The Glenn Show

Glenn Loury & Delano Squires (Blaze Media)

0:00 Why Delano is a conservative

7:06 Delano’s critique of Raphael Warnock and the “Afristocracy” 

19:26 Delano: “The designer is the definer” 

27:43 Abortion and black lives

41:44 Are abortion rights necessary to protect women’s rights? 

47:53 Delano: Government is no substitute for fatherhood

53:48 Can we reweave the social fabric?

Links and Readings

Delano’s writing at Blaze Media

The Woodson Center’s 1776 Unites

Black and Married with Kids

Ian Rowe’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

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0:00 The “utter horror show” and incompetent policing of the Tyre Nichols killing

7:52 The relatively peaceful reaction to the killing

15:25 What set off the cops?

21:53 Why Peter thinks police units like SCORPION should not be disbanded

27:25 Should we get rid of qualified immunity?

30:21 Policing and white supremacy

40:45 Peter: We on the left have ceded law and order to the Trumpian right

46:00 Tyre Nichols’s funeral

53:59 John: I disagree with Sharpton, Crump, and Dyson, but they’re sincere

Links and Readings

Video of Memphis police officers beating Tyre Nichols

Al Sharpton’s eulogy for Nichols

Benjamin Crump speaks at Nichols’s funeral

Official trailer for Spike Lee’s film, Bamboozled

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0:00 Ernie’s work as an organizer

5:45 Tension, polarization, and reconciliation

12:49 The drama of organizing

18:21 The definition of power

27:52 Ernesto’s work getting running water and sewers to border communities

31:26 Market activity vs. market ideology

41:31 What’s wrong with meritocracy?

56:12 Does identitarianism stand in the way of reconciliation?

Recorded January 19, 2023

Links and Readings

Industrial Areas Foundation

My recent debate with Richard Wolff

Arthur Okun’s book, Equality and Efficiency: A Big Tradeoff

Daniel Bell’s book, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

John Kenneth Galbraith’s book, American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power

Michael Sandel’s book, The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?

Michael Sandel’s book, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

Michael Sandel’s TGS appearance

Franz Fanon’s book, Black Skin, White Masks

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0:00 Glenn and John go to Cambridge

9:25 The Hamline University Prophet Muhammad controversy 

14:38 John: “Physics is physics”

18:45 The Harlem Renaissance and Black Studies

26:35 Is “getting past race” more trouble than it’s worth?

36:51 Is Joe Biden patronizing black people?

42:59 How a black musical changed the sound of Broadway 

Recorded January 20, 2023

Links and Readings

The Equiano Project

Arnold Rampersand’s biography of Langston Hughes

John’s 2002 City Journal piece, “The Mau-Mauing at Harvard”

Glenn and John’s recent conversation with Greg Thomas

Caseen Gaines’s book, When Broadway Was Black

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0:00 Steven’s best-selling book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters

2:38 Steven: Concerns about catastrophic climate change “beggar belief”

9:43 The complexities of climate change models

15:07 Should we worry about rising sea levels?

24:54 Hurricanes, tornados, and other extreme weather events

29:59 Is a zero-emissions goal worth the cost?

38:05 How to fix climate science

45:02 Are the Paris Accords viable?

48:13 The coming climate backlash

Recorded January 3, 2023

Links and Readings

Steven’s book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters

Steven’s recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Will Climate Change Really Put New York Underwater?”

Steven’s 2022 Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Greenland’s Melting Ice Is No Cause for Climate-Change Panic”

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0:00 A brief intro from Glenn

1:03 The lionization of the lightweights

5:45 The unified field theory of non-whiteness

19:16 An honest conversation about crime

27:51 Glenn’s birthday menu

30:46 It’s time to choose a side

41:46 Clarence Thomas, black icon

44:54 Policing Joe Rogan

51:56 By any means necessary?

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This week I’m very pleased to have with me the political philosopher Michael Sandel. I’ve been an avid reader of Michael’s work for decades, ever since coming across his first book, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice in the 1980s. Michael’s latest book, 2020’s The Tyranny of Merit, couldn’t be more timely. In it, Michael elaborates a critique of the meritocratic ideology that divides society into winners and losers, each of which has earned the fate that has befallen them.

In our conversation, Michael lays out his argument in the book, which takes issue with the notion that an individual’s economic success or failure is an index of their character. The idea that the wealthy deserve their wealth and the poor deserve their poverty ignores the powerful economic forces that shape the outcomes of people’s lives, forces that operate well outside the control of the people affected by them. We discuss the distinction between profit and value, and the ways that the cultural and economic rise of tech, finance, and knowledge work has stripped the dignity and honor from formerly dignified and honorable professions. The rise of populism since Trump’s election serves as compelling evidence that society’s “losers” recognize the bad hand they’ve been dealt, but Michael’s critique of meritocracy has made him an influential figure in China as well, where meritocracy is arguably an even more powerful cultural force.

It’s an honor to have such a distinguished figure on the show. I have the feeling that what Michael says here will ring true for many of my listeners, so I’m looking forward to your comments.

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Featured Content from City Journal

Steven Malanga discusses why the middle class flees states that tax the rich. 

0:00 Some of Michael’s key works

4:01 Meritocratic ideals and meritocratic fantasies

10:07 The animus against elites

16:26 Shouldn’t innovators reap their rewards?

23:09 Does more profit create more value?

28:42 Renewing the dignity of work

37:43 The uses of punishment

43:57 Our responsibility to national and global communities

46:17 Michael: Diversity has “monopolized” discussion of affirmative action

52:52 China’s reception of Michael’s critique of meritocracy

Recorded November 18, 2022

Links and Readings

Michael’s book, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice

Michael’s book, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

Michael’s book, The Tyranny of Merit: Can We Find the Common Good?

Michael Young’s book, The Rise of the Meritocracy

Industrial Areas Foundation 

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This week, John McWhorter and I are joined by Greg Thomas, senior fellow at the Institute for Cultural Evolution and CEO of the Jazz Leadership Project, to discuss one of our perennial Big Questions: Are we ready to deracialize? As you may have gathered from his previous TGS appearance, that’s the kind of issue Greg loves to sink his teeth into. But I do have some questions of my own for Greg. Let’s get into it.

We begin with a little jazz talk. I ask Greg how he goes about incorporating the principles of the music into the workshops he leads with the Jazz Leadership Project. He goes on to explain how the history of jazz provides a way of understanding how we can begin to envision a society that moves past race. Greg uses the work of Albert Murray and Ralph Ellison as examples, but I want to know why I and other black people should have to abandon our racial self-identification? Surely this task can’t fall to black people alone. I suggest to Greg that he’s unjustifiably conflating black identity and the victim mentality—you can have the former without the latter. After a brief discussion about whiteness and deracialization, Greg departs, leaving John and me to do a quick review of 2022 and to look ahead to 2023.

This is a fiery one! It’s our final episode of the year. Thank you all for watching, listening, and reading. John and I will be back in 2023. See you there!

Featured Content from the Manhattan Institute

Daniel Di Martino released a report with reforms to America’s immigration system, which is turning off high-skilled immigrants due to slow processing and unneeded bureaucracy.  

0:00 The principles of jazz

7:14 “Deracialization Now”

13:00 Becoming Omni-American

20:46 What’s wrong with racial identification?

25:36 Black victimization and cultural memory

35:15 The transformations of James Baldwin

42:10 Convincing white people to deracialize

48:40 Takeaways from 2022

55:33 2023’s big Supreme Court decisions

Links and Readings

Jazz Leadership Project

Institute for Cultural Evolution 

BME Community

Greg’s essay, “Deracialization Now” 

Albert Murray’s book, The Omni-Americans: Some Alternatives to the Folklore of White Supremacy 

John’s book, Talking Back, Talking Black: Truths about America’s Lingua Franca

Kwame Anthony Appiah’s book, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers 

Reconstruction.us 

Abigail Thernstrom’s book, Whose Votes Count?: Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights 

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0:00 Why Glenn does The Glenn Show

13:02 Glenn: “If I was going to vote for Trump, I wouldn’t tell you”

19:21 “The cat is out of the bag” on election denial

25:45 Modeling epistemic modesty

31:12 Why is race such an important issue for Glenn?

39:13 The Old Glenn and the New Glenn

45:46 Confronting the past

50:44 Putting “the funk” on the story of your life

Recorded October 27, 2022

Links and Readings

Hamish’s podcast, The Active Voice

Emily Oster’s Substack

Robert Wright’s Nonzero Newsletter

Nonzero’s YouTube channel

Matt Taibbi’s Substack

Matt Taibbi’s book, Hate, Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another

Braver Angels

John McWhorter’s book, Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America

Benjamin Crump’s book, Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People

Glenn’s Quillette piece, “Unspeakable Truths about Racial Inequality in America”

Glenn’s first Bloggingheads appearance, with Joshua Cohen in August 2007

James Q. Wilson’s book, Thinking about Crime

Rafael Mangual’s recent TGS appearance

Andrew Sullivan’s Substack

Alex Berenson’s Substack

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0:00 Why are we paying so much attention to Kanye West’s antisemitism?

14:02 The two words you never say together

23:28 Could widespread antisemitism take hold in the US?

36:53 The mythological black past and the realities of the present

48:12 How necessary is rootedness to the modern human experience?

56:54 How we make race, how race makes us

Recorded on December 10, 2022

Links and Readings

Dave Chappelle’s SNL monologue on Kanye West and Kyrie Irving

John’s NYT piece, “It’s Too Darn Loud”  

Wilson Jeremiah Moses’s book, Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History

Orlando Patterson’s essay, “Toward a Future That Has No Past – Reflections on the Fate of Blacks in America”

Rogers Brubaker’s book, Ethnicity without Groups

Glenn and John’s May 2020 conversation about George Floyd

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe