The Minefield

This is the second of two episodes recorded in front of a live audience as part of a special “Week with Students”, a collaboration between Radio National and ABC Education. Over a…

This is the first of two episodes recorded in front of a live audience as part of a special “Week with Students”, a collaboration between Radio National and ABC Education. Of the t…

We arrive, at last, at the end of our Ramadan series — and the second of our pair of positive responses to radical disappointment with the world. For some, hope is untrustworthy, a…

For the last two episodes, we’ve been discussing what might be called negative or aversive responses to radical disappointment with the world — even though, as we’ve seen, both des…

Throughout the month of Ramadan, we are examining the range of emotions that arise in response to radical disappointment with the state of the world. Last week, we looked at the ce…

The political climate over the last six months in much of the world has been undeniably dark. It’s little wonder that so many people seem to have given in to despair. The causes of…

As the results of the recent German election came in, a familiar pattern took shape. A broadly unpopular centre-left political party was voted out — due, in no small part, to its i…

At a time when the Australian community seems to be so deeply divided along multiple faultlines, there was something somewhat heartening about being able to share a common outrage.…

In 2016, the Western Bulldogs made an improbable run to the AFL Grand Final. The seventh-place team would beat the minor premiers, the Sydney Swans, and end a six-decade drought. B…

There are few jobs in professional sports that are more important, and more unforgiving, than that of coach. Their most significant work is invisible to the fans. When things go wr…

Athletes would seem to be the embodiments of strength, discipline, autonomy, self-reliance. Of all people, we would expect them to be invulnerable to the moments of self-doubt and…

Within certain religious traditions, pride is a “special sin” because it involves an overestimation of one’s self — making oneself a little “god” in one’s own eyes. But Aristotle d…

Over the next five weeks, we are going to be exploring a series of profound moral dilemmas with some of Australia’s most accomplished athletes. How has their life in elite competit…

One of Australia's greatest strengths has been the remarkable diversity of its multicultural society. But is this also a potential source of weakness? In this live recording at the…

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…

During the pandemic, there was a sudden renewal of interest in Harold Ramis's 1993 film "Groundhog Day" — especially its bleaker aspects. But this missed its sophistication and hum…

Because our lives are increasingly tailor-made, we are constantly seeking ways of distinguishing ourselves from others. What is being lost through it all is our sense of a humanity…

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 mor…

Poised as we are at the brink of our great annual festival of shopping, wrapping, giving and exchanging, we can sometimes forget just how ethically complicated the act of “gift-giv…

Democracy is in retreat, authoritarianism on the rise. But this has happened before. So how did big thinkers of the past respond to the threats to democracy, and what can we learn…