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The Minefield

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

society & culture philosophy

All Episodes

0:54:03

Is it only “joy” when it’s shared?

The Minefield ·

2025/05/14

“Joy” is a strange kind of word. It describes a feeling that we all know, but do not know exactly how to value. It’s not happiness — which can, after all, be interior, quiet and express itself as a kind of contentment — nor is it merely pleasure (even though, in many languages, “pleasure” and “joy” are etymologically related). Joy is not only more exuberant than happiness, it is also weightier than pleasure. Montaigne was onto something when he wrote, “Profound joy has more

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0:54:29

Australian voters have spoken — do we know what they...

The Minefield ·

2025/05/07

After any election, a narrative of sorts must be woven out of the disparate threads of the votes of so many individuals in so many seats. Which is to say, there has to be an act of discernment to hear what “the people” are trying to communicate — to make their will legible, as it were.Despite a relatively modest increase in Labor’s primary vote, the Albanese government added between 15 and 18 seats to its majority in the Lower House, while the Coalition has been reduced to a

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0:53:40

Is disillusionment a feature of democratic politics,...

The Minefield ·

2025/04/30

Democracy is often lauded as a peculiarly just and effective form of government — one that enjoys the benefits that flow from twin virtues of popular engagement and political accountability. And yet the effectiveness and resilience of democratic politics depends on the trust voters have in political institutions.When those institutions are felt not to be responsive to the needs and fears of citizens, when politicians seem not to represent those who voted for them (and seem instead

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0:53:52

What are we doing when we vote?

The Minefield ·

2025/04/23

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first federal election to be held in Australia after the passage of Senator Herbert Payne’s private member’s bill, which made voting compulsory. In 1922, only 57.95 per cent of registered voters turned out. Payne’s home state of Tasmania had the poorest showing (45.93 per cent), whereas Queensland — where voting in state elections had been compulsory since 1914 — saw the highest (82.66 per cent). As Judith Brett writes:“It was clear that

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0:53:56

Can Australia’s federal election escape the shadow of...

The Minefield ·

2025/04/16

If there is ever a time when politicians should be able to expect a fair share of the public’s attention, it’s during an election campaign. After all, this triennial event is when they can demonstrate to the Australian public that they’ve been attentive to their aspirations and concerns for the future, and have developed a series of policies able to address those hopes and fears.And yet Donald Trump’s reckless bluster and punitive tariffs have sucked most of the air out of

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0:58:00

AI in education — is it a technology to be feared, or...

The Minefield ·

2025/04/09

This is the second of two episodes recorded in front of a live audience as part of a special “Week with Students”, a collaboration between Radio National and ABC Education.Over a short period of time, AI has become pervasive. Immensely powerful platforms have placed artificial intelligence at our fingertips, and more than two-thirds of Australian students admit to using AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot.But as with any technology, alongside the convenience

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1:00:43

Are we on the brink of a world without books? On Ray...

The Minefield ·

2025/04/05

This is the first of two episodes recorded in front of a live audience as part of a special “Week with Students”, a collaboration between Radio National and ABC Education.Of the three great dystopian novels published on either side of the Second World War — Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” (1931), George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (1949) and Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” (1953) — it is Bradbury’s vision of a future without books that can lay legitimate claim to being the

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0:54:22

Ramadan: Is hope a flimsy emotion, or can it grow...

The Minefield ·

2025/03/26

We arrive, at last, at the end of our Ramadan series — and the second of our pair of positive responses to radical disappointment with the world. For some, hope is untrustworthy, amounting to little more than dreaming or wish-fulfilment. For others, hope can turn into kind of bad faith demand, leading to dishonest politics (in the name of being up-beat or staying positive) or even to habituated practices of avoidance.But hope can also galvanise a community to work together for an

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0:53:37

Ramadan: Is optimism a virtue, or a form of moral...

The Minefield ·

2025/03/19

For the last two episodes, we’ve been discussing what might be called negative or aversive responses to radical disappointment with the world — even though, as we’ve seen, both despair and fear have characteristics which commend them. In the next two episodes, we’re turning to rather more positive responses.There is little doubt that pessimism enjoys a certain cultural cache these days. It is easy to say that things are bad and getting worse. And yet such a claim can have a

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0:53:55

Ramadan: Should we try to live without fear, or learn...

The Minefield ·

2025/03/12

Throughout the month of Ramadan, we are examining the range of emotions that arise in response to radical disappointment with the state of the world. Last week, we looked at the centripetal emotion of despair — a response that can cause us to withdraw into ourselves. This week, we turn to the centrifugal emotion of fear — which can take the form of paralysis, but most often is directed outward toward some threat.There are few emotions that are more natural than fear. While fear

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0:54:27

Ramadan: Is despair always detrimental, or can it...

The Minefield ·

2025/03/04

The political climate over the last six months in much of the world has been undeniably dark. It’s little wonder that so many people seem to have given in to despair.The causes of this prevailing condition are numerous — they include the ongoing death and destruction in Ukraine and Gaza, the devastating return of dead Israeli hostages, the rising tide of antisemitic and Islamophobic violence, the tearing of Australia’s social fabric, the ascendancy of anti-democratic forces in the

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0:53:19

Are “firewalls” the best way to counteract the appeal...

The Minefield ·

2025/02/26

As the results of the recent German election came in, a familiar pattern took shape. A broadly unpopular centre-left political party was voted out — due, in no small part, to its immigration policies and perceived economic failures — in favour of a centre-right party who pledged to adopt a “stronger” approach to borders and migrants, and to restore the nation to its former prosperity.Lurking in the wings, meanwhile, is growing far-right movement that cannot overtly be courted by

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0:53:03

How hate speech in healthcare tears at something...

The Minefield ·

2025/02/19

At a time when the Australian community seems to be so deeply divided along multiple faultlines, there was something somewhat heartening about being able to share a common outrage. That’s only word that captures the depth of public response that greeted a now infamous video in which two nurses at Bankstown Hospital seemed to express extreme anti-Israeli/antisemitic sentiments and allegedly boasted about killing Israeli patients in their care.While some have used the video to

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0:57:34

The School of Sport: Bob Murphy and the centrality of...

The Minefield ·

2025/02/12

In 2016, the Western Bulldogs made an improbable run to the ALF Grand Final. The seventh-place team would beat the minor premiers, the Sydney Swans, and end a six-decade drought. But their longest serving player, the erstwhile captain and heart-and-soul of the team, Bob Murphy, would not take the field. In the third round, a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament had ended the 17-year veteran’s season.After their triumph, Murphy watched his teammates walk up to the dais, one by one,

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0:53:01

The School of Sport: Craig Fitzgibbon and the burden...

The Minefield ·

2025/02/05

There are few jobs in professional sports that are more important, and more unforgiving, than that of coach. Their most significant work is invisible to the fans. When things go wrong, the coach is usually the first to be blamed. When the team is enjoying success, it is the players that typically reap the accolades.Coaches can make or break a club. They can transform mid-tier teams to genuine contenders, and they can utterly “lose the locker room”.But the weight of responsibility

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0:52:22

The School of Sport: Lydia Williams and the virtue of...

The Minefield ·

2025/01/29

Athletes would seem to be the embodiments of strength, discipline, autonomy, self-reliance. Of all people, we would expect them to be invulnerable to the moments of self-doubt and weakness that afflict the rest of us.And yet, particularly after serious injuries or during long periods of convalescence and rehabilitation, many athletes experience intensified forms of the vulnerability — the dependency upon others, the dis-ability, even — that are essential to the human condition.So

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0:54:05

The School of Sport: Madison de Rozario and the...

The Minefield ·

2025/01/22

Within certain religious traditions, pride is a “special sin” because it involves an overestimation of one’s self — making oneself a little “god” in one’s own eyes. But Aristotle did not regard pride as such to be a vice, only its unwarranted or unmerited expressions.The important thing for Aristotle was not to seek recognition or adulation from just anyone. Instead, we should try to do things that make us proud of the person we have become — and that elicit pride from those we

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0:53:47

The School of Sport: Why does sport bring out the...

The Minefield ·

2025/01/15

Over the next five weeks, we are going to be exploring a series of profound moral dilemmas with some of Australia’s most accomplished athletes. How has their life in elite competition prepared them to wrestle with challenges so many of us have faced ourselves? Has sporting excellence succeeded in bringing out the best in them? If so, what can that teach the rest of us?But before we examine the best, it seems only fitting that we first acknowledge the worst. In their frequent

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0:53:52

Is Australia breaking?

The Minefield ·

2025/01/08

One of Australia's greatest strengths has been the remarkable diversity of its multicultural society. But is this also a potential source of weakness? In this live recording at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens, along with guest Stan Grant, explore the internal and external forces that risk undermining our sense of social unity.This episode was first broadcast on 08 September 2024.

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0:53:47

What's behind the mass appeal of live music events?

The Minefield ·

2025/01/01

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.This episode was first broadcast on 18 February 2024.

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