Ideas Matter

Aug 20 2023 51 ep. 29 mins 18

Ideas Matter Podcast artwork

Ideas Matter Podcast is home to talks from leading contemporary thinkers on the most important political and cultural issues and intellectual trends of our times. Many were recorded at or reflect the topics discussed at Ideas Matter events, including Living Freedom summer school, The Academy residential weekend and Debating Matters schools debating competition.

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Living Freedom: ’Online harms to trigger warnings: safetyism versus freedom.’

Aug 20 2023 19 mins

Trigger warnings and microaggression policies have become increasingly familiar on campus. But while we can snigger at ‘de-stressing parties’ with colouring books, are students any different from the rest of society? After all, many people believe we face an unprecedented range of threats. Anxiety allied to yearning for safety is evident in warnings over formula milk and proces

Living Freedom: ’The ’stolen years’: understanding the lockdowns’

Aug 16 2023 18 mins

Features the discussion ‘The ‘stolen years’: understanding the lockdowns’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023. It’s not surprising lockdown was experienced as an era of loneliness, anxiety and fear. In every arena, freedom, autonomy and social life were restricted in favour of Zoom calls, family bubbles, and vaccine passports. Some say we are seeing a permanent

Living Freedom: ’What does it mean to be human in a world of generative AI?’

Aug 08 2023 23 mins

Features the discussion ‘What does it mean to be human in a world of generative AI?’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023. People are fascinated, amused and alarmed – often all three at once, at the generative AI tools that have taken the internet by storm over the last year. Some people welcome the new possibilities that these tools seem to offer for human creativi

Living Freedom: ‘The dangers of progress?’

Jul 30 2023 29 mins

Features the discussion ‘The dangers of progress?’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023. Historically, the quest for freedom was often understood to be bound up with the ideal of progress, but today, society seems less certain of the benefits of progress. Key features of modernity such as urbanisation, mobility, secularism and affluence are often deemed counterproduct

Living Freedom: ‘Dystopian or dysfunctional? The 21st-century state’

Jul 23 2023 12 mins

Features the lecture ‘‘Dystopian or dysfunctional? The 21st-century state’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023. In recent years, governments have appeared directionless and often incompetent. Institutions riven with disputes over cultural values seem unsure of what they stand for. Crisis seems to be the word of the year - energy crisis, cost-of-living crisis, climat

Living Freedom: ‘Freedom in the age of identity politics’

Jul 16 2023 25 mins

Features the lecture ‘Freedom in the age of identity politics’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023. Loved or loathed, identity politics is inescapable in contemporary battles over freedom. To some, the political embrace of the personal is a vital tool in the struggle against oppressive institutions and practices. To others, identitarian politics is a divisive force in

Living Freedom: ‘Freedom of conscience - 21st-century challenges’

Jul 09 2023 48 mins

Features the lecture ‘Freedom of conscience: 21st century challenges’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023. For many centuries, in religious and secular times alike, societies have wrestled with dilemmas as to how we should live in accordance with our inner-most thoughts and beliefs. What should we understand by the term freedom of conscience, how did it emerge and wh

Living Freedom: Artificial Intelligence and implications for freedom

Apr 19 2023 14 mins

Living Freedom Forum in London in April explored Artificial Intelligence and the implications for freedom. Generative AI like ChatGPT and Midjourney have captured the public imagination and barely a day now passes without claim and counter-claim as to benefits or threats posed by artificial intelligence. But what actually is generative technology? How have we come to realise this n

Debating Matters Beyond Bars: Jon Floyd and Heather Phillips

Dec 21 2022 25 mins

Initiated in 2015, Debating Matters Beyond Bars is a project which takes DM's schools-debating format inside prisons. Using our acclaimed substance-over-style format, teams of prisoners engage in debate with one another on a whole range of contemporary social, political and cultural topics. The programme aims to inspire them to think about issues beyond their current situation and

Ideas Matter: Old Roots of the New Disorder – Academy 2022 teaser

May 10 2022 18 mins

The theme of this year's The Academy, the weekend residential summer school, is ‘Old Roots of the New Disorder’. The event takes place on 16/17 July. In this special podcast, The Academy convenor Jacob Reynolds talks to Professor Frank Furedi, keynote lecturer, about why at a time when the global geo-political and economic crisis afflicts all dimensions of human existence, The