The Glenn Show Glenn Loury

0:00 John: “I love linguistics, but it no longer loves me”
9:44 How Glenn and John are getting written out of their fields
19:27 Jordan Neely didn’t deserve to die …
27:28 … but the New York subway is getting scary
37:45 Glenn: Reparations would be “impractical, unfair, and divisive in the extreme”
50:50 A possible left-wing objection to reparations
57:22 Glenn goes ham on reparations
Recorded May 18, 2023
Links and Readings
Steven Pinker’s book, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
John’s book, Talking Back, Talking Black: Truths about America’s Lingua Franca
John’s book, Word on the Street: Debunking the Myth of “Pure” Standard English
John’s language podcast, Lexicon Valley
John, Our Magnificent B*****d Tongue: The Untold History of English
John’s NYT piece about Jordan Neely, “A Killing on the F Train”
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s 2014 Atlantic essay, “The Case for Reparations”
Matthew Desmond’s book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
Matthew Desmond’s new book, Poverty, by America
Glenn’s conversation with Norman Finkelstein
August Wilson’s play, Two Trains Running



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

0:00 Why YouTube censored a TGS episode
6:25 How can YouTube justify censoring matters of opinion?
15:15 Why there’s no such thing as free speech
26:00 Nikita’s notes on Substack Notes
39:53 Democratizing content moderation
46:11 Creating better, community-centered comments sections
Recorded May 4, 2023
Links and Readings
Nikita’s Substack, Psychopolitica
The censored TGS episode, “I Feel, Therefore I Am”
Glenn’s paper, “Self-Censorship in Public Discourse: A Theory of ‘Political Correctness’ and Related Phenomena”
Matt Taibbi’s Substack, Racket News
Substack Notes
Glenn’s most recent conversation with Amy Wax



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0:00 Has Norman been shut out of mainstream political debates?
7:54 Norman’s conflict with Alan Dershowitz
16:50 Is Israel an apartheid state?
19:25 Identifying with Paul Robeson
33:08 Norman’s new book, I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It!
44:42 Norman: Wokeness is a “triple scam”
53:28 What’s become of Angela Davis?
1:00:05 Cornel West's chosen path
1:09:01 Obama’s self-proclaimed “neat trick”
1:24:38 The political intelligence of Carter, Clinton, and Obama
1:38:10 South Carolina 2020: a case study in identity politics
1:47:24 Would Bernie have won in 2016?
Recorded April 19, 2023
Links and Readings
Norman’s new book, I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It!: Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom
Norman’s book, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering
Norman’s book, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History
Norman’s book, Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom
Norman’s book, A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth
Norman’s book, What Ghandi Says: On Nonviolence, Resistance, and Courage
Norman’s book, “This Time We Went Too Far”: Truth and Consequences on the Gaza Invasion
Norman’s book, Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel is Coming to an End
Norman’s book, The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Years
Joan Peters’s book, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine
Alan Dershowitz’s book, The Case for Israel
Alan Dershowitz and Norman’s debate on Democracy Now
Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami’s Foreign Affairs piece, “Israel’s One-State Reality”
Paul Robeson singing “The Four Insurgent Generals”
The Letters of Rosa Luxembourg
Mark Doss performing “Ol’ Man River”
Paul Robeson’s autobiography, Here I Stand
W.E.B. Du Bois’s book, The Philadelphia Negro
W.E.B. DuBois’s book, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880
Tom Wolfe’s New York Magazine essay, “Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s”
Angela Davis’s 2022 appearance at the University of South Carolina
Barack Obama’s memoir, A Promised Land
Bill Clinton’s memoir, My Life
Jimmy Carter’s memoir, Keeping Faith
David Axelrod’s memoir, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics
Frederick Douglass’s third autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass


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

In this week’s episode, John and I return to a familiar character: Omar. For those of you unfamiliar with “Omar,” he’s our invented surrogate for the kind of young black man whose behavior is wreaking havoc on Chicago and St. Louis. Omar is economically disadvantaged. He was more than likely raised by a single mother. He underperforms academically, and he may have dropped out of high school. He’s involved in illegal activity of one sort or another. If there is some kind of large-scale disorderly event, you’ll likely find Omar there.
After a discussion of Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News, John and I spend most of the episode talking about Omar: what made him who he is, why he acts the way he does, and what, if anything, can make him change. John has little sympathy for structural explanations for Omar’s behavior. According to John, culture makes Omar who he is, not the history of American racism, not implicit bias, and not even a supposed lack of legitimate jobs. I play devil’s advocate, raising some objections you might hear from sociologists or historians, but in truth, I find John’s reasoning pretty persuasive. To couch it in my own framework, the bias narrative just doesn’t cut it.
And to those of you wondering if I have anything more to say about YouTube’s removal of my conversation with John and Mark Goldblatt: I sure do. I’ve recorded an episode with my creative director Nikita Petrov in which we discuss censorship, YouTube, and why we’re sticking with Substack. Stay tuned.
This post is free and available to the public. To receive early access to TGS episodes, an ad-free podcast feed, Q&As, and other exclusive content and benefits, click below.
Featured Content from City Journal
Had he been in treatment, Jordan Neely’s death in a subway car may have been prevented, writes Stephen Eide.
0:00 Glenn mounts a defense of Tucker Carlson
13:44 Glenn: “Race relations will not get better through denial”
24:37 What historical conditions created Omar?
36:24 John: Omar is not the result of white neglect
45:16 John’s critique of structural explanations of Omar
54:14 What will happen to Tucker?
55:40 Why you should become a paying subscriber
Links and Readings
The NYT’s story on Tucker Carlson’s “it’s not how white men fight” text
John’s book, Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America
William Julius Wilson’s book, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy
William Julius Wilson’s book, When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor
William Julius Wilson’s book, The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions
Thomas Sugrue’s book, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit
Jason DeParle’s book, American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare
Frantz Fanon’s book, The Wretched of the Earth
Frantz Fanon’s book, Black Skin, White Masks
Philip Roth’s novel, American Pastoral


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

0:00 Heather’s new book, When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives
8:20 Are racial disparities in medical school the result of racism or skills gaps?
20:03 Do we really know what causes racial disparities?
32:23 Closing racial achievement gaps begins at home
40:39 Will black doctors necessarily provide better care to black patients?
50:26 Canceling Western art
1:00:37 Heather: Colonialism cannot explain the development of art
1:05:21 The stupidity of arguments against “cultural appropriation”
1:18:24 Heather: Lack of policing is a civil rights problem
1:29:43 Is it possible for a cop to get a fair trial?
1:34:40 Race and the future of progressive DAs
Recorded April 16, 2023
Links and Readings
Heather’s new book, When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives
Stephen Carter’s book, Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby
Glenn’s conversation with Charles Murray
Charles Murray’s book, Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America
Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou’s book, The Asian American Achievement Paradox
Ronald Ferguson’s learning network, The Basics
Pierre Bourdieu’s book, Distinction
Heather’s City Journal essay, “Stirring Sounds”
Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Michael Fortner’s book, Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment
Glenn’s conversation with Michael Fortner
James Forman Jr.’s book, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America
Fred Siegal’s City Journal essay, “The Riot Ideology, Reborn”


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Glenn and John answer questions from the Substack community.