The Minefield

Why Autocracy Needs Spectacle — with M Gessen

27 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

One of the words we use to describe political authority gone wrong is "autocracy": which is to say, the concentration of power in a unitary figure wh...

Why Autocracy Needs Spectacle — with M Gessen

25 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

One of the words we use to describe political authority gone wrong is “autocracy”: which is to say, the concentration of power in a unitary figur...

Why Autocracy Needs Spectacle — with M Gessen

25 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

One of the words we use to describe political authority gone wrong is “autocracy”: which is to say, the concentration of power in a unitary figur...

Can illegal wars still be legitimate wars?

18 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

It’s like déjà vu all over again. After launching a devastating but limited series of strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities and against the natio...

Ramadan: Politics Straight from the Heart — with Christos Tsiolkas

11 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

If there is something inherently suspicious about political appeals to “the heart” — which is to say, attempts to exploit unreflective prejudic...

Ramadan: ‘Do Not Harden Your Heart’ — with Avril Alba

05 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Over the course of this Ramadan series, we are exploring the contours of a cardiocentric conception of the moral life. The notion of the primacy of t...

Ramadan: Having a ‘Change of Heart’ — with Claire Zorn

25 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Sometimes the language we use every day, often unthinkingly, contains within it traces of a much older wisdom. Consider the phrases “I’ve changed...

Ramadan: The Heart and the Moral Life — with Stephen Darwall

18 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Judging by the way we use the word in everyday speech, we intuitively know what we mean when we refer to “the heart”. We are most often gesturing...

What can headcoverings teach us about individuality, dignity and modesty?

12 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most unyielding aspects of life in the modern West is, perhaps, the ultimate value that we’ve come to accord to appearance. It is as tho...

Can political moderation survive in an age of grievance?

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

One of the common laments we heard last November, as Australia marked the fiftieth anniversary of the dismissal of the Whitlam government, was that A...

From Venezuela to Greenland — how to respond to Trump’s territorial ambitions?

29 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

If there is a single adjective that captures the difference, both in tone and in action, between Donald Trump’s first presidential term and his sec...

What does hate speech do — and why is it so hard to legislate against?

22 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The massacre at Bondi Beach on 14 December 2025 — during which two gunmen targeted a group of Jewish Australians who had gathered to mark the first...

Anna Funder on the ethical and aesthetic problem of monstrous artists

14 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

How should we wrestle with the problem of loving the art, but being unsettled by the behaviour or the beliefs of the artist who created it? It would ...

"There's a horse loose in a hospital": Is John Mulaney a comedic genius?

07 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Could a stand-up routine ever rise to the level of "art" — the kind of performance that rewards multiple viewings, whose humour grows and deepens, ...

The importance of letting someone 'save face'

31 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When saving face is paramount to all other considerations, others invariably pay the price in order for the untrammeled supremacy of the ego to persi...

How do recommendation algorithms affect our sense of taste?

24 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There are few things more peculiar to a person than their preferences; why they favour one genre of music or one style of writing over another. And i...

AI and the cost to human life — with Karen Hao

17 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

AI is sometimes portrayed in utopian terms as the essential technological innovation. At other times, it's described as representing an existential t...

What can we learn about politics from Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s ‘Good and Bad Government’?

10 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It is one of the casualties of democratic politics that citizens rarely remain indifferent about the governments they elect. By investing politicians...

The ethics of life-writing: Memoirs may be popular, but can they be truthful?

03 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the world of book sales, what “romantasy” is to fiction, autobiography/memoir is to non-fiction. There is an undeniable appetite for the purpo...

What will we lose if translation becomes wholly automated?

26 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It feels like, for so much of this year, in one form or another, we’ve been trying to count the costs that technological innovations are exacting o...

‘Adult time for violent crime’? What commitments should guide society’s response to youth crime?

19 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier this month, in response to a disturbing rise in youth crime in Melbourne, Victoria’s Labor government adopted a key policy that the LNP too...

Will weight loss drugs entrench cultural expectations about body size?

12 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ever since 2023, a class of GPL-1 based drugs — which for two decades were used to treat type 2 diabetes — have been heralded as a “revolution ...

Is the experience of beauty slipping away in an age of frictionlessness, speed and AI slop?

05 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The availability of increasingly powerful generative AI tools has radically altered the creative process. Anything that we can imagine can be turned...

Protests are a democratic right that can go wrong — how much should they be restricted?

29 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For the last two years, there has been a steady drumbeat of protests — sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly — in the centre of major Australian ci...

When democracy abandons decency — with George Packer

22 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For the second time this year, millions of people have taken to the streets of cities and towns across the United States in response to the authorita...

Learning to inhabit silence — with Stan Grant

15 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There is no doubt that silence can be a form of cowardice: a refusal to speak up or speak out on behalf of others, an unwillingness to join our voice...

What role should emotion play in the fraught politics of immigration?

08 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The politics of immigration has returned in recent months — and returned with a depth of feeling that suggests it never truly went away. It’s alw...

The ‘fascism’ paradox — with Jason Stanley

01 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In a remarkable column from 1944, George Orwell bemoaned the sheer range of social and political phenomena to which the label “Fascist” was being...

Mailbag — we answer your questions

24 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week is the first ever “Minefield Mailbag”, where Waleed and Scott try to respond to what’s been on our listeners’ minds.The questions t...

Why Charlie Kirk’s assassination is a test for democracy — and of our decency

17 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It would be hard to overstate the significance of Charlie Kirk within the conservative movement and in the Trump administration. By some reckoning, h...

Bonus episode: Jane Austen’s enduring charm

15 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In August, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh from The Bookshelf on Radio National, teamed up with the indomitable Sophie Gee — Professor of English a...

What are we doing when we let someone ‘save face’?

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Whether it is in geopolitics or in social and personal relationships, the overweening desire to “save face” can have manifestly unjust and outrig...

The threat that AI poses to human life — with Karen Hao

03 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There is something undeniably disorienting about the way AI features in public and political discussions.On some days, it is portrayed in utopian, al...

Are there inherent limits on what should be said in public debate?

27 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the middle of August, the Bendigo Writers Festival found itself at the centre of a firestorm after over fifty participants decided to withdraw —...

If AI causes widespread job losses, is a Universal Basic Income the solution?

20 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week the federal government’s much-anticipated, and just as hyped, Economic Reform Roundtable has gotten underway. Central to the agenda is ...

Should childcare be offered by for-profit providers?

13 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In March, an ABC Four Corners investigation detailed widespread instances of abuse, injury and neglect in childcare centres across the country. Just...

What does it mean to be committed to ‘net zero’?

06 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At the end of July, there was a strange juxtaposition of events that seemed almost designed to highlight the fault-lines which run through the politi...

What would be achieved by recognising a Palestinian state?

30 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On 24 July, French President Emmanuel Macron announced his intention to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September, as pa...

What are recommendation algorithms doing to our sense of taste?

23 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There are few things more peculiar to a person than their preferences. Why it is they enjoy one genre of music over another, or a particular artist w...

Why are regressive expressions of masculinity now so popular?

16 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In a justly famous 1910 essay titled “The Moral Equivalent of War”, the American philosopher William James rejected the “fatalistic view” tha...

“There’s a horse loose in a hospital”: What John Mulaney gets right about (non-)political comedy

09 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Could a stand-up routine ever rise to the level of “art” — the kind of performance that rewards multiple viewings, whose humour grows and deepe...

What is “content” doing to our sense of value?

02 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In a digital age, it’s all about “content”. The post or tweet or reel or video or pod is nothing without something in it that permits it to be ...

Can the cinematic genius of “Jaws” overcome its problematic legacy?

25 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As soon as it was published in February 1974, Peter Benchley’s novel “Jaws” was a sensation and remained on the New York Times best-seller list...

Israel/Iran: What are the ethical and legal limits of self-defence?

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On 12 June, Israel initiated a devastating series of strikes on Iran — the goal of which was evidently to diminish the nation’s increasingly prob...

Where to now for conservative politics in Australia?

11 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Between 1996 and 2022, for all but a brief and tumultuous six-year hiatus, the Coalition has governed Australia. Over this period, not only did the L...

The moral problem of monstrous artists, with Anna Funder: Live from the Sydney Writers’ Festival

04 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It is a problem many people increasingly feel they can neither avoid nor ignore: we could characterise it as the problem of loving the art, but being...

“Progressive patriotism” — is it an idea whose time has come?

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Fresh from a commanding victory at the federal election, Anthony Albanese began to bundle his campaign policy offerings together in a new package —...

Why is our response to humanitarian crises so complicated — and inconsistent?

21 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last two years, many in Australia and around the world have watched in horror as Sudan, Gaza and other zones of mass violence descend into h...

Is it only “joy” when it’s shared?

14 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“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 ca...

Australian voters have spoken — do we know what they said?

07 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Is disillusionment a feature of democratic politics, not a bug?

30 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Democracy is often lauded as a peculiarly just and effective form of government — one that enjoys the benefits that flow from twin virtues of popul...

What are we doing when we vote?

23 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 m...

Can Australia’s federal election escape the shadow of Donald Trump?

16 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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...

AI in education — is it a technology to be feared, or a tool to be taught?

09 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Are we on the brink of a world without books? On Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”

05 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 N...

Ramadan: Is hope a flimsy emotion, or can it grow from devastation?

26 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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. F...

Ramadan: Is optimism a virtue, or a form of moral evasion?

19 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For the last two episodes, we’ve been discussing what might be called negative or aversive responses to radical disappointment with the world — e...

Ramadan: Should we try to live without fear, or learn to face it together?

12 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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....

Ramadan: Is despair always detrimental, or can it give rise to hope?

04 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 g...

Are “firewalls” the best way to counteract the appeal of the far-right?

26 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 —...

How hate speech in healthcare tears at something sacred in our common life

19 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At a time when the Australian community seems to be so deeply divided along multiple faultlines, there was something somewhat heartening about being ...

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

12 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 2016, the Western Bulldogs made an improbable run to the AFL Grand Final. The seventh-place team would beat the minor premiers, the Sydney Swans, ...

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

05 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There are few jobs in professional sports that are more important, and more unforgiving, than that of coach. Their most significant work is invisible...

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

29 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 School of Sport: Madison de Rozario and the importance of pride

22 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Within certain religious traditions, pride is a “special sin” because it involves an overestimation of one’s self — making oneself a little “...

The School of Sport: Why does sport bring out the worst in some athletes?

15 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Is Australia breaking?

08 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

One of Australia's greatest strengths has been the remarkable diversity of its multicultural society. But is this also a potential source of weakness...

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

01 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ethics of "Groundhog Day"

25 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

During the pandemic, there was a sudden renewal of interest in Harold Ramis's 1993 film "Groundhog Day" — especially its bleaker aspects. But this ...

Are we losing a sense of "the common"?

18 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Because our lives are increasingly tailor-made, we are constantly seeking ways of distinguishing ourselves from others. What is being lost through it...

The necessity of withdrawing

11 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Are periodic bouts of withdrawal from life’s urgent demands and heated debates necessary to regain a sense of our shared humanity, and to renew the...

What are we doing when we give gifts?

04 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Poised as we are at the brink of our great annual festival of shopping, wrapping, giving and exchanging, we can sometimes forget just how ethically c...

Bonus episode: Can democracy be saved with decency? A public lecture by Scott Stephens

03 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Democracy is in retreat, authoritarianism on the rise. But this has happened before. So how did big thinkers of the past respond to the threats to de...

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

27 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In December 1974, “The Godfather, Part II” premiered in New York City. Following the unlikely success and unexpected acclaim that his 1972 adapta...

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

20 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Since the start of November, the Australian government has made two significant announcements aimed at preventing the harms that social media platfor...

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

13 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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

06 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

“Donald Trump is no longer an aberration; he is normative.” Such is the assessment of Peter Wehner — a Republican strategist and former advise...

Is the concept of “evil” worth retaining?

31 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 tha...

Should revenge have any place in our politics?

23 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There is something undeniably satisfying about revenge. When we feel we have been aggrieved, harmed or humiliated, it is natural to want payback. In ...

Can democracy survive the perfect storm of disinformation?

16 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Just weeks before a US presidential election, a combination of political mendacity, the perverse incentives offered by social media platforms, and op...

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

09 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and the outcome of the Brexit referendum, “populism” became the catch-all diagnosis for everything the...

What is it that makes “negative gearing” such a divisive tax policy?

03 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The policy of negative gearing — which gives the owners of investment properties an unlimited ability to deduct losses from their overall taxable i...

“Truths that lie too deep for taint”: Wilfred Owen’s war poetry in our blood-soaked present

25 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The war poetry of Wilfred Owen refuses the comfort of hollow consolation in response to the mass loss of life — it also urges the sacrifice of the ...

Can modern politics avoid propaganda?

18 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

With the US presidential election on the horizon, to say nothing of a number of Australian elections, our airwaves, news sites and social media feeds...

Will Australia’s proposed cap on international students do more harm than good?

11 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Given the dependence of many Australian universities on international student fees, a significant drop in enrolments with no corresponding increase i...

Festival of Dangerous Ideas: Is Australia breaking?

04 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

One of Australia’s greatest strengths has been the remarkable diversity of its multicultural society. But is this also a potential source of weakne...

“Freedom!”: Why can’t US politics agree on the meaning of its most basic principle?

28 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Even for a nation obsessed with the concept of “freedom” — or perhaps it would be better to say, concepts, not all of them easily reconciled, s...

Coleman Hughes, “colourblindness”, and the contentious politics of race

21 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In democracies with a history of racial injustice, are “colourblindness” and recognition of a “common humanity” — which were at the heart o...

“We live in a society!”: Seinfeld’s “Bizarro” comedy of morals

14 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When the first episode of Seinfeld went to air in 1989, it faced stiff competition from a packed field of American sitcoms. By its finale in 1998, th...

“I don’t want to join any club that would have me as a member”: How funny is irony meant to be?

07 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Humour can often be a response to the sense of being ill-at-home in society — perhaps even ill-at-home in the world. But whether it takes the form ...

“Time now for just a bit of fun”: Shaun Micallef on the importance of being silly

31 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In one form or another, comedy often proceeds from a certain exaggeration of life — exaggerated bodily movements, or facial expressions, or scenari...

“And now for something completely different”: Why do surprises provoke laughter?

24 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Immanuel Kant called laughter a form of the disappointment of the understanding — which is to say, surprise — for which the body then compensates...

Political violence — why is it so corrosive to democratic life?

17 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump, while undeniably shocking, was not altogether surprising. It was just the latest blo...

“There’s a crack in everything”: Richard Fidler on the art of absurdity

10 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Comedy happens when something occurs that makes visible just how futile are our most earnest efforts, and how superficial are our solemnities, our mo...

In a bespoke and individualistic age, are we losing a sense of “the common”?

03 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Because our lives are increasingly tailor-made, we are constantly seeking ways of distinguishing ourselves from others. What is being lost through it...

Beatlemania at 60: Why was the band so popular before they were even great?

26 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Beatles composed their best music in the years after 1965 — so what could account for the ecstatic response the band received in the United Sta...

Right verdict, wrong case? The political dangers of Trump’s felony conviction

19 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On 30 May 2024, after two days of deliberation following a five-week trial and hearing the testimony of 22 witnesses, a jury of 12 New Yorkers found ...

Is the rise of the far right in Europe inevitable? It’s complicated

12 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The results of the recent European Parliament elections have only fuelled the growing concern across the member nations of the European Union that fa...

Is it wrong to "rank" works of art?

05 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Apple Music recently released its list of the “100 Best Albums”. It was, without question, a clever marketing technique — but one that raises...

Is international law powerless in the face of conflicts like Gaza?

29 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

At a time when so many eyes are on international courts, is their apparent failure to protect civilians in Gaza — or to punish the perpetrators of ...