The Gray Area with Sean Illing
It’s not always the most wonderful time of the year.
Every December, we’re told to be merry and stay positive. But a lot of us don’t feel that way. And when we don’t, the pressure to be happy makes everything worse. Sadness feels like failure. Grief feels like a personal mistake. Depression becomes something to hide.
But what if dark moods aren’t problems to fix? What if they’re part of being human?
Today’s guest is philosopher Mariana Alessandri, author of Night Vision, a book about how to honor the emotions we usually try to outrun. It’s not a celebration of sadness, but Alessandri calls bullshit on the culture of toxic positivity and the idea that happiness is something we’re supposed to choose on command.
Sean and Mariana talk about why Americans are addicted to the light, why “cheering people up” often backfires, how Stoicism shaped our emotional habits, and what it looks like to sit with grief instead of shaming ourselves for feeling it.
Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)
Guest: Mariana Alessandri (@mariana.alessandri), associate professor of philosophy at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley and author of Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves Through Dark Moods.
We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.
And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube.
Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. This holiday season, your membership goes further: when you join Vox as an annual Member, we’ll gift a free membership to a reader who can’t afford it. By joining today, you’ll get 30% off for an annual membership, and we’ll match your membership. And if you can’t afford it, visit that same link to apply for a free membership through our gift program.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
RBG, minority rule, and our looming legitimacy crisis
The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, just weeks before a presidential election, leaves us in dangerous waters. It’s easy to imagine a scenario in which the election outcome is contested by one side and is…
David French and I debate polarization, secession, and the filibuster
David French is a senior editor at the Dispatch, a columnist at Time, and one of the conservative commentators I read most closely. French and I have rather different politics — he’s a Christian conservative…
The Matt Yglesias Show
Matt Yglesias is a co-founder and senior correspondent at Vox, my co-host on The Weeds podcast, and my oldest friend in journalism. Matt’s college blog was an inspiration for my own, and since then we’ve…
Race, policing, and the universal yearning for safety
Our conversation over race and policing — like our conversations over virtually everything in America — is shot through with a crude individualism. Talking in terms of systems and contexts comes less naturally to us,…
How to think about coronavirus risk in your life
Coronavirus has turned life into an endless series of risk calculations. Can I take my child to see his grandparents, even if it means getting on a plane? Is it okay to begin seeing friends…
Black Republicans, Donald Trump, and America’s “George Floyd moment”
The Republican Party began losing the Black vote around 1936. Since then, Republicans have commissioned reports, hired consultants, and spent huge sums of campaign dollars trying to win back Black voters. The project continues today:…
Andrew Yang on UBI, coronavirus, and his next job in politics
The last time Andrew Yang was on the podcast, he was just beginning his long shot campaign for the presidency. Now, he’s fresh off a speaking slot at the Democratic convention, and, as he reveals…
Why the hell did America invade Iraq?
In 2003, America invaded Iraq. The war cost trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and destabilized the both the US and the Middle East. And for what? Iraq…
How to decarbonize America — and create 25 million jobs
Saul Griffith knows the US energy system better than just about anyone on this planet. He’s an inventor, a MacArthur genius fellow, and the founder and CEO of Otherlab where his team was contracted by…
Isabel Wilkerson wants to change how we understand race in America
Isabel Wilkerson is an intimidating guest. She’s a former New York Times reporter, Pulitzer Prize recipient, Guggenheim fellow, and hands-down one of the best writers of our time. Her 2010 book The Warmth of Other…