior f...
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The importance of failure

January 6, 2025 • 50 mins
At the beginning of the new year, many of us make pledges to change ourselves. We want to work out more. Or read more. Or cook more. Within a few months, some of us will have succeeded but many of us will have failed. When we do, we’ll probably tell ourselves to try again, that failure inevitably leads to success. But is that true? And is failure really such a bad thing? In this episode, which originally aired in March of 2023, Sea...
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What to do with your sadness, pain, and grief

December 23, 2024 • 60 mins
How can we find happiness? That's an old question. Since the beginning of philosophy people have been wondering what makes us happy and how to get more of it. But if you're a real person living in the real world, you know already that it's not possible to be happy all the time. So what do we do when we’re experiencing depression or grief or a dark mood? Philosopher Mariana Alessandri thinks that we should stop trying to repress the...
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What do animals feel?

December 16, 2024 • 52 mins
Can you ever really know what’s going on inside the mind of another creature? In some cases, like other humans, or dogs and cats, we might be able to guess with a bit of confidence. But what about octopuses? Or insects? What about AI systems — will they ever be able to feel anything? And if they do feel anything, what are our ethical obligations toward them? In today’s episode, Vox staff writer Oshan Jarow brings those questions to...
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Are men okay?

December 9, 2024 • 52 mins
This week, host Sean Illing gets personal when he asks professor and podcast host Scott Galloway: What’s going on with men? There’s a growing body of evidence that men are falling behind in education, the labor market, and other areas. And when you look at the numbers on drug overdoses and deaths by suicide, it’s pretty bleak. Sean and Scott — both of whom are raising sons — talk about the struggles men are facing today, how parent...
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How to feel alive

December 2, 2024 • 57 mins
The sheer feeling of aliveness. We all know what that is, even though it comes in many different forms. Maybe it’s going for a long run at night. Or free-climbing a mountain. Or an intense meditation practice. Or that sensation you get when you’re on the floor at a great concert. Call it a flow state or a religious experience or whatever you want, but it’s a kind of ecstasy. People have been experiencing this for centuries, and in ...
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The antidote to climate anxiety

November 25, 2024 • 55 mins
In this episode, host Sean Illing speaks with marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson about her book What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures. Johnson approaches climate change with informed optimism, encouraging us to stop waiting for the worst to happen. She doesn’t reject the realities of a warming planet but reminds us that doomerism is paralyzing us into inaction. In short, having a better climate future begins wit...
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