The Minefield

ABC listen

0,0 (0)
ФИЛОСОФИЯ
ЕЖЕНЕДЕЛЬНО

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

-19 Ч

“The Godfather, Part II” — a parable of corruption and fall

In December 1974, “The Godfather, Part II” premiered in New York City. Following the unlikely success and unexpected acclaim that his 1972 adaptation of Mario Puzo’s bestselling novel received, Francis Ford Coppola was granted almost unlimited discretion to realise his cinematic vision for the sequel — and he used that discretion to greatest possible effect. In fact, “The Godfather” and “The Godfather, Part II” are rare instances of films that far outstrip, in both its narrative depth and its aesthetic form, the source material on which they are based. At the heart of the first two “Godfather” films is a stark contrast. Vito is virtuous within a cinematic universe in which legality and morality are not synonymous: the fact that his assassination of the tyrannical Don Fanucci is celebrated, that his “favours” are beneficent, that he is attentive to his wife and children — all suggest a kind of moral goodness. Whereas Michael, having begun as the most virtuous of Don Corleone’s sons, falls deeper than the others could have gone. Having begun alone, somewhat removed from the family, Michael ends the film utterly, existentially, morally, isolated.

55 мин.
20 НОЯБ.

Is a “digital duty of care” enough to protect young people from social media’s harms?

Since the start of November, the Australian government has made two significant announcements aimed at preventing the harms that social media platforms are causing to the mental health of adolescents — but are these measures enough?

54 мин.
13 НОЯБ.

How much control should corporations have over the speech of their employees?

Most of us are aware that the emergence of social media platforms and their omnipresence in our lives have fractured public discourse and undermined the conditions of democratic deliberation. But we are only now beginning to grapple with the way corporations — having already decided to make “values” and “ethics” central in their self-presentation to consumers — have become increasingly susceptible to public pressure to deal harshly with employees who express controversial, distasteful or simply divisive opinions. As a result, limitations on the speech of employees are being tolerated that would rarely be accepted within a democratic society.

54 мин.
6 НОЯБ.

The return of Donald Trump — do we know what it means?

“Donald Trump is no longer an aberration; he is normative.” Such is the assessment of Peter Wehner — a Republican strategist and former adviser to President George W. Bush, and an outspoken critic of Trump himself — in the aftermath of the former president’s thundering re-election victory. It was not an electoral college landslide of the order of Barack Obama’s in 2008 or Bill Clinton’s in 1996. But it was sufficiently decisive as to command a reckoning. Perhaps most obviously, his victory relegates the Biden presidency to a kind of hiatus within what may well prove to be Trump’s twelve-year dominance of American politics. The fact that Trump survived all the forces arrayed against him — political, legal, economic, cultural, popular — reinforces the power of his “persecution” narrative, and will likely only deepen Americans’ disdain for democratic institutions. One of the live questions of this election is whether Trump’s resurgence will encourage the would-be-antidemocratic leaders of other nations to follow his playbook.

54 мин.
31 ОКТ.

Is the concept of “evil” worth retaining?

One of the defining features of the last century is the fact that “evil” has become more vivid to our imaginations and common in our language than “good”. Stan Grant joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to discuss whether “evil” is, in our time, a concept worth holding onto. Or does its use and misuse in our public discourse cause more harm and confusion than good?

54 мин.
23 ОКТ.

Should revenge have any place in our politics?

There is something undeniably satisfying about revenge. When we feel we have been aggrieved, harmed or humiliated, it is natural to want payback. In ancient Greece, to inflict such an injury was conceived of as incurring a debt — and the only way to make the perpetrator “whole” was to have the injury repaid in kind. The paradox — as Socrates, Sophocles and Euripides all knew — is that revenge, though it is desired, is never satisfying, because it gives rise to a perpetual cycle of hit-and-retaliation. The future is thereby foreclosed by the need to repay the past. As Martin Luther King, Jr. put it: “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.” In democratic politics and geopolitical conflict, the language and logic of revenge have begun to reassert themselves. What can be done to break out of its hold?

54 мин.
16 ОКТ.

Can democracy survive the perfect storm of disinformation?

Just weeks before a US presidential election, a combination of political mendacity, the perverse incentives offered by social media platforms, and opportunism on the part of content creators/consumers, have come together to form a perfect storm. The tragic irony is that the devastating consequences of these forces have become apparent in the aftermath of two hurricanes which hit the American south-east in quick succession. With state and federal elections around the corner, and little more than a year after the failed Voice referendum, can anything be done in Australia to stem the tide of online mis/disinformation? Legislative attempts to hold social media platforms to account are undoubtedly important — but the more urgent task may be addressing democracy’s current “trust deficit”.

53 мин.
9 ОКТ.

What is “populism” – and what kind of problem does it pose?

After the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and the outcome of the Brexit referendum, “populism” became the catch-all diagnosis for everything the ails democratic politics. But its polemical use has tended to obscure rather than clarify the meaning of the term.

54 мин.

См. все (385)

Waleed Aly

Ведет подкаст

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