The Glenn Show Glenn Loury

0:00 Glenn and John go to Cambridge
9:25 The Hamline University Prophet Muhammad controversy 
14:38 John: “Physics is physics”
18:45 The Harlem Renaissance and Black Studies
26:35 Is “getting past race” more trouble than it’s worth?
36:51 Is Joe Biden patronizing black people?
42:59 How a black musical changed the sound of Broadway 
Recorded January 20, 2023
Links and Readings
The Equiano Project
Arnold Rampersand’s biography of Langston Hughes
John’s 2002 City Journal piece, “The Mau-Mauing at Harvard”
Glenn and John’s recent conversation with Greg Thomas
Caseen Gaines’s book, When Broadway Was Black


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0:00 Steven’s best-selling book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters
2:38 Steven: Concerns about catastrophic climate change “beggar belief”
9:43 The complexities of climate change models
15:07 Should we worry about rising sea levels?
24:54 Hurricanes, tornados, and other extreme weather events
29:59 Is a zero-emissions goal worth the cost?
38:05 How to fix climate science
45:02 Are the Paris Accords viable?
48:13 The coming climate backlash
Recorded January 3, 2023
Links and Readings
Steven’s book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters
Steven’s recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Will Climate Change Really Put New York Underwater?”
Steven’s 2022 Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Greenland’s Melting Ice Is No Cause for Climate-Change Panic”


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0:00 A brief intro from Glenn
1:03 The lionization of the lightweights
5:45 The unified field theory of non-whiteness
19:16 An honest conversation about crime
27:51 Glenn’s birthday menu
30:46 It’s time to choose a side
41:46 Clarence Thomas, black icon
44:54 Policing Joe Rogan
51:56 By any means necessary?





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This week I’m very pleased to have with me the political philosopher Michael Sandel. I’ve been an avid reader of Michael’s work for decades, ever since coming across his first book, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice in the 1980s. Michael’s latest book, 2020’s The Tyranny of Merit, couldn’t be more timely. In it, Michael elaborates a critique of the meritocratic ideology that divides society into winners and losers, each of which has earned the fate that has befallen them.
In our conversation, Michael lays out his argument in the book, which takes issue with the notion that an individual’s economic success or failure is an index of their character. The idea that the wealthy deserve their wealth and the poor deserve their poverty ignores the powerful economic forces that shape the outcomes of people’s lives, forces that operate well outside the control of the people affected by them. We discuss the distinction between profit and value, and the ways that the cultural and economic rise of tech, finance, and knowledge work has stripped the dignity and honor from formerly dignified and honorable professions. The rise of populism since Trump’s election serves as compelling evidence that society’s “losers” recognize the bad hand they’ve been dealt, but Michael’s critique of meritocracy has made him an influential figure in China as well, where meritocracy is arguably an even more powerful cultural force.
It’s an honor to have such a distinguished figure on the show. I have the feeling that what Michael says here will ring true for many of my listeners, so I’m looking forward to your comments.
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Featured Content from City Journal
Steven Malanga discusses why the middle class flees states that tax the rich. 
0:00 Some of Michael’s key works
4:01 Meritocratic ideals and meritocratic fantasies
10:07 The animus against elites
16:26 Shouldn’t innovators reap their rewards?
23:09 Does more profit create more value?
28:42 Renewing the dignity of work
37:43 The uses of punishment
43:57 Our responsibility to national and global communities
46:17 Michael: Diversity has “monopolized” discussion of affirmative action
52:52 China’s reception of Michael’s critique of meritocracy
Recorded November 18, 2022
Links and Readings
Michael’s book, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice
Michael’s book, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
Michael’s book, The Tyranny of Merit: Can We Find the Common Good?
Michael Young’s book, The Rise of the Meritocracy
Industrial Areas Foundation 


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This week, John McWhorter and I are joined by Greg Thomas, senior fellow at the Institute for Cultural Evolution and CEO of the Jazz Leadership Project, to discuss one of our perennial Big Questions: Are we ready to deracialize? As you may have gathered from his previous TGS appearance, that’s the kind of issue Greg loves to sink his teeth into. But I do have some questions of my own for Greg. Let’s get into it.
We begin with a little jazz talk. I ask Greg how he goes about incorporating the principles of the music into the workshops he leads with the Jazz Leadership Project. He goes on to explain how the history of jazz provides a way of understanding how we can begin to envision a society that moves past race. Greg uses the work of Albert Murray and Ralph Ellison as examples, but I want to know why I and other black people should have to abandon our racial self-identification? Surely this task can’t fall to black people alone. I suggest to Greg that he’s unjustifiably conflating black identity and the victim mentality—you can have the former without the latter. After a brief discussion about whiteness and deracialization, Greg departs, leaving John and me to do a quick review of 2022 and to look ahead to 2023.
This is a fiery one! It’s our final episode of the year. Thank you all for watching, listening, and reading. John and I will be back in 2023. See you there!
Featured Content from the Manhattan Institute
Daniel Di Martino released a report with reforms to America’s immigration system, which is turning off high-skilled immigrants due to slow processing and unneeded bureaucracy.  
0:00 The principles of jazz
7:14 “Deracialization Now”
13:00 Becoming Omni-American
20:46 What’s wrong with racial identification?
25:36 Black victimization and cultural memory
35:15 The transformations of James Baldwin
42:10 Convincing white people to deracialize
48:40 Takeaways from 2022
55:33 2023’s big Supreme Court decisions
Links and Readings
Jazz Leadership Project
Institute for Cultural Evolution 
BME Community
Greg’s essay, “Deracialization Now” 
Albert Murray’s book, The Omni-Americans: Some Alternatives to the Folklore of White Supremacy 
John’s book, Talking Back, Talking Black: Truths about America’s Lingua Franca
Kwame Anthony Appiah’s book, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers 
Reconstruction.us 
Abigail Thernstrom’s book, Whose Votes Count?: Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights 


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0:00 Why Glenn does The Glenn Show
13:02 Glenn: “If I was going to vote for Trump, I wouldn’t tell you”
19:21 “The cat is out of the bag” on election denial
25:45 Modeling epistemic modesty
31:12 Why is race such an important issue for Glenn?
39:13 The Old Glenn and the New Glenn
45:46 Confronting the past
50:44 Putting “the funk” on the story of your life
Recorded October 27, 2022
Links and Readings
Hamish’s podcast, The Active Voice
Emily Oster’s Substack
Robert Wright’s Nonzero Newsletter
Nonzero’s YouTube channel
Matt Taibbi’s Substack
Matt Taibbi’s book, Hate, Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another
Braver Angels
John McWhorter’s book, Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America
Benjamin Crump’s book, Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People
Glenn’s Quillette piece, “Unspeakable Truths about Racial Inequality in America”
Glenn’s first Bloggingheads appearance, with Joshua Cohen in August 2007
James Q. Wilson’s book, Thinking about Crime
Rafael Mangual’s recent TGS appearance
Andrew Sullivan’s Substack
Alex Berenson’s Substack


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