Ideas from CBC Radio (Highlights)

It's been 75 years since Albert Camus published "L'Étranger". And it continues to be the most translated book from French into English. Radio Canada producer Danny Braun speaks with a novelist, a rapper, some academics and a former death row inmate to delve into the enduring appeal of L'Étranger — both to the intellect and to the heart.

Does democracy have a future? It's a question is being asked in democracies everywhere. People are frustrated with politics and politicians. And politicians appear weary of democracy. Now populist uprisings to protect the status quo are threatening the foundations of democracy itself. Michael Sandel, world-renowned political philosopher at Harvard University, delivers the 2017 LaFontaine-Baldwin Lecture.

On this month's edition of The Enright Files, some of North America’s most astute political philosophers discuss the perplexing and troubling political trends of our times.

How can we fix our broken world? And what does it actually mean to love your neighbour? Just some of the questions raised by Payam Akhavan in the 2017 CBC Massey Lectures — on air, and on tour. We also invited you, our listeners, to send us your questions. In this episode, excerpts from the audience discussions after the five lectures, along with Payam Akhavan in conversation with Paul Kennedy answering questions sent in by listeners.

In the horrors of the Iraq war and the depredations of ISIS, basic human dignity collapsed: people did unimaginable things to each other, the abnormal became normal. And Payam Akhavan saw this human disease everywhere- Congo, Uganda, and here in Canada too. Much of the evil we do, he argues, comes from mistaken ideas of religion and what we think God wants of us; the reality is that we need new ideas about our responsibilities to each other, and to listen better to that inner spirit we all have, the spirit of human rights.

The collapse of the Soviet Union, the falling of the twin towers, and ultimately the implosion of Afghanistan, were momentous events that divided families, destroyed and created friendships, and showed the human spirit in its worst and best aspects. We live in a unitary world, and Payam Akhavan’s travels through the wreckage of the post 9-11 wars show him that there’s only one way forward.

In the 1990’s the world watched in horror as the Hutus of Rwanda massacred their neighbours, the Tutsis. There was no great will to intervene, but Payam Akhavan was part of the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal that might bring war criminals to justice in the aftermath of the killings. What causes such atrocities, and who are the people who do these things to each other? And what can we learn so these things don’t happen again?

At least as far back as the American Civil war, people were trying to figure out some rules for war. Right through the two world wars we were sorting out what seemed morally acceptable in international conflict. But by 1995, and the war in Bosnia, the rules seemed to have gone out the window. Payam Akhavan walked the streets of Sarajevo with the UN, among the first working to bring justice into the aftermath of that bloody conflict.

Payam Akhavan tells the story of how, in the 1970’s, his family was forced to flee from the Iran of Ayatollah Khomeini. It was a time when the world realized that “democracy” wouldn’t naturally take root everywhere. A story of an awakening to human rights, of friends and families broken and destroyed, of ideals crushed, and of the growing realization he had, as a young man, that Canada offered the possibility to participate in the making of a better world.

As we move towards legalization of cannabis, we look at that other drug that many of us already have in our homes and use on a daily basis: alcohol. How did we start using it? How does it affect our health and society? And given the latest scientific research, should we still drink it?

From the Civil War to Iraq, photographic images of conflict sear themselves onto our consciousness, and reside in a psychic space that lies beyond words. Yet we so rarely hear from the people who create the images of some of the most definitive events in modern history. This documentary features over twenty of the world's most prominent photojournalists and photo editors, and does so in their own voices.

It's a horror classic from the 1960s that still unnerves us. It’s influenced generations of filmmakers. It's part of the exclusive Criterion Collection of world cinema. And it turns 50 this year. But director Roman Polanski is a convicted rapist. Film experts and cultural historians explore good and evil in Rosemary's Baby, discover eerie parallels between 1968 and 2018, and debate the movie's surprising treatment of women, all to answer the question: can we save Rosemary’s Baby?

When NHL legend Ken Dryden was about to publish his book, "Game Change", he got in touch with Harvard psychologist and linguist, Steven Pinker, who was about to publish "Enlightenment Now". Their common ground: what does it actually take to change someone's mind? The two talk to Paul Kennedy about the relationship of rhetoric and reason.

We've usually thought that people in comas or 'vegetative' states are completely cut off from the world. But groundbreaking work shows that as much as 20 per cent of patients whose brains were considered non-responsive, turn out to be vibrantly alive, existing in a sort of twilight zone. Neuroscientist Adrian Owen guides Paul Kennedy into that “gray” zone, in conversation and in a public talk.

Whether it’s redressing historical wrongs, new hate speech legislation, or safe spaces as a human right: when does the desire to accommodate aggrieved groups become censorship? And what's truly at stake? A debate from London’s “Battle of Ideas”.