Ideas

We're all familiar with the idea of the "bad seed". Incorrigible children and unruly adolescents who later commit terrible crimes. Over the last decade, they've increasingly been referred to as psychopaths. But unlike the way their adult counterparts are viewed, there's renewed hope that younger people with psychopathic traits can be redeemed.

Baseball may have inspired more books than any other sport - but none quite like philosopher Mark Kingwell's recently published, Fail Better: Why Baseball Matters. It's the first book-length philosophical meditation on what has been called America's national pastime. Paul Kennedy takes him out to a ballgame, and discusses everything from RBIs, to the metaphysics of failure, and how Kingwell borrowed the title for his baseball book from a work by Samuel Beckett.

In a public talk at Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, Sue Gardner argues that that we've returned to the same set of ominous social conditions which led to the creation of public broadcasting in the first place - and that now is the time to recommit to public service journalism.

From the Blue Metropolis/Metropole Bleu Festival in Montreal, Paul Kennedy discusses the 'idea of north' with writers from Quebec's Inuit North, Denmark and Norway. They compare and contrast the North as they know it, and how they express that through their writing.

It's tempting to think only of Shakespeare when we think of the Elizabethan era - the late 1500s to early 1600s. But he was only one of many writers, and there was a whole other world of literature and ideas, and of artists thinking and writing about the society of their times. Moderated by theatre critic Robert Cushman, a discussion from the Ideas Forum at the Stratford Festival featuring actors and writers and directors with fresh perspectives into Shakespeare's life and times.

Almost everything we think we know about Marco Polo - traveller, explorer, the man who brought the wonders of the East to the West - is being questioned. Tony Luppino searches for the real man and story behind the legendary wanderer, and discovers someone even more interesting and unexpected.

Baseball may have inspired more books than any other sport - but none quite like philosopher Mark Kingwell's recently published, Fail Better: Why Baseball Matters. It's the first book-length philosophical meditation on what has been called America's national pastime. Paul Kennedy takes him out to a ballgame, and discusses everything from RBIs, to the metaphysics of failure, and how Kingwell borrowed the title for his baseball book from a work by Samuel Beckett.

Foreign policy is usually defined in "masculine" terms: arms trade, intervention, war, sanctions, and MAD (mutually-assured destruction). But what would international relations look like if food security, family planning, and workplace equity were also centre pieces of foreign policy?

Does 'political correctness' impede free speech, and blockade the exchange of ideas? Or does it create a better society by confronting the power imbalances that keep marginalized groups marginalized? In this Munk Debate, bestselling author Michael Eric Dyson and journalist and commentator Michelle Goldberg argue that political correctness promotes diverse societies and social progress. On the opposing side: renaissance man Stephen Fry and controversial psychologist Jordan Peterson, who contend that "PC" throttles free thought and divides society.

Foreign policy is usually defined in "masculine" terms: arms trade, intervention, war, sanctions, and MAD (mutually-assured destruction). But what would international relations look like if food security, family planning, and workplace equity were also centre pieces of foreign policy? Four women — all with experience in foreign policy — explore possible answers to these questions. Moderated by Eva Salinas, Elmira Bayrasli, Lauren Dobson-Hughes, and Lamia Naji were featured in a public forum held at Ryerson University in April 2018.