The Glenn Show

0:00 The gigification of academia

8:26 Is education just another commodity?

18:14 What do historians do?

26:22 Daniel: The university system is an unregulated cartel

35:08 The liberalism (not the leftism) of the university

38:22 Using (and getting used by) new technology

43:19 An alternate history of global economic development

47:29 The end of the American century

54:27 Daniel’s critique of US support for Ukraine

Recorded February 7, 2023

Links and Readings

Daniel’s NYT op-ed, “The Dangerous Decline of the Historical Profession”

Daniel’s TGS mini-series, “Glenn Loury’s Intellectual Origins”

Francis Fukuyama’s book, The End of History and the Last Man

Daniel’s essay on Fukuyama for the Nation, “A Bad Breakup”

Adrianna Kezar, Tom DePaola, and Daniel T. Scott’s book, The Gig Academy: Mapping Labor in the Neoliberal University

Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis’s book, Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life

James Sweet’s column, “Is History History?”

Daniel’s Chronicle of Higher Education piece, “The AHA’s Mission Needs to Change”

Eugen Weber’s book, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914

Daniel’s podcast, American Prestige

Daniel’s Harper’s Harper’s piece, “Empire Burlesque”

Daniel’s New Republic piece, “Does American Fascism Exist?

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0:00 Al Sharpton’s National Action Network still exists, apparently

5:00 MLK’s understanding of America’s contributions to democracy

12:58 Are the “people with three names” grifters or merely limited in their racial vision?

21:07 How do you change the minds of black voters?

30:13 The national black leadership vacuum

36:30 The under-recognized success of the black middle class

41:30 Ian’s got a four-point plan …

47:38 … but what’s the best way to disseminate it? (It’s podcasts.)

51:37 The paradox of Obama and Thomas

1:01:01 How does Glenn know “nobody is coming to save us”?

Recorded April 9, 2023

Links and Readings

Ian’s book, Agency: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for ALL Children to Overcome the Victimhood Narrative and Discover Their Pathway to Power

Ian’s charter school network, Vertex Partnership Academies

Al Sharpton’s National Action Network

Pew poll on black political strategy and leadership

AEI’s study, “Black Men: Making It in America” 

Richard Reeves’s book, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It

Thomas Sowell speaking at the 1980 Fairmont Conference

Clarence Thomas’s memoir, My Grandfather’s Son 

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0:00 What’s wrong with cancelation?

13:28 A defense of Charles Murray

21:24 Cancelation and the closet

28:08 Jonathan’s book, The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth

39:35 Jonathan: “The marketplace of ideas” is a necessary but insufficient metaphor

42:51 Is Trump an agent of disinformation?

54:22 What the woke and MAGA crowds have in common

59:41 Why Jonathan is hopeful about the constitution of knowledge

Recorded February 6, 2022

Links and Readings

Jonathan’s latest book, The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth

Jonathan’s book, Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought

Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein’s book, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life

Jeff Gerth’s Four-Party Columbia Journalism Review series on Trump and the press

Stanford’s Internet Observatory

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0:00 The disruption of Judge Kyle Duncan’s speech at Stanford Law School

9:33 Why did people have a problem with Duncan?

13:51 Will the current Supreme Court overturn Obergefell v. Hodges

16:37 The necessity of free inquiry and reasoned discourse

26:44 What it’s like being a FedSoc conservative at Stanford Law

34:30 The fallout from the Duncan protests

41:30 The vulgarity of the insults hurled at Duncan

50:00 The role of conservatives at Stanford

Recorded March 26, 2022

Links and Readings

Video of Stanford Law School Associate Dean Tirien Steinbach responding to Judge Duncan

Stanford Law School Dean Jenny Martinez’s letter about the Duncan event

John Stuart Mill’s book, On Liberty

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Glenn and John respond to questions from Substack subscribers.

0:00 John’s recent appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher

7:23 The rigors of the lecture circuit

10:29 The difference between equity and equality

22:10 How do we know that African Americans are just as smart as everyone else?

30:59 The new black bourgeoisie

38:33 Standards in the arts are relative. But how relative?

51:15 John sets the record straight on his dancing skills

Recorded March 19, 2022

Links and Readings

John’s most recent appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher

Glenn and John April 14 UATX event in New York

E. Franklin Frazier’s book, Black Bourgeoisie 

Glenn and John’s conversation with pseudonymous orchestra conductor Don Baton

Don Baton’s Substack, The Podium

Glenn and John’s conversation with actor James Beaman

James Beaman’s Substack, The Cornfield

Glenn and John’s conversation with Vincent Lloyd

John’s NYT piece, “The High Art of Musical Theater”

Walter Murphy’s song, “A Fifth of Beethoven”

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My guest this week is the distinguished physicist Sylvester “Jim” Gates. Jim was my colleague at Brown for years (he’s now at the University of Maryland), and we’re both alumni of MIT. Jim has made pathbreaking contributions to areas of physics that laymen like me can barely understand—he’s a deep, deep guy. He’s also got some thoughts on race and diversity in the sciences that give us an opportunity for some friendly debate.

Jim begins by introducing supersymmetry, a subfield in physics he helped to define back in the ‘70s. It’s extremely complex stuff, but he breaks it down. We spend the bulk of our time, though, talking about race in the sciences. Jim stresses the value that diversity plays in an under-recognized aspect of scientific innovation: imagination. In Jim’s view, while tests are important, there are limits to what they can tell us about who is most likely to produce the next big advance in any scientific field, just as there are limits to what tests can tell us about the competency of any given student. He uses himself as an example of a student who was average when he started grad school but managed to transform himself into a cutting-edge researcher. He sees value in giving weight to diversity, and even to continuing affirmative action, but there are limits. He worries, for example, that DEI initiatives classifying basic practices like homework and demanding excellence as “white” are going too far, just as he thinks speakers with unpopular views should be met with debate rather than cancelation.

It’s a pleasure to sit down with a scientist as distinguished as Jim Gates. I think you’ll be seeing more of him on The Glenn Show in the future.

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Featured Content from the Manhattan Institute

Improving our criminal-justice system means spending the requisite money to address America’s horrific and long-standing problem with criminal violence, argue Reihan Salam and Charles Fain Lehman.

0:00 What led Jim to the forefront of physics

7:53 Jim explains supersymmetry

11:50 Is there racism in the sciences?

18:12 The role of culture and imagination in the sciences

28:47 The scientific “big bang” in Europe

33:03 How Jim accounts for racial disparities in test scores

49:35 Jim: “Genius” is a verb

54:18 Why Jim worries about DEI and cancelation

Recorded February 6, 2023

Links and Readings

Clarence Williams’s book, Technology and the Dream: Reflections on the Black Experience at MIT, 1941-1999

Jim’s essay, “Equity vs. Excellence: A False Dichotomy in Science and Society”

Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery

Physicist Stephon Alexander’s TGS appearance

Stephon Alexander’s book, The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link between Music and the Structure of the Universe

Stephon Alexander’s book, Fear of a Black Universe: An Outsider’s Guide to the Future of Physics

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0:00 John’s awkward run-in at the farmer’s market

5:40 Will people be reading Ibram X. Kendi in 2043?

17:03 Regret, doubt, and going against the tide 

28:12 How Glenn and John negotiate their public profiles

40:50 Did Scott Adams deserve to get canceled? 

52:47 What’s going on beneath the Scott Adams controversy?

Recorded March 5, 2023

Links and Readings

Ibram X. Kendi’s Zora Neale Hurston adaptation, Magnolia Flower

Melissa Harris Perry’s radio show, The Takeaway

Ishmael Reed’s novel, Reckless Eyeballing

Ishmael Reed’s essay collection, Another Day at the Front

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0:00 Oded's new book, The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality

7:58 How inequality and growth emerged over the course of human history

18:52 Breaking free of a 300,000-year-old stagnation cycle

27:24 Humanity's phase shift into modernity

33:39 Inequality and the formation of institutions

44:18 The deep links between geography and institutions

50:38 Africa, Asia, and the trials of diversity

Recorded January 21, 2023

Links and Readings

Oded’s new book, The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality

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0:00 Woke religion or woke cult?

8:59 Does suffering confer authority on the sufferer?

12:47 A world without “anti-black domination”

21:27 Is there an alternative to the criminal justice system?

34:42 Domination and the purpose of the university

42:47 How Vincent’s Telluride Association seminar blew up

50:45 The narrowness of the social justice framework

54:14 Glenn and John’s encounters with fans

59:49 Should Black Studies exist?

Recorded February 19, 2023

Links and Readings

Vincent’s latest book, Black Dignity: The Struggle against Domination

Vincent’s Compact essay, “A Black Professor Trapped in Anti-Racist Hell”

John’s NYT piece, “DeSantis May Have Been Right”

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