The Glenn Show

John's linguistic adventure in Brighton Beach ... The complex racial and economic dynamics of redlining ... The problem with John's NYT "megaphone" ... A progress report on Glenn's memoir ... The temptations of playing to the crowd ... What, if anything, does it mean to be "authentically black"? ... Taking "systemic racism" seriously ...

In this episode of The Glenn Show, I’m back with my friend John McWhorter, and we have much to discuss. John joins me fresh from a day trip to Brighton Beach, a neighborhood in Brooklyn where Russian language, food, and culture abound. He talks about teaching himself Russian and the benefits of the Glossika language-learning tool. Then, in a continuation of last week’s conversation with David Kaiser, we move on to the history of redlining, which is quite a bit more complex than some recent commentaries would have you believe. A recent edition of John’s New York Times newsletter addressed the issue, and it received some criticism from the distinguished historian Thomas Sugrue. This leads us to discuss the problems of authority and perception that attend writing from the Olympian heights of the paper of record. From there, I give a progress report on my memoir, delving into my life, my break from conservatism in the ‘90s, and the difficulty of living in good faith. The temptation to “play to the crowd,” to seek affirmation by repeating the common sense of your tribe, is very powerful, and it can work on you in subtle ways. Heterodox thinkers like John and I have to check ourselves constantly to make sure we’re being true to our own thought and principles. In that spirit, we end on a question that’s sure to ruffle some feathers here at my Substack: How can we start seriously addressing questions about “systemic racism” and stop simply disregarding them as just so much wokespeak?

As always, I’m curious to hear your thoughts!

A New Home for TGS

The video for this episode is hosted on my new YouTube channel, which is now the home of The Glenn Show. I invite you to subscribe to this channel (and click the bell button!) now so that you don't miss future offerings. This newsletter will continue to publish as usual with the same benefits for subscribers.

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

0:00 John's linguistic adventure in Brighton Beach

7:59 The complex racial and economic dynamics of redlining

17:30 The problem with John's NYT “megaphone”

26:40 A progress report on Glenn's memoir

41:29 The temptations of playing to the crowd

46:43 What, if anything, does it mean to be “authentically black”?

51:13 Taking "systemic racism" seriously

Links and Readings

The language-learning tool Glossika

John’s column about Glossika

John’s piece about redlining

Glenn’s conversation with historian David E. Kaiser

Thomas Sugrue’s Twitter thread about John’s redlining piece

John’s book, Authentically Black: Essays for the Black Silent Majority

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 post-Vietnam reevaluation of the Cold War ... David: Academic historians largely have abandoned the idea of objective truth ... Were black people really excluded from the New Deal? ... The fortunes of black veterans after WWII ... Why redlining doesn't tell the whole story about the racial wealth gap ... Why the Chicago Defender endorsed FDR in 1940 ...

In this episode of The Glenn Show, I’m talking to David E. Kaiser, author of many books about American and international political history. As a distinguished professional historian, David has seen many changes in the way history is written both inside and outside the academy, not all of them for the better. In this conversation, David talks about why Ta-Nehisi Coates’s highly influential 2014 essay “The Case for Reparations” and the view of race and American history it represents leaves out many crucial facts about how we came to be where we are.

We begin in a slightly counterintuitive place, with a discussion of how many historians’ views of the Cold War changed after Vietnam. In David’s telling, it became more and more common to see historians placing blame for escalating hostilities on the U.S.’s foreign policy rather than the U.S.S.R.’s. David sees a similar sort of revisionism at work in contemporary historians’ perspectives on the New Deal, which is now sometimes described as a purposefully racially discriminatory enterprise. David pushes back against this interpretation, pointing to the South’s pursuit of industry and cheap labor as a better explanation for the New Deal’s flaws than racial animus. We also discuss statistics indicating that, while blacks did earn significantly less money than whites, the years after World War II saw tremendous economic growth in black communities. And, while redlining policies certainly did have a negative impact on the ability of blacks to acquire wealth, those policies alone only tell part of the black economic story. Finally, David ends our discussion by reading from a fascinating 1940 editorial in the black newspaper the Chicago Defender that endorses FDR for a third term.

I truly enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you will as well!

A New Home for TGS

The video for this episode is hosted on my own new YouTube channel, which is now the home of The Glenn Show. I invite you to subscribe to this channel (and click the bell button!) now so that you don't miss future offerings. This newsletter will continue to publish as usual with the same benefits for subscribers.

0:00 Intro

2:35 The post-Vietnam reevaluation of the Cold War

13:12 David: Academic historians largely have abandoned the idea of objective truth

18:23 Were black people really excluded from the New Deal?

32:06 The fortunes of black veterans after WWII

40:19 Why redlining doesn't tell the whole story about the racial wealth gap

49:49 Why the Chicago Defender endorsed FDR in 1940

Links and Readings

David’s memoir, A Life in History

David’s book, No End Save Victory: How FDR Led the Nation into War

David’s book, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War

Glenn’s conversation with Daniel Bessner, “American Empire before and after 9/11”

Ira Katznelson’s book, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in America

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s essay, “The Case for Reparations”

The Chicago Fed’s paper, “The Effects of the 1930s HOLC ‘Redlining’ Maps”

Andrew Fenton’s article, “WTF happened in 1971 (and why the f**k it matters so much right now)”

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 posh new (temporary) digs for The Glenn Show ... The challenges and liberties of John's NY Times gig ... John's efforts to help mount an unproduced black opera ... The deracialization of "motherfucker" ... The erotics and economics of Billions ... Why John didn't support Eric Adams for NYC mayor ... What undermined the potential of the Obama years? ... Can Glenn ever forgive Al Sharpton? ... Will Eric Adams be able to operate effectively as mayor? ... The Jacob Blake shooting, a year later ...

For this week’s episode of The Glenn Show, we’ve upped our production game a little. In late August, John McWhorter and I met up for an all-too-rare in-person conversation in Manhattan, and the filmmaker Rob Montz and his crew were on hand to record it. It was wonderful to be able sit face-to-face with John, and Rob did a wonderful job capturing the energy in the room.

It wouldn’t have been possible to pull all of this together without the support of the subscribers here: Thank you! We’re hoping to create more special content like this in the future, so your contributions are greatly appreciated.

John and I begin by discussing his gig writing for the New York Times, in particular a recent piece about Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s Blues Opera. It’s never been produced, and John is assisting in trying to usher it to the stage. We move from the blues to matters that are just plain blue: The word “motherfucker,” which began as black vernacular and has since been absorbed into the English language at large. This naturally leads us to talk about the treatment of sex and money in the TV show Billions. From there we move to more serious matters: The New York City mayor’s race. John is not a fan of the probable winner, Eric Adams, and I press him as to why. We get into it over the squandered opportunities of the Obama years, and we really get into it over Al Sharpton. John is ready to forgive him for the deplorable behavior that defined the first half of his career, and I’m not. And finally, we look at the Jacob Blake shooting a year after the fact. What do we know now that we didn’t know then?

We had a lot of fun doing this one, and I hope you have just as much watching it. Let me know what you think here or on Discord.

Next week I’ll be posting a conversation with historian David E. Kaiser about the role of “racial justice” in the politicization of historical studies. If you’d like a preview, you can find a previous conversation of ours here.

A New Home for TGS

The video for this episode is hosted on my own new YouTube channel, which is now the home of The Glenn Show. I invite you to subscribe to this channel (and click the bell button!) now so that you don't miss future offerings. This newsletter will continue to publish as usual with the same benefits for subscribers.

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

0:00 Some posh new (temporary) digs for The Glenn Show

1:08 The challenges and liberties of John's New York Times gig

5:24 John's efforts to help mount an unproduced black opera

14:45 The deracialization of “motherfucker”

16:58 The erotics and economics of Billions

20:58 Why John didn't support Eric Adams for NYC mayor

31:04 What undermined the potential of the Obama years?

43:22 Can Glenn ever forgive Al Sharpton?

55:16 Will Eric Adams be able to operate effectively as mayor?

59:58 The Jacob Blake shooting, a year later

Links and Readings

John's NY Times piece, "How 'Woke' Became an Insult"

John's NY Times piece, "Can White Men Write a Black Opera?"

John's book, Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever

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

Subscribe to The Glenn Show on YouTube ... The origins of Bloggingheads ... Non-zero-sum thinking on the global stage ... Bob: We’re not focusing on the most pressing foreign policy dilemmas ... Bridging the globalist vs. nationalist divide ... Could more cognitive empathy ease racial tensions? ... Changes afoot for The Glenn Show and Bloggingheads ...

For this edition of The Glenn Show, I’m joined by someone who may be familiar to long-time viewers: Bob Wright. Bob is a distinguished journalist and the author of many books, including The Moral Animal, Nonzero, and Why Buddhism is True. He also happens to be the co-founder of Bloggingheads, the platform on which The Glenn Show was born and has flourished.

In our conversation, Bob walks us through the early days of Bloggingheads and the flash of inspiration that led him to create the site. We then move on to discuss Bob’s ideas about evolution and international relations, and how they’re influenced by game theory (something I know a bit about). Bob’s ideas about the nature of conflict and cooperation have a number of implications for combating the sort of nasty political tribalism that we see so much today, both domestically and internationally. Of course, more non-zero sum thinking could possibly help us turn down the temperature in conflicts over race in the US, which would be a welcome change. And finally, we turn our attention to new developments in the relationship between The Glenn Show and Bloggingheads. Both Bob and I are excited about what’s to come!

A New Home for TGS

The video for this episode is hosted on my own new YouTube channel, which will soon become the home of The Glenn Show. I invite you to subscribe to this channel (and click the bell button!) now so that you don't miss future offerings. This newsletter will continue to publish as usual with the same benefits for subscribers.

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

0:00 Subscribe to The Glenn Show on YouTube

0:26 The origins of Bloggingheads

11:30 Non-zero-sum thinking on the global stage

20:30 Bob: We’re not focusing on the most pressing foreign policy dilemmas

29:13 Bridging the globalist vs. nationalist divide

34:13 Could more cognitive empathy ease racial tensions?

45:00 Changes afoot for The Glenn Show and Bloggingheads

Links and Readings

Bloggingheads.tv

The Wright Show

Bob’s Substack newsletter, The Nonzero Newsletter

The Nonzero Newsletter, “The Last Word on GWOT”

Bob’s book, The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology

Bob’s book, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny

Bob’s book, Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment

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

Daniel’s new podcast. American Prestige ... Did the US needlessly prolong the Cold War? ... Daniel: The Cold War actually limited political liberty within the US ... The cultural logic of American empire ... Global inequities and existential threats ... The spiritual challenges of climate change ... Glenn: Capitalism is “the natural order of things” ... What Covid reveals about the modern American university ...

In this week’s TGS, I’m joined once again by intellectual historian Daniel Bessner. Given Daniel’s area of scholarly expertise—US foreign relations—it should be no surprise that the recent withdrawal from Afghanistan colors our discussion. But we range much further than that. We debate Daniel’s conception of “American empire” and its origins in the Cold War. He is quite critical of American foreign policy during that period (and beyond), and I do push back on some of his more pointed critiques. We go on to discuss the course of America’s engagement with the world after the Cold War’s end, and Daniel offers a theory as to why the 1990s saw so much popular interest in World War II. We move on to discuss climate change as a particular kind of foreign policy problem. I out myself not exactly as a “climate skeptic,” but as someone who thinks we may be panicking prematurely. And yet, I think that changes in the climate may force us to radically rethink where and how we find meaning in our lives. Finally, since we’re both professors, we talk about Covid and the state of the modern university.

As you’ll see, Daniel and I have some very stark disagreements. But he’s a sharp, erudite, and good-natured debating partner, and it’s always a pleasure having him on the show. And if you’re intrigued by his arguments, subscribe to his podcast, American Prestige. I’m sure you’ll have some comments on this one, and I’m looking forward to reading them.

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

0:00 Daniel’s new podcast, American Prestige

10:22 Did the US needlessly prolong the Cold War? 

14:59 Daniel: The Cold War actually limited political liberty within the US

21:27 The cultural logic of American empire 

32:59 Global inequities and existential threats

40:52 The spiritual challenges of climate change

50:34 Glenn: Capitalism is “the natural order of things”

55:23 What Covid reveals about the modern American university

Links and Readings

Daniel’s new podcast, American Prestige

Paul Thomas Chamberlin’s book, The Cold War’s Killing Fields: Rethinking the Long Peace

Daniel Rodgers’ book, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age

Peter Novick’s book, The Holocaust in American Life

Peter Novick’s book, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity” Question and the American Historical Profession

Roosevelt Montás, Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation 

Glenn Loury’s Intellectual Origins (with Daniel Bessner)

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

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