Andrew Sullivan and I work out our differences

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

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

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2019

⏱️ 122 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

I’ve been arguing with Andrew Sullivan online for almost 15 years now. It’s one of my oldest and most rewarding hobbies. In the past, I’ve always felt we understood each other, even in periods of sharp disagreement. Lately, that’s changed. Sullivan and I have both been writing about identity politics and demographic change, though from quite different perspectives. Our arguments of late have felt more like we’re talking past each other, or about each other, than to each other. We decided to do this podcast to talk it out, and trace where our differences really cut, and where they can be bridged. This is a conversation about political movements, American religiosity, and identity. It’s about whether the illiberalism of today is really worse than the illiberalism of yesteryear, and whether the critiques of the campus left accurately describe anyone who holds real power. It’s about how much demographic change a society can absorb, and at what pace that change should occur. It’s about what conservatism is versus what it says it is. A lot of what I try to do on this show is dig beneath the daily fights over whatever is in the news to the differences in worldview that power our disagreements. I think this conversation was unusually successful in doing that. Some background links, if you want to dig into the articles we're discussing: America's new religions America, land of brutal binaries The political tribalism of Andrew Sullivan Democrats can't keep dodging immigration as a real issue Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:36.0	Don't junk our entire liberal system because your passion against injustice, you think is worth it.
0:55.0	Hello, welcome to the Clancho on the box media podcast network. My guest today is Andrew Sullivan.
1:00.0	Very quick back story because we talked about this at the opening of the podcast, but we, Andrew and I've been arguing on the internet for a long time.
1:05.0	We go through periods of agreement periods of argument. I think we've been in a period of argument more recently.
1:10.0	Andrew's been focusing on a lot of identity and political correctness issues where he and I, I would say, hold different views.
1:17.0	But our arguments, we're not really getting anywhere. And I think that we'd fallen into a place where we were not understanding the other one very clearly.
1:24.0	And so we talked about doing another conversation. And I'm very glad we did. This was a great object lesson for me and the difference between arguing on Twitter.
1:31.0	We did that at one point in this. And I would say, absolutely no light got you in our disagreements whatsoever.
1:36.0	We did some arguing, writing back and forth. And I do think there was value in that.
1:42.0	I think we were able to talk through interesting ideas, but I'm not sure either of us felt like we were talking to the other one.
1:49.0	There was a, there are good points being made, but I would say a lack of mutual understanding.
1:53.0	And in this conversation, it feels really, it felt really differently to me. I'm not saying that we convinced the other of anything.
2:00.0	But I think we're able to trace the boundaries of what our disagreement actually is a lot more closely.
2:04.0	I think the nature of the format allows for to see, you know, maybe you agree 40% at degree 60%.
2:10.0	It's a very different experience. And so just at meta level realization of just how different these arguments are had in the different formats that at least for me that I'm working in is really interesting.
2:22.0	I mean, you realize it, you're not, you're not just having an argument. You're having an argument mediated by a platform.
2:27.0	And you know, if you want to agree more, maybe have the podcast if you want to fight more, maybe go on Twitter.
	...

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