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The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Anand Giridharadas on the elite charade of changing the world

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Politics, News, Society & Culture, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.511.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 August 2018

⏱️ 94 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“How can there be anything wrong with trying to do good?” asks Anand Giridharadas in his new book, Winners Take All. “The answer may be: when the good is an accomplice to even greater, if more invisible, harm.” Giridharadas has done his time in elite circles. His education took him through Oxford and Harvard, he spent years as a New York Times columnist, he's a regular on Morning Joe, he’s a TED talker. And so when he mounted the stage at the Aspen Institute and told his fellow fellows that their pretensions of doing good were just that — pretensions — and that they were more the problem than the solution, it caused some controversy. Giridharadas’s new book will make a lot of people angry. It’s about the difference between generosity and justice, the problems with only looking for win-win solutions, the ways the corporate world has come to dominate the discourse of change, and the fact that elite networks change the people who are part of them. But for all the power of Giridharadas’s critique of elite do-goodery, does he have better answers to the problems they’re trying to solve? And what of the very real problems that have left so many disillusioned with government, or the very real accomplishments that exist in the systems we’ve built? If we are pursuing change wrong, then what needs to be changed to pursue it better? Recommended books: There Will Be No Miracles Here by Casey Gerald (forthcoming) The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment by Francis Fukuyama Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Support for this episode comes from Remotely Curious, a podcast from Dropbox all about our

0:06.7

new world of work, whether hybrid, remote, or as Dropbox calls it, virtual first.

0:13.1

Each episode features a conversation asking tough questions, like how to navigate the

0:17.3

unwritten rules of dress, build creative partnerships, navigate hard times, and make the most of

0:22.8

every fresh start in your remote work life.

0:25.6

Here from some of today's top experts like podcaster and musician Rushikesh Hereway,

0:30.1

behavioral scientist Katie Milkman, and more.

0:33.1

Follow and listen to Remotely Curious wherever you get your podcasts.

0:39.6

First, sweet tarts dare to combine sweet and tart, but they didn't stop there.

0:45.4

Now they've combined soft and bouncy to bring you new sweet tarts, gummies fruity splits.

0:51.7

A uniquely delicious dual-sided gummy with one side that's sweet, and the other side that's

0:57.5

tart, but entirely smooth and squishy.

1:01.3

A powerfully perfect combo, sweet tarts dare to combine.

1:06.9

We talk about doing more good, but we never ask these people to do less harm.

1:12.0

We talk about giving back, but we never talk about how much these people take and the structures

1:17.4

of taking.

1:18.6

We talk about changing the world, but we don't talk about all the ways in which they are

1:22.4

shoring up a status quo that benefits them and predictably reliably shuts other people

1:27.4

out.

1:40.0

Hello, welcome to Mr. Clanchon on the Vox Media podcast network.

1:43.6

On in Gerardardos is about to piss a lot of people off.

1:47.3

His new book, Winners Take All, The Elite Shurey of Changing the World, is an attack on wealthy

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