Ideas
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Ideas
IDEAS is a place for people who like to think. If you value deep conversation and unexpected reveals, this show is for you. From the roots and rise of authoritarianism to near-death experiences to the history of toilets, no topic is off-limits. Hosted by Nahlah Ayed, we’re home to immersiv...
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Massey Lecture 4 | How people power makes human rights real
Eleanor Roosevelt once said that universal human rights begin in “small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any...
Massey Lecture Part 3 | Human rights don’t have to be earned
Our inherent human rights belong to us from the moment we are born. There is nothing we need to do to earn them, and they are supposed to apply to us...
Massey Lecture 2: The six years that remade human rights
The ideals behind the concept of human rights — such as the sacredness of life, reciprocity, justice and fairness — have millennia-old histories. Afte...
Massey Lecture 1: Renewing the promise of human rights
Universality is the core promise of human rights: these rights extend to everyone, everywhere. But above all else, this is where we have failed. In hi...
Buttons give the illusion of power but hide the consequences
Whether mechanical or digital, a button delivers the promise of power — but it's far from simple. The small and mighty technology has a riveting histo...
The people who inspire Alex Neve to fight for human rights
When he was eight, 2025 CBC Massey Lecturer Alex Neve watched his mother fight for daycare in Alberta. It’s shaped how he thinks about human rights. A...
How overlooked veterans make history in their own words
There’s history, and then there’s oral history. And when it comes to the impacts of war on those who fight them — oral history opens doors to the past...
Why Canadian veterans are conflicted about Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day. Every year we are called on to remember, to reflect on the sacrifices of those who fought in Canada’s wars. Veterans of those wars ha...
Why Canadian veterans are ambivalent about Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day. Every year we are called on to remember, to reflect on the sacrifices of those who fought in Canada’s wars. Veterans of those wars ha...
Not a war story. This is about what comes after for veterans
Even when wars end, they go on — transforming the people who fought them, their families, and even society. A former war correspondent interviewed mor...
What it takes to become a ruthless tyrant
Look back about 3,000 years and you will find the playbook on authoritarianism remains pretty much the same as it is today. Back in the 5th century BC...
First historian Herodotus knew the power of story
For someone who died more than 2,400 years ago, Herodotus's voice is still very much alive. "He knows the way [a good story] can elevate but also corr...
Hope lies in knowing that "we've changed the world before”
Political analyst Rachel Maddow and author/activist Rebecca Solnit are sharp observers of Trump 2.0. They both share a common ground: opposition to an...
How mind-bending theories could solve mysteries in physics
Physics has been full of astonishing discoveries over the past century. But they open up even bigger mysteries that scientists are working feverishly...
To fix America's caste system, acknowledge it exists: author
The true story of America is that it was built on a caste system comparable to India’s, says Pulitzer-prize-winning American journalist Isabel Wilkers...
Mexican fiction turns drug kingpins into vicious vampires
There’s a burgeoning genre of fiction coming from Mexico — stories that merge socio-political history and the impact of drug-related violence with fan...
Can democracies survive the attacks on the rule of law?
Even in some of the world’s sturdiest democracies, leaders are deliberately undermining courts to weaken checks on their power. In many cases, the jus...
This lawyer turns real legal cases into page-turners
War criminals, Nazi fugitives, and a viable threat to American democracy — sounds like a classic page-turner but author and lawyer Philippe Sands isn'...
How Indigenous Americans discovered Europe
Indigenous Americans on European soil can be found throughout historical records, but historian Caroline Dodds Pennock says they have largely been ign...
33 years of the campus free speech controversy
In the early 1990s, “woke” was "politically correct," "DEI" was known as "affirmative action,” and the term “cancel culture” had yet to be coined. The...
Can you have compassion for someone you never agree with?
Ask yourself: can you? It is a question that George Eliot asks over and over through her characters in Middlemarch, a 19th-century novel that speaks t...
George Eliot's invaluable lessons on how we treat others
Virginia Woolf called George Eliot's novel, Middlemarch “one of the few English books written for grownups.” It’s a book full of characters asking: is...
The real reasons why more young women freeze their eggs
Egg freezing is one of today’s fastest-growing reproductive technologies. It's seen as a kind of 'fertility insurance' for the future, but that doesn’...
New details on Canada's first documented 'demon possession'
A demonic possession, a do-it-yourself exorcism, and the execution of an accused witch — welcome to daily life in Quebec City, circa 1660. IDEAS digs...
Can abolishing all political parties topple fascism?
In the aftermath of the First World War, French philosopher Simone Weil had a solution to address the fascism that surged across Europe: abolish polit...
This Italian painter was a feminist before the word existed
*Please note that this episode features descriptions of a sexual assault that some listeners may find disturbing.* Seventeen century artist Artemisia...
Why the practice of empathy is far from simple
In today's fractured world, the many threats facing humanity seems to be an empathy deficit. Writer and journalist Leslie Jamison discusses the compli...
Why 'follow your heart' spirituality is actually religion
Traditional religious institutions have been in decline since the '60s. As congregations dwindle, more Canadians are identifying as 'spiritual.' Socio...
How 60s Scoop 'warriors' reclaimed their Indigenous roots
Leticia Racine calls herself a “Returning Warrior” of the Sixties Scoop. As a child, she was at the centre of a landmark Supreme Court case that paved...
An homage to chickens, a dinosaur, dinner and backyard pet
Chickens are the stars of this podcast today. Our relationship with this living creature, allegedly the closest living relative to the Tyrannosaurus R...
Imprisoned Syrian wrote poetry imagining the fall of the regime. Now it's come true
For 14 years, Syrian poet Faraj Bayrakdar was imprisoned and tortured in a series of prisons. He found refuge in writing poetry. Now, the poems he wro...
How absurdist theatre is an act of resistance
Theatre of the Absurd was born postwar as a recoil against the violent fetish that totalitarian regimes had for “order.” For 75 years, absurdist playw...
How a translation movement made Western philosophers famous
From Greek to Arabic and then to Latin, translators in 8th-century Baghdad eventually brought to Europe the works of Plato, Aristotle, Galen, and othe...
Can we have new pipelines and curb climate change, too?
For the past decade, Canadians have been split 50/50 on new pipelines — that has changed. Two recent opinion polls found roughly three quarters of eli...
Why progressives may not be as 'woke' as they think
Sociologist and journalist Musa al-Gharbi identifies himself as part of an elite class of progressives that he calls: "symbolic capitalists"— knowledg...
Why a proposed 'new capitalism' is so contested
It’s loathed and celebrated, by both the left and right. It's called The Great Reset. To conspiracy theorists, it's a plot by global elites at the Wor...
How hashish may have helped a philosopher envision our future
What happens when original artworks become endless copies? German philosopher Walter Benjamin called it the death of "aura," and his concept predicted...
What life was like for Luke Galati in a psychiatric ward
Writer and filmmaker Luke Galati shares what it is like living with bipolar I disorder and staying in a psychiatric ward — an experience he says feels...
How Inuk activist Aaju Peter learned to 'decolonize' her mind
Aaju Peter was 11 years old when she was taken from her Inuk community in Greenland and sent away to learn the ways of the West. She lost her language...
Can the fierce wars of today end in peace?
If intractable conflicts in the 90s could end in peace agreements, is there hope for the ongoing wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and beyond? What can we...