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.

Philosophy
Politics
News Commentary
101
Introducing The Gray Area
Embrace uncertainty
1 min
102
Best of: Why America's obsession with rights is...
54 min
103
A GOP insider on why the party went Trump
56 min
104
How do we fix the harm we cause?
45 min
105
A new philosophy of love
55 min
106
The politics of 'Yellowstone'
25 min
107
How society sexualizes us
51 min
108
The Parent Trap
How society is failing parents and children
55 min
109
40 Acres: Reaching reconciliation
28 min
110
40 Acres: The old Jim Crow
43 min
111
40 Acres: $14 trillion and no mules
44 min
112
40 Acres: The original promise
49 min
113
What Clarence Thomas really thinks
And why he's the most misunderstood Supreme Court Justice, according to the author of The Enigma of Clarence Thomas
59 min
114
Even Better: Don't call it a budget
45 min
115
The quest for authenticity
Better living through the existentialism of Simone de Beauvoir
46 min
116
Even Better: Setting your boundaries
43 min
117
Your gut instinct is usually wrong
A data scientist on how to make decisions
49 min
118
Even Better: Workplace equality 2.0
51 min
119
Why we're still postmodern (whatever that means)
53 min
120
Even Better: Activism when you don't know where...
47 min
121
The Supreme Court's power grab
60 min
122
How middlemen took over the economy
60 min
123
The necessity — and danger — of free speech
Free speech is essential for democracy. It may also be democracy's downfall.
50 min
124
Hacking coral sex to save the reefs
49 min
125
The price of keeping secrets
47 min