If Thoreau regards withdrawal and solitude as means by which we learn to escape self-deception, then they may well be little more than preparation for the moral demands friends make of one another.

Ramadan — the importance of friendship

In a world marked by wicked social problems, The Minefield helps you negotiate the ethical dilemmas, contradictory claims and unacknowledged complicities of modern life.

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Residents of Sydney have found themselves understandably overwhelmed by the compound traumas of two stabbing attacks in three days. How are we to make sense of the cycling-through of emotions in response to shocking public violence?

After the stabbings in Sydney — Grief? Anger? Revenge?

There has been an odd confluence of events over the past couple weeks that has managed to intensify the sense of a conflict between two of our most important democratic institutions: the law and the media.

What’s fueling the tension between the courts and the media?

Does the failure on the part of Israel to enable the provision of humanitarian aid or to do everything in its power to prevent civilian casualties suggest “a blameworthy indifference to Palestinian lives”?

What would the moral obligation to avoid civilian deaths look like in Gaza?

This isn't a bonus episode of The Minefield. Instead, we wanted to introduce you to a podcast we think of as a kind of kindred spirit to ours. Given the rapid increase in the number of podcasts over the last 7 years or so, it can be difficult to find offerings of real quality, intellectual curiosity, and genuine depth.

IDEAS from the CBC is a rich and wide-ranging exploration of contemporary thought and intellectual history. In the age of clickbait and superficial headlines, this is unapologetically a program for people who like to think and have their horizons expanded.

The clip you're going to hear from a documentary called "Our Bodies, Our Cells", which examines the microscopic cosmos of the body. The closer the IDEAS team zoomed in, the closer they got to some of the fundamental truths about life … and found it even stranger, more wondrous, and more paradoxical than they could have imagined.

If it manages to pique your curiosity, you can find more episodes of IDEAS wherever you get your podcasts.

PRESENTS — Ideas, "Our Bodies, Our Cells"

It is important to remember that Thoreau’s motivation for withdrawing was neither escapism nor apolitical quietism. The fact that he departed on 4 July signals an invitation to discover a different way of living together.

Ramadan — the importance of friendship

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