Truth in an age of doublethink

The Gray Area is taking a break today — but we’ve got something special for you. We’re dropping an episode from one of our favorite podcasts, Unexplainable from Vox. In it, host Sally Helm considers whether or not it’s ethical to kill lantern flies, an invasive species that has g ...  Show more

We were told that airing our personal trauma in public would set us free. Instead, we got “the trauma script,” celebrity branding, and performative empathy. In today's episode, guest host Christine Emba talks with cultural theorist and professor Catherine Liu, author of Traumatiz ...  Show more

From doublethink and thoughtcrime to coming face-to-face with our worst nightmares inside Room 101, few writers have had as much impact on the popular imagination as George Orwell. But what compelled the author of 'Animal Farm' and 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' to conjure up such dark, ...  Show more

George Orwell wasn’t afraid to speak against totalitarianism – but what was he for? Colin Burrow joins Tom to unpick the cultural conservatism and crackling violence underpinning Orwell’s writing, to reassess his vision of socialism and to figure out why teenagers love him so muc ...  Show more

This week David discusses George Orwell’s ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ (1941), his great wartime essay about what it does – and doesn’t – mean to be English. How did the English manage to resist fascism? How are the English going to defeat fascism? These were two different question ...  Show more

In "1984," Orwell described a thought-police totalitarian state. How prescient was he?Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.