What's the point of political "diversity"?

FromThe Minefield

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What's the point of political "diversity"?

FromThe Minefield

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54 minutes

Released:

Jul 21, 2022

Format:

Podcast episode

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Following the ignominious resignation of Boris Johnson, the Tories are looking for a new leader — and the UK a new Prime Minister. The cast of contenders is the most diverse we’ve seen, but that hasn’t yielded a notably different political vision. Why? ANU political scientist Marija Taflaga joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to discuss the significance of and constraints on diversity in political representation.

Released:

Jul 21, 2022

Format:

Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

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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Should children be given the vote?: Cambridge historian and host of the Talking Politics podcast, David Runciman, has put forward a radical proposal to extend the vote to children as young as six. Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens discuss whether this is just what is needed to recover a healthy democratic culture. by The Minefield
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Is COVID-19 bringing the best, or worst, out of our politics?: Is the pandemic having a chastening effect on our politics, bringing voters back to the real-world consequences of political decisions, or is the pandemic in fact playing right into the hands of populist politicians, creating ideal conditions in which to fan the flames or fear, resentment and mutual suspicion? by The Minefield
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False necessities: Is 'taste' enough to morally justify the mass slaughter of animals?: Is our culinary enjoyment enough to justify a complicity in cruelty which our fellow citizens find reprehensible? by The Minefield
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False necessities: Is economic growth a moral good?: Is economic growth a virtuous circle or a Faustian treadmill that benefits some and immiserates others (human and not)? by The Minefield
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Is capitalism inimical to ethics?: Does capitalism cultivate an ethos, an understanding of the nature of social relations and mutual obligation that is inimical to what might be called the demands of "democratic morality"? by The Minefield
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How to acknowledge the debt of historical injustice?: What does it mean for a nation - whether it be the United States, Germany, or Australia - fully to acknowledge the truth of its past, to drag its moral debts into the light of day? Should a sense of guilt play any role in that acknowledgement? by The Minefield
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Is literary fiction necessary for the moral life?: What does a society lose when it neglects the moral discipline of reading literary fiction? by The Minefield
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Does "calling-out" do more harm than good?: What is it about "calling-out" someone online or "cancelling" someone guilty of an egregious wrong, that is problematic? Does moral seriousness, in a time of incommensurable disagreement, necessarily need to take the form of moral purity? by The Minefield
54 min listen
The dangers of 'clipification': The media has always been in the business of isolating and mass circulating 'newsworthy' pieces or slivers of reality. But we are living in an age of 'clipification', where reality itself is broken up into highlights tailor-made to be shared and viewed again and again. What does democracy look like in an age of 'clipification'? by The Minefield
51 min listen
What’s wrong with swearing?: These days, mass culture, movies, commercial television, music, novels are awash with language that once would have been deemed beyond the pale. Does it still make sense to speak of 'obscene language'? What makes words 'obscene'? Can obscene language be used in such a way that removes the taint from what they refer to? by The Minefield
46 min listen
What (new) forms of living might the coronavirus produce?: What new forms of life together — of modesty, prudence, simplicity, mutuality, sociality and cooperation — might we discover under the conditions of scarcity and social isolation imposed by the coronavirus, that perhaps we didn’t envision in more 'normal' times? by The Minefield
39 min listen
What if the greatest threat to a free media was from within?: Our lives are saturated with 'news'; but far from creating informed citizens, this is producing forgetful, inattentive citizens. Megan Le Masurier joins us to discuss whether "slow journalism" could help us remember what matters. by The Minefield
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Can we overcome terminal disagreement in our politics and morality?: If the recent glut of "democracy in crisis" books is anything to go by, there is a sense that something has gone wrong in our common life. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has diagnosed the increasing 'tribalism' in and of our civic and political life particularly acutely, and he joins Waleed and Scott to discuss whether and how we might break free from its Manichean absolutism. by The Minefield
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2019 — the year where nothing really mattered?: What stands out to you about 2019? This week, for the last show of 2019, Waleed and Scott discuss the year that was, what it all meant, and what it means for the future of our common life. by The Minefield
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Can we avoid cruelty in the face of COVID-19?: As societies, we are having to grapple with the question of whether some will be made to bear a disproportionate amount of the cost of our collective response to COVID-19. by The Minefield
37 min listen
Can we cultivate social solidarity in a time of physical distancing?: Any meaningful recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic will require imagination, risk, solidarity and vulnerability; it will mean refusing to ‘free-ride’ and a willingness to sacrifice. How can we cultivate this capacity for social solidarity in our time of social fragmentation and mutual distancing? by The Minefield
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2020 — why does the future look so much like the past?: Back in 2008, newly elected prime minister Kevin Rudd convened a summit of Australia’s "best and brightest" to discuss what kind of nation they wanted Australia to be in 2020. Now that we’re here, 2020 doesn’t look very much like the future at all. What happened? Is there a lesson here about the importance of adopting a sceptical posture, a profound reticence to claim to know, much less predict, our political future? Or are we just reading the wrong signs? by The Minefield
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Why does democracy demand transparency?: Does representative democracy depend on practices of public scrutiny, or exercises of 'popular sovereignty' between elections? by The Minefield
48 min listen
Democratic politics is being challenged, but is it changing?: What are we to make of the fact that, in a time when democratic politics is being radically challenged by a series of seismic shocks, and when ideas or options once thought impossible are now squarely back ‘on the table’, our political leaders and their opponents have rarely seemed more conventional? David Runciman, Professor of Politics at Cambridge University and host of the Talking Politics podcast, joins us to dissect this political moment. by The Minefield
48 min listen
After the fires, are we invited to moral community with trees?: Over the summer months, Australia has witnessed the devastation of forests and the immolation of wildlife on an unimaginable scale. The emotional or even the tragic content of the bushfires has been — understandably — reserved for the loss of human life and home and livelihood, and for the loss of some non-human animals. But why do we grieve fauna and not flora? What if these fires present to us an invitation we refuse to heed: an invitation to rediscover moral companionship, moral community with trees? by The Minefield
44 min listen
Ordinary vices: What’s wrong with lying?: This week on The Minefield, we explore what Montaigne referred to as "that accursed vice" — the most corrupt and all-corrupting of them all: lying. by The Minefield
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Free riding: Why act, when acting is likely to make no difference?: Are there reasons to act in a particular way, to willingly make some sacrifice, do something which may be good, and which we may even be committed to, when our actions (or lack of action) are likely to be of no consequence? Is size detrimental to democratic community? Professor Roger Crisp joins us to discuss whether the free rider problem highlights the limitation of moral philosophy. by The Minefield
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In the aftermath of the Iowa caucus …: Every four years, a disproportionate amount of attention is focused on the unlikely midwestern state of Iowa. In a very real way, the Iowa caucuses encapsulate the profound political and ethical challenges that confront the Democratic Party in its bid to defeat Donald Trump in November — challenges that continue to bedevil democratic politics in other countries: How to mobilise voters around a common cause, without tipping over into either absolutism or unprincipled, 'whatever-it-takes' pragmatism? by The Minefield
50 min listen
Ordinary vices: Is pride an affront to, or the basis of, dignity?: Can pride be ‘redeemed’, and form the basis of human dignity, or is pride as such a form of moral corruption, a debased form of moral vision? by The Minefield
41 min listen
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45 min listen
Is it time to end simulated sex on television and film?: Why, in the light of the #MeToo movement, have we not questioned the aesthetic, much less moral, justification for the disproportionate amount of nudity and simulated sex required of female actors? Do we really need to prolong this puerile reliance on sex to attract viewers? by The Minefield
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40 min listen
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Is there a moral case against the COVID-19 “shutdown”?: Calls are mounting for an end to the “shutdown” that has been imposed by governments throughout the world in response to the COVID-19 pandemic – including from some highly regarded philosophers. Are there more humane, more democratic ways of responding to the threat of the virus? by The Minefield
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From Beyoncé to Taylor Swift — what’s behind the mass appeal of live music events?: It is worth reflecting, not just on what is singular about Taylor Swift at this particular cultural moment — why she attracts both the loyalty and the animus that she does — but on what it is about live music events that now draw millions of people to them. by The Minefield
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What is the harm in “deepfakes” — and what are they doing to democracy?: Over the last 18 months, enormously powerful generative AI tools have been placed in the hands of anyone who wants them; as a consequence, the internet and our social media feeds have been inundated with wholly or partially synthetic content. by The Minefield
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What do we lose when we lose the capacity for boredom?: It is fair to say that boredom is a distinctly modern terror. But, as Stan Grant discusses with Waleed and Scott, what if existential boredom points us to our deeper need? by The Minefield
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Goya’s “Saturn” and its moral challenge: Spanish painter Francisco de Goya’s depiction of Saturn eating his son is a haunting portrait of lust and the fear of one’s own finitude. Christos Tsiolkas joins Waleed and Scott to look into that darkness, and discover what looks back. by The Minefield
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What's the point of political "diversity"?

What's the point of political "diversity"?

Description

Titles in the series (100)

More Episodes from The Minefield

Related podcast episodes