Ideas

Whether it’s redressing historical wrongs, new hate speech legislation, or safe spaces as a human right: when does the desire to accommodate aggrieved groups become censorship? And what's truly at stake? A debate from London’s “Battle of Ideas”.

Was Adolph Eichmann not ultimately responsible for the destruction of six million Jews? Or were Jews themselves partially to blame for their own fate? Fifty years ago, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt published a famous book that seemed to imply these things, and created an instant uproar that has never ended. Roger Berkowitz, Adam Gopnik, Rivka Galchen and Adam Kirsch debate the reality behind Hannah Arendt and her ideas.

Our relationship with technology has intensified in this century with a rapturous embrace of Internet technologies and the gadgetry put in our hands by big technology companies. But even as we've made these technologies an extension of ourselves and experience the world and ourselves through them, our culture is starting to take a step back to re-examine the impact they're having on us. Interview with Nicholas Carr, Franklin Foer, Jean Twenge, and Clive Thompson.

Is it a positive wave or a troubling pattern? In this age of anxiety over joblessness and immigration, populist leaders in Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Sweden and the Philippines are tapping in. Is populism, as the 1960's American historian Richard Hofstadter called it, "a paranoid style of politics"? Or is it what others describe as "the essence of democratic politics"?

Samuel de Champlain’s “L’Ordre de Bon Temps” kept early French colonists at Port Royal, Nova Scotia alive through the brutal winter of 1606. Recently, Paul Kennedy invited Chef Michael Smith from the famous Inn at Bay Fortune, near Souris, Prince Edward Island, to discuss the merits of the meal. Together they make a modest proposal to elevate this quintessentially Canadian event into a national winter holiday.

Canada's history of suppressing Black activism is coming to light like never before, thanks to researchers like PhD student Wendell Adjetey. Wendell's historical research uncovers evidence of clandestine government surveillance in the 20th century, while also bringing to life overlooked parts of this history. His work helps put in context the experiences of Canadian Black Lives Matter activists today.

Authoritarianism is on the rise around the world. And Timothy Snyder wants to push back against this tide. A history professor at Yale University who's written widely on Europe and the Holocaust, he takes an unusual approach in his little book, "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century". This episode features the lecture he gave in Toronto and a follow-up conversation with host Paul Kennedy.

An Edinburgh bibliophile takes Paul Kennedy through his library of amazing books that were published in Scotland in the late 18th century, during the heyday of the Scottish Enlightenment. At the time, Adam Smith, David Hume, James Boswell and The Encyclopaedia Britannica were runaway bestsellers.

Technology was once believed to be our deliverance. We'd be working shorter hours, and about the only stress we'd have would be to figure out what to do with all our leisure time. But technology hasn't quite delivered on that promise. We're working longer hours, there are fewer jobs and and a lot less job security. In Part 3 of her series on the future of work, Jill Eisen looks at the promise of technology — and how it can lead to a better world.

We think we know what money is. We use it every day and our lives are unimaginable without it. But look more closely and you find that coins and dollar bills aren't "real". They're promises, symbols, ideas. And exactly what money is has evolved enormously over the ages. IDEAS contributor Anik See explores how we're rethinking one of the most basic features of human society.