Andrew Sullivan on Braving New Intellectual Journeys

Conversations with Tyler

Society & Culture, Education

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2021

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Upon learning he was HIV positive in 1993, Andrew Sullivan began writing more than he ever had before. Believing that he didn’t have long to live, he wanted to leave behind a book detailing his best argument for refocusing the gay rights movement on marriage equality and military service. Three decades later and Sullivan has not only lived to see the book published, but also seen the ideas in it gain legal and cultural acceptance. This, along with the fact that the pace and influence of his writing has continued apace, qualifies him in Tyler’s estimation as the most influential public intellectual of his generation.

Andrew joined Tyler to discuss the role of the AIDs epidemic in achieving marriage equality, the difficulty of devoutness in everyday life, why public intellectuals often lack courage, how being a gay man helps him access perspectives he otherwise wouldn’t, how drugs influence his ideas, the reasons why he’s a passionate defender of SATs and IQ tests, what Niall Ferguson and Boris Johnson were like as fellow undergraduates, what Americans get wrong about British politics, why so few people share his admiration for Margaret Thatcher, why Bowie was so special, why Airplane! is his favorite movie, what Oakeshottian conservatism offers us today, whether wokeism has a positive influence globally, why he someday hopes to glower at the sea from in the west of Ireland, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded August 6th, 2021

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Thumbnail photo credit: Chad Norman

Transcript

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0:00.0	Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University,
0:08.4	bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems.
0:12.5	Learn more at mercatis.org.
0:15.2	And for more conversations, including videos, transcripts, and upcoming dates, visit
0:20.4	ConversationsWithT Tyler.com.
0:27.2	Hello everyone and welcome back to ConversationsWithT Tyler.
0:31.0	Today I'm here with Andrew Sullivan.
0:33.1	Andrew needs no introduction, but it is worth noting he has a new book that just came out,
0:38.0	called Out On A Lim, selected writing 1989 to 2021.
0:43.3	And I would say if you would like one single all-purpose introduction to Andrew Sullivan,
0:48.5	this is the book.
0:49.5	Andrew, welcome.
0:51.0	Thank you, Tyler.
0:51.7	I'm thrilled to be here.
0:53.1	And I think that's correct.
0:54.6	I mean, it is a good, the whole point of doing this book was to say, okay, you hear all
0:58.8	this stuff about me.
0:59.8	Well, here it is.
1:00.8	This is the actual bulk of the work.
1:03.0	And I hope people dip in and out of it.
1:05.1	It's not supposed to be a first-page, a last-page read, but it's an attempt to sort of just
1:10.5	clarify a little bit what I've been writing for the last 30 years.
	...

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