The Glenn Show

This week, I’m back with my friend John McWhorter. A lot has happened since we last spoke, so let’s get to it.

We begin by discussing the horrific, racially motivated mass shooting in Buffalo, New York. John states that, among other things, the event makes him wish we had a word besides “racism” to help us distinguish between truly racist acts like that shooting and situations where there may be racial disparities but no actual racism present. One of the shooter’s motivations was so-called “great replacement” theory, or the idea that there is a conspiracy on the part of Democrats or Jews or whoever to “replace” large parts of the white population in the US with Latino immigrants. Tucker Carlson has given much airtime to a version of this theory (though without any overt antisemitism), and I’ve appeared on one of Tucker Carlson’s shows in the past. John asks me if I think Tucker is indirectly responsible for stirring up ugly sentiments toward immigrants of the short held by the shooter. I respond that, while I don’t endorse everything Tucker says on his show, I don’t believe him to be a racist. After all, Democrats often point to the impact that the country’s shifting demographics may have on elections. We need to be able to debate the immigration issue on its merits. It’s perfectly legitimate to believe that we need tighter controls on who is allowed to live in this country, and one ought to be able to say so without being charged with racism or xenophobia. We move on to last week’s Bradley Prize ceremony, where I received the honor and delivered a speech. John recounts a time when a white woman condescendingly gave him a book by Walter Mosley in an attempt to “educate” him. The incident turned John off of Mosley’s writing, but he’s come back to it, and he is delighted by what he’s found. (When is Mosley going to get a Pulitzer or a National Book Award? It’s past time!) And finally, we discuss the difficult problem of mass shootings, mental illness, and the second amendment.

I grab hold of more than one third rail in this one. As always, I want to hear your thoughts. Post them below!

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0:00 John: We need a word besides “racism” to distinguish racial inequities from what happened in Buffalo

10:49 Glenn: I don’t agree with everything Tucker Carlson says, but he’s not a racist

20:22 Demographic change is happening in the US, but how should we understand it?

28:07 What does Tucker think he’s doing and what is he actually doing?

36:21 Glenn: We should be able to freely debate immigration policy without evoking racial tropes

46:31 Glenn accepts the Bradley Prize at the organization’s gala 

51:13 How a white woman’s condescension stopped John from reading Walter Mosley

57:42 Can we disentangle incidents like the Buffalo shooting from ideology?

1:02:34 A correction from Glenn

Links and Readings

John’s book, Woke Racism

Glenn Greenwald’s Substack post, “The Demented - and Selective - Game of Instantly Blaming Political Opponents For Mass Shootings”

Part 1 of the NYT’s series on Tucker Carlson

Glenn and John discussing whether Glenn should appear on Tucker Carlson’s show

A partial transcript of Glenn’s appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show

Glenn and John discussing Glenn’s appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show

John’s NYT column on Walter Mosley

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This week’s episode is a throwback to 2015, when Daniel Kaufman, professor of philosophy at Missouri State University, editor of the online magazine the Electric Agora, and (at that time) a mainstay on bloggingheads.tv and meaningoflife.tv, invited me onto his show Sophia. I stumbled across this video again last month, and I think it remains an illuminating discussion that addresses some fundamental questions about economics and the social sciences.

We begin by discussing the “science” part of the social sciences. I explain that we economists tend not to philosophize about our discipline as much as other social scientists. But many major economic thinkers (think Keynes, Marx, and others) elaborate concepts that do ask fundamental questions about the nature of economics. To call a discipline a “science” implies that its findings are testable and replicable, that its insights are able to predict future conditions from present conditions. Does economics do that? I argue that it does. Of course, since much economic data is drawn from real-world behavior rather than controlled experiments, it can be difficult to isolate variables in a way that would satisfy, say, a physicist. This is because markets exist within particular cultures and under particular social arrangements that are not themselves purely economic in nature. And cultural values are going to affect, at least to some extent, how people behave within markets. The idea that people will try to maximize utility in a rational way is important to economics, but of course we know that humans often behave in ways that seem irrational. How does economics incorporate irrationality into its methodology? And finally, Dan and I were speaking at a time when the (still ongoing) replication crisis was all over the news. Is replication as seemingly dire a problem in economics as it is in psychology?

Dan’s training in philosophy helps him to ask some really deep questions here, and I think you can tell I relished the opportunity to answer them. Love to know what you think about this “classic” episode.

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5:44 How scientific are the social sciences?

11:20 Glenn defends the reliability of economic predictions

29:47 The strengths and weaknesses of “natural experiments”

36:48 How much does culture affect economic behavior?

50:06 New insights from behavioral economics

58:12 Dan: We trust the social sciences too much

Links and Readings

Dan’s website, the Electric Agora

The Electric Agora on YouTube

Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir’a book, Scarcity: The New Science of Having Less and How It Defines Our Lives

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

This week’s plan for the show was to have Edmund Santurri, professor of philosophy and religion at St. Olaf College, join John McWhorter and I to talk about his soon-to-be terminated appointment as the director of the college’s Institute for Freedom & Community. Ed’s situation is the latest instance of a college’s administration folding to pressure from left-wing activists (more on that below). Unfortunately, Ed was only able to join us for the very beginning of this episode before tech glitches had their way with us. Ed’s story is important, and I do wish we had been able to carry on a full conversation, but it was not to be.

We do make some headway, though. Ed begins by explaining how, after he invited a series of speakers viewed by some as controversial, St. Olaf’s administration announced that they would remove him from his role as director of the Institute for Freedom & Community a year earlier than had been agreed upon. One might ask: What good is an institute devoted to free inquiry if it refuses to engage with controversial ideas? Ed begins to explain the recent history of student protests at the college, but we’re then forced to whittle our trialogue down to a dialogue. John expresses his disgust for the St. Olaf administrators responsible for Ed’s removal (which I share) and talks about the important work of FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. We then debate whether there is a right-wing equivalent to left-wing campus cancel culture. I don’t think there is, but John thinks one can be found in attempts to remove books dealing with gender and sexuality from public grade schools and attempts to remove trans, nonbinary, and gender fluid teachers from classrooms. He’s not that worried about nonbinary gender identity in children. But I have to confess, I think the performative dimension of that sort of expression may be an indicator of a worrisome direction in our society. We then move on to something about which everyone can agree: My house is awesome. John visited it for the first time last week when he was in Providence for my festschrift, a conference held in my honor in which many of my dear and distinguished friends gathered to discuss my work and its impact. It was a moving and humbling event, and we’re hoping to post some video from it here soon. We finish our conversation with an extended debate about the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision that will almost certainly overturn Roe v. Wade and the political environment that led to a draft of Samuel Alito’s majority opinion being leaked to the press.

It’s good to have John back after his absence. I know you’ll all have some things to say about this one, so don’t hesitate to post a comment.

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0:00 Why Ed is being removed from the directorship of the Institute for Freedom & Community

11:39 The pressure campaigns waged against past Institute events

17:43 John: Administrators at St. Olaf should be ashamed of themselves

19:50 Are right-wing campaigns against openly trans and nonbinary elementary school teachers the equivalent of left-wing cancel culture? 

29:05 What are the social determinants of gender identity in young people?

37:53 Glenn’s awesome house

41:18 A festschrift for Glenn 

48:08 Can we separate jurisprudence from the lived consequences of overturning Roe v. Wade? 

56:12 Do the ends now justify the means in American politics?

Links and Readings

Inside Higher Ed on Ed’s removal from the Institute for Freedom & Community

FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education

FIRE’s letter to St. Olaf’s president protesting Ed’s removal

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

This week, I welcome Briahna Joy Gray to TGS. I’ve appeared on her podcast, Bad Faith, and now she’s here to return the favor. Briahna and I have some pretty pronounced political differences—she’s the former National Press Secretary for Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, after all. But we get along anyway, because we both believe in the importance of free speech and open debate. And make no mistake, there is a lot of debate in this episode.

[Note: We recorded this conversation at Brown’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, and there was no video equipment on hand. Instead, Nikita Petrov has created an animation version of me to provide some visual stimulation.]

I may be uncomfortable saying that I’m a “man of the right,” but I’m certainly “conservative for a black guy.” But Briahna points out that there are many black people who have benefited from America’s economic opportunities and know it. They may vote Democrat, but they’re hardly socialists. Many conservatives say that their voices are shut out of mainstream discourse, and the left has a similar complaint. I point out that the Democratic Party has repeatedly undercut Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaigns, and Briahna explains why Democrats have been and continue to be hostile toward progressive policies and politicians. She argues that neither Democratic nor Republican policies reflect the actual desires of the majority of voters, as political parties no longer need to vie for broad majorities in order to win elections. After that, the debate begins in earnest. We address three major points of contention: increasing taxes on the very rich in order to expand the social safety net, Medicare for All, and student debt cancellation. I’m skeptical of all of these policies, to varying degrees, while Briahna believes they’re necessary in order to remedy the (admittedly vast) disparities we see all around us. We wrap up by discussing the fascinating convergence between certain factions of the left and right in criticizing what appears to be a march toward escalating US intervention in Ukraine.

I enjoy a good debate, and I suspect that Briahna does, too. Maybe that’s why, despite our differences, we get along so well. Let me know what you think in the comments.

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0:00 Acknowledging the black middle class

14:04 How the Democratic Party works against progressives

21:11 Briahna: The interests of political parties no longer reflect the interests of voters

26:53 Should we increase taxes on the very rich in order to fund the social safety net?

34:51 Briahna makes the case for Medicare for All

43:21 Should we cancel student debt?

54:30 The left-right alliance over intervention in Ukraine

Bad Faith’s Patreon page

Ben Carson’s book, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page’s 2014 study, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens”

Vann R. Newkirk II’s Atlantic piece, “The American Health-Care System Increases Income Inequality”

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

Normally I would post one of my bi-weekly conversations with John McWhorter today, but John and I had too many scheduling conflicts to find time to talk this week (he’ll return in two weeks). So in his stead, I’m talking with Greg Thomas, co-founder of the Jazz Leadership Project and senior fellow at the Institute for Cultural Evolution.

We begin by discussing Greg’s work with the Jazz Leadership Project, which uses the principles of jazz to train leaders within businesses and organizations. He’s got some big-league clients, so I was interested to know how Greg implements ideas and strategies from an originally African American art form within a corporate environment. Greg was a friend of the great critic, poet, and novelist Stanley Crouch, and I ask him about how they came to know each other. This leads us to discuss the intellectual lineage that runs from Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray through Crouch. These thinkers were deeply rooted in black art, culture, and politics, but they were also, to varying degrees, skeptical of race as a foundational concept. Is there anyone now continuing this tradition? Greg talks about his own efforts in that direction, but he also notes that the modern Enlightenment tradition, which sought a scientific foundation for knowledge and institutions, has been at least partially displaced by postmodern thought, which seeks to critique the Enlightenment. Greg argues that such a critique is fine, so long as we don’t abandon modernity’s gains. He then introduces some ideas from integral theory and from the philosopher Anthony Appiah that he believes can help reconcile the need both to preserve culturally specific traditions and to claim membership in a broader cosmopolitan community. And finally, Greg tells me about some of his daughter’s impressive accomplishments, including building the We Read Too app.

I really enjoyed having Greg on as a guest, and I hope to have him back on for an episode with both John and I soon.

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0:00 Greg’s work with the Jazz Leadership Project

12:35 How does a “black” art form operate within a corporate environment?

17:27 What’s left of the legacy of Ralph Ellison, Albert Murray, and Stanley Crouch?

25:04 Black culture after the postmodern turn

32:45 Greg’s work with the Institute for Cultural Evolution

36:40 Greg’s critique of Black Lives Matter

40:48 Rooted cosmopolitanism and the “Faustian bargain” of whiteness

50:46 Greg’s very accomplished daughter

Links and Readings

The Jazz Leadership Project

The Institute for Cultural Evolution

Greg’s Substack post, “Why Race-Based Framings of Social Issues Hurt Us All”

Stanley Crouch’s Notes of a Hanging Judge: Essays and Reviews, 1979-1989 

Video from Combating Racism and Antisemitism Together

Steve McIntosh’s Developmental Politics: How America Can Grow Into a Better Version of Itself

Charles Love’s Race Crazy: BLM, 1619, and the Progressive Racism Movement

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

Danielle Allen 

Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

Kaya Thomas Wilson’s We Read Too app 

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

On this week’s episode of The Glenn Show, I welcome my old friend Stephanie Lepp, the Executive Producer at the Center for Humane Technology. I first met Stephanie through her husband, Nathaniel, who was a student of mine at Brown. Stephanie produced a podcast called Reckonings, which told the stories of how people transform their worldviews. I went on the show in 2015 and told the story of the evolution of my own political worldview (links below). Since then, we've been wanting to do another round. It's time! This time, Stephanie joins me on The Glenn Show, to once again help me wrestle with how my views have changed and with my responsibilities as a public intellectual.

Stephanie begins by asking me to step back and consider a big-picture question: What is my goal as a public intellectual? It’s not something I often ask myself in such explicit terms, and Stephanie pushes me to articulate a response. Stephanie engages me on the affirmative action question in order to get me to speak not just about my critique of preferences, but to think about whether critique is enough. It’s one thing to criticize a program or idea, she says, and another to propose a solution. I agree, of course, but the critique does have to be made, and not just in the case of affirmative action. I see it as my job to make clear that the systemic prejudices affirmative action programs were designed to ameliorate are largely in the past. When we see large-scale failure in black communities today, the responsibility for those failures rests, to a great extent, on the shoulders of the members of those communities. Stephanie suggests that, given my position as a public intellectual, when I speak about these problems, I not only describe social reality but actually influence it. If that is true (and I’m not sure to what extent it is), should I reorient my way of engaging with matters of public concern? Stephanie says, “Evolution is beautiful, but it’s not pretty.” This leads me to wonder: Is our present political turmoil an ugly but necessary process that will result in improvement over time, if properly attended to? I'm doubtful. Finally, I offer a critique of Stephanie’s own brand of “promiscuous pragmatic pluralism.”

It was such a pleasure to reconnect with an old friend and talk through these issues. I’m looking forward to your thoughts!

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0:00 What is Glenn’s goal as a public intellectual?

11:12 Glenn has his critique of affirmative action …

21:57 … but is articulating the critique enough? 

27:23 Glenn: My raison d’être is to give voice to my contempt for the failures of my people

36:36 Stephanie: At a certain point, you’re not describing reality, you’re influencing it

43:02 The case for integralism 

51:39 “Evolution is beautiful, but it’s not pretty”

1:00:06 Glenn’s critique of Stephanie’s “promiscuous pragmatic pluralism” 

1:06:47 A preliminary look into the married life of the Lourys

Reckonings, “The Conscience of a Public Intellectual, pt. 1”

Reckonings, “The Conscience of a Public Intellectual, pt. 2”

Reckonings, “The Enemy Within”

Chloé Valdary’s Theory of Enchantment

Ken Wilber’s A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality

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

This week, John and I are talking about the ten-year anniversary of the Trayvon Martin shooting, one of the most politically consequential events of the 2010s. A decade later, are we in a better place than where we started?

John and I begin by discussing the New York Times’s recent package commemorating the event, which features a written piece by Charles Blow and video interviews with Barack Obama, Henry Louis Gates, and Al Sharpton. All of them reinforce the mainstream narrative about Martin’s death—that he had been senselessly attacked by Zimmerman for no reason. Yet much evidence supports Zimmerman’s story: that he shot Martin in self-defense after Martin assaulted him. John discusses how his skepticism toward the mainstream Trayvon Martin narrative contributed to the end of his relationship with The Root. My own skepticism continues to pose challenges for me, as many of my students resist when I ask them to consider the facts of the case rather than the “poetic truth” the case has come to represent. John suggests that we can learn from recalling how the O.J. Simpson trial unfolded. The public story about the trial had more to do with race and the cops than it did with the brutal murder of two innocent people, even if most people now acknowledge that Simpson’s not guilty verdict was mistaken. There are people contesting the mainstream narratives around Martin and Michael Brown, including excellent documentaries by Joel Gilbert and Shelby and Eli Steele. These counternarratives are vital correctives, but where are the consequences for those who continue to push bogus information? And we end with a bit of a palate cleanser, with John taking us through the life and work of Scott Joplin.

Is there a way, at this late date, to turn the narratives about Martin, Michael Brown, and others around? How can we turn back the tide unleashed by these events and their political afterlife? Let me know your thoughts.

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0:00 The NYT commemorates the tenth anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s death

7:20 What really happened between Martin and George Zimmerman?

14:35 How John’s relationship with The Root frayed

19:33 Learning from the O.J. Simpson case

32:24 Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown on the big and small screen

40:55 Where are the consequences for those who get it wrong?

46:00 Remembering Scott Joplin

Links and Readings

The NYT’s Trayvon Martin anniversary package

Joel Gilbert’s book, The Trayvon Hoax: Unmasking the Witness Fraud That Divided America

Joel Gilbert’s documentary, The Trayvon Hoax: Unmasking the Witness Fraud That Divided America

Eli and Shelby Steele’s documentary, What Killed Michael Brown?

Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story

Jason Riley’s WSJ opinion piece, “Will Amazon Suppress the True Michael Brown Story?”

The 2015 DOJ statement announcing the closure of the investigation of the Trayvon Martin shooting

John’s NYT piece, “Scott Joplin’s Ragtime Is Ambrosia. Here’s Why It Matters.”

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

Some unspeakable truths ... Are comics now afraid to speak their minds onstage? ... The difference between telling the truth and getting a laugh ... Can jokes actually do harm? ... Nikki Jax on comedy and trans issues ... Who actually “cancels” comics, audiences or corporations? ... Sam Jay on artistic freedom and mob mentality ... Q&A: I’m worried people won’t understand that my one-woman show is satire. What should I do? ... Q&A: Does comedy have real power or is it ‘just jokes’? ... Q&A: Do comics sometimes inadvertently reinforce wrongheaded points of view? ... Q&A: Why are Ivy Leaguers so unfunny? ... Q&A: Are college campuses inhospitable environments for comedy? ... Q&A: What got Roland suspended at Harvard? ... Q&A: Does the general public need social media training? ... Q&A: Is there a way to stop corporations from folding to social media pressure campaigns? ...

Over the last couple years, I’ve been in communication with Noam Dworman, the owner of the Comedy Cellar in New York, which is one of the most influential comedy clubs in the country. He suggested that we collaborate and put together a show that would explore the relationship between truth, free speech, and comedy. After a lot of back and forth, we came up with the idea of putting non-comedian intellectuals into conversation with professional stand-up comics. We weren’t quite sure what would happen, but we both sensed the idea had great potential.

And so, last month, The Glenn Show held its first live event. Roland Fryer, Coleman Hughes, and I served as the “serious” participants, and Noam invited the comics Andrew Schulz, Judy Gold, Shane Gillis, T.J., and Rick Crom to come up and offer their thoughts. The event also included special appearances from Nikki Jax and the stellar Sam Jay. Noam and I wanted to know, are there certain truths that only comics can get away with telling? Can delivering a potentially unsettling idea in comedic form make people more receptive to it?

The place was packed—tickets sold out in just a few days. The atmosphere was electric. After I introduced the event and kicked things off with an opening provocation, the show took on a life of its own. As you’ll see, the comics took the idea and ran with it. There are moments of chaos, moments of profundity, and a lot of laughs. I couldn’t have asked for a better live debut for TGS, and I am excited to be able to share with all of you who made it possible through your support.

We’re planning on doing more of these events in the future, so let us know what you think!

Many, many thanks to Noam Dworman for his hard work, generosity, and for providing video and audio of the event. The title sequence was created by our own Nikita Petrov.

This post is free and available to the public. To receive early access to TGS episodes, an ad-free podcast feed, Q&As, and other exclusive content and benefits, click below.

0:00 Some unspeakable truths

8:07 Are comics now afraid to speak their minds onstage?

19:38 The difference between telling the truth and getting a laugh

28:42 Can jokes actually do harm?

36:50 Nikki Jax on comedy and trans issues

43:34 Who actually “cancels” comics, audiences or corporations?

50:26 Sam Jay on artistic freedom and mob mentality

55:55 Q&A: I’m worried people won’t understand that my one-woman show is satire. What should I do?

58:42 Q&A: Does comedy have real power or is it ‘just jokes’?

1:06:35 Q&A: Do comics sometimes inadvertently reinforce wrongheaded points of view?

1:10:23 Q&A: Why are Ivy Leaguers so unfunny?

1:13:13 Q&A: Are college campuses inhospitable environments for comedy?

1:16:45 Q&A: What got Roland suspended at Harvard?

1:20:20 Q&A: Does the general public need social media training?

1:22:31 Q&A: Is there a way to stop corporations from folding to social media pressure campaigns?

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

The principle that race shouldn’t matter and the fact that it does ... The high stakes of affirmative action ... In defense of Charles Murray ... Are there facts we’re better off not knowing? ... When does affirmative action make sense and when is it counterproductive? ... Is belief in God irrational? ... Suffering and the illusion of self ... Finding meaning in secular community ...