Claim OwnershipThe Minefield
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Description
In a world marked by wicked social problems, The Minefield helps you negotiate the ethical dilemmas, contradictory claims and unacknowledged complicities of modern life.
345 Episodes
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There has been an odd confluence of events over the past couple weeks that has managed to intensify the sense of a conflict between two of our most important democratic institutions: the law and the media.
Does the failure on the part of Israel to enable the provision of humanitarian aid or to do everything in its power to prevent civilian casualties suggest “a blameworthy indifference to Palestinian lives”?
This isn't a bonus episode of The Minefield. Instead, we wanted to introduce you to a podcast we think of as a kind of kindred spirit to ours. Given the rapid increase in the number of podcasts over the last 7 years or so, it can be difficult to find offerings of real quality, intellectual curiosity, and genuine depth.IDEAS from the CBC is a rich and wide-ranging exploration of contemporary thought and intellectual history. In the age of clickbait and superficial headlines, this is unapologetically a program for people who like to think and have their horizons expanded.The clip you're going to hear from a documentary called "Our Bodies, Our Cells", which examines the microscopic cosmos of the body. The closer the IDEAS team zoomed in, the closer they got to some of the fundamental truths about life … and found it even stranger, more wondrous, and more paradoxical than they could have imagined.If it manages to pique your curiosity, you can find more episodes of IDEAS wherever you get your podcasts.
It is important to remember that Thoreau’s motivation for withdrawing was neither escapism nor apolitical quietism. The fact that he departed on 4 July signals an invitation to discover a different way of living together.
If Thoreau regards withdrawal and solitude as means by which we learn to escape self-deception, then they may well be little more than preparation for the moral demands friends make of one another.
Solitude is neither alone-ness nor idleness. It is strenuous and takes practice. Solitude does not simply happen in the way that isolation or loneliness does — it must be inhabited.
Are periodic bouts of withdrawal from life’s urgent demands and heated debates necessary to regain a sense of our shared humanity, and to renew the commitments that sustain the moral life?
Waleed Aly, Scott Stephens and philosopher Stephanie Collins field questions from a live studio audience on crowd-behaviour, conformity and the importance of dissent.
Ever since Plato, “crowds” have been associated with irrationality, emotivism, conformism, short-term thinking, and herd-like behaviour. But what if it turns out that crowds are collectively more intelligent than their individual members?
What are we trying to convey when we reach for a word like “evil”? Is it something about a person’s actions or character? Is it what they do or the manner in which they do it?
It is worth reflecting, not just on what is singular about Taylor Swift at this particular cultural moment — why she attracts both the loyalty and the animus that she does — but on what it is about live music events that now draw millions of people to them.
Over the last 18 months, enormously powerful generative AI tools have been placed in the hands of anyone who wants them; as a consequence, the internet and our social media feeds have been inundated with wholly or partially synthetic content.
Because it is sustained by nothing more substantial than a weave of trusted institutions, shared habits and moral commitments, democracies are highly susceptible to the corrosive effects of distrust; Jedediah Purdy joins Waleed and Scott to discuss the necessary conditions for democratic life.
Ours is a time when institutional distrust, digital disinformation and mutual suspicion have become pervasive — but can democracy withstand epistemic and social fragmentation of this kind?
Professor Maryanne Wolf joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to discuss whether we are entering an age of widespread moral illiteracy — an incapacity to engage in the processes that make up the habit of deep reading.
It is fair to say that boredom is a distinctly modern terror. But, as Stan Grant discusses with Waleed and Scott, what if existential boredom points us to our deeper need?
Spanish painter Francisco de Goya’s depiction of Saturn eating his son is a haunting portrait of lust and the fear of one’s own finitude. Christos Tsiolkas joins Waleed and Scott to look into that darkness, and discover what looks back.
Now that John Cleese has announced that the iconic series will return, it’s worth examining what made Fawlty Towers a masterpiece — and whether its interaction with the political climate of the 1970s had anything to do with it.
Platforms like Spotify have transformed the way people listen to music through their use of recommendation algorithms and customised playlists designed to cater to either a particular activity or a particular mood.
Australian novelist Briohny Doyle joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to examine Charles Dickens’s unforgettable tale of misanthropy and remorse, and discover how its aesthetic techniques and ethical vision continue to speak to us today.
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Most challenging topic!
What on earth are they going on about?
ARE THESE PAIR OF CUNTS EVEN SERIOUS? I used to love this show. Now what has it become? The mouthpiece for a revolting, disingenuous, obsequious movement that deserves no place in adult conversation. None!
NO, YOU'RE WRONG ABOUT MOST MEAT EATERS BEING AWARE OF THE HORRORS OF THE INDUSTRY!!! PEOPLE GET MAD & DEFENSIVE WHEN THEY'RE SHOWN THE VILE & REPREHENSIBLE CONDITIONS! THEY CHOOSE TO STAY IGNORANT... & IGNORE THE TRUTH.
Excellent podcast
How does this relate to those who care? Nurses, doctors those who work in ages care who would be overwhelmed if we didn't flatten the curve to minimise those affected by the infection?
Another wasted opportunity to have a grown-up conversation. When are the grown-ups coming on?
the constant use of the term "IWD" sounds like a contraceptive device..... according to my female partner
Love the guest presenters, great discussion
Scott, have this dude on. "Contrary to conventional wisdom, Christianity has never really taken deep root in America or had any success in forming American consciousness; in its place, we have invented a kind of Orphic mystery religion of personal liberation, fecundated and sustained by a cult of Mammon." https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/three-cheers-socialism
Love the comment "regression to the mean".
Could you please tell me why people kill eagles?
Excellent episode. I think Waleed's "long bow" actually hit the target. Definitely watch to the end.
This podcast is fast becoming too much of a chore. Any recommendations for some more balanced Australian-based political and philosophical podcasts?
Impeachment discussion began with the Dems *before* Trump came into office. The Comey, later Muller, investigation produced no solid evidence upon which to impeach. This disappears almost immediately as soon as it becomes apparent that it could not be weaponised as hoped. Now, a whistleblower in the tradition of Assange, Snowden and Manning (all of whom contemporaneously condemned and exiled according to the trajectory of the Obama office) is to come forth, currently with no evidence whatsoever. To accuse Trump of misusing the term 'witch-hunt' is in extremely bad faith and reveals only the motivation of Scott amd Waleed. A frustrating listen indeed.
Waleed was particularly bull-headed on this topic. It's interesting to see how he can become when he feels that he isn't being heard.
This is my favorite episode!!! Love it! Slow journalism!
They weren't nations.
Would it be beneficial to define what hardship is and the thresholds? hardship for one may not be hardship for another. it is contextual.
Can you please include the name of your guest in the description of the podcast? thank you