The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Thanks Sean for airing, once again, Mariana Alessandri for the holidays. As a person of faith who sees suffering, personal or collective, as part of the human condition not to be sugar coated or pathologized, I found in your conversation with Mariana a third (or middle) path that is neither rigidly stoic or superficially sanguine. I appreciate how your show probes for sanity and kindness that lies below the surface of our weary lives.

Thanks very informative my children lost their dad as teenagers not sure I was able to fill dad void but certainly tried 😊

the episode about whether or not men are okay. Some good points were made, especially about good role models in early adolescence. However, suggesting voluntary national service was an odd suggestion. What finally did it for me was suggesting that the IDF in Israel builds character and creates structure for young people. Nope. There are so many issues with that viewpoint. Instilling a sense of weird nationalism through a propaganda system that essentially forces teenagers to oppress a native population isn’t something to idolize. No mention of the nuances of this at all, what the heck Vox. I’m not going to go further into how bizarre and wrong this example was. I’ll quietly go now.

I used to listen to them for a long, long time until the 2024 election cycle, when their discreet political messages started creeping in often, portraying Republicans as Hitler and monster and whatnot and Democrats as angels from heaven. I always knew very well Vox is strongly aligned with Democrats, but still loved the Gray Area podcast because I like philosophy, but I guess Vox will be Vox in its entirety - a yet another paid media from Democrats.