Ideas

For millennia, rats have been portrayed as violent and disgusting. But rats have aided in our self-understanding. IDEAS contributor Moira Donovan investigates the contributions rats have made to humanity and whether co-existing with rats means coming to understand their role in our ecosystem. *This episode originally aired on October 27, 2020.

Despite their admirable qualities, rats have long been reviled as disgusting and aggressive animals. IDEAS contributor Moira Donovan explores how rats have come to occupy a position as cultural villain — and how they’ve shaped human history along the way. *This episode originally aired on October 26, 2020.

For Timothy Garton Ash, Europe is an idea — and an ideal — worth celebrating and preserving, even against all the forces acting against it right now. The historian, who won the 2024 Lionel Gelber Prize, is using his prize money to buy drones for Ukraine in the war against Russia. *This episode originally aired on May 15, 2024.

Lois Wilson has lived many lives during her 96 years as a United Church Minister, a Senator, a human rights advocate, and an inspiration to many. She exhibits a humility that can only be described as steadfast. For the Sake of the Common Good: Essays in Honour of Lois Wilson is a tribute to the life and work of a remarkable Canadian. *This episode originally aired Feb. 15, 2024.

In Astra Taylor's final Massey Lecture, she offers hope and solutions. Taylor suggests cultivating an ethic of insecurity — one that embraces our existential insecurity. The experience of insecurity, she says, can offer us a path to wisdom that can guide our personal lives and collective endeavours.

In part four of our series exploring five years that shaped the world, IDEAS examines 1973. Augusto Pinochet comes to power in Chile, and dictators rule Portugal, Greece, Uganda and beyond. The OPEC oil embargo sets the world on a new path. The American Supreme Court legalizes abortion in Roe v. Wade, 50 years before it would be overturned. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 25, 2024.

Scientists agree that dogs evolved from wolves and were the first domesticated animals. But exactly how that happened is hotly contested. IDEAS contributor Neil Sandell examines the theories and the evolution of the relationship between dogs and humans. *This episode originally aired on March 1, 2021.

Feeling the weight of a world? A lecture on hope might be a much needed balm. Scholar Shannon Murray shares lesson in hope, patience, empathy and 'freudenfreude,' and how Shakespeare’s words have become the narrative soundtrack of her life. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 13, 2023.

Living in modern society is hard and so people often turn to the "mystical marketplace" where Westerners consume Eastern traditions to find some kind of healing balm for the ailments of modernity. *This episode won a Wilbur Award for broadcast excellence on spiritual issues and themes. It originally aired on Jan. 27, 2021.

The burning of fossil fuels causes the past, present and future to collide in destructive ways. In her fourth Massey Lecture, Astra Taylor tells us that as the climate alters, evolved biological clocks erratically speed up or slow down, causing plants and animals to fall out of sync. In a world this out of joint, how could we possibly feel secure? But there is a path forward.