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Ideas Matter Podcast is home to talks from leading contemporary thinkers on the most important political and cultural issues and intellectual trends of our times. Many were recorded at or reflect the topics discussed at Ideas Matter events, including Living Freedom summer school, The Academy residential weekend and Debating Matters schools debating competition.
Episodes
Friday Jun 27, 2025
Friday Jun 27, 2025
Shakespeare isn’t just a relic of the past—he is one of the foundational figures of Western civilisation. Yet today, activists and cultural gatekeepers seek to reduce him to just another “dead white man,” claiming his legacy is nothing more than a product of colonialism and outdated values. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
In this talk, Andrew Doyle dismantles these ideological attacks and makes the case for Shakespeare’s enduring importance. His works capture the complexities of human nature, shape our cultural identity, and stand as monuments to the heights of artistic achievement. But in an age where art is expected to serve politics, where great works are rewritten to fit ideological narratives, and where our cultural institutions are captured by identity politics, what is at stake if we let these voices tear down our greatest playwright?
📖 Topics Covered:
Why Shakespeare is a cornerstone of Western civilisation
How ideological activists distort art to serve their agenda
The danger of politicised theatre and bad modern adaptations
Why Shakespeare’s plays are universal, not “Eurocentric”
The conditions that allowed Shakespeare to emerge—and why we may never see his like again
🎭 “If you read Shakespeare through the lens of identity politics, you’re not reading Shakespeare at all.”
This isn’t just a defence of a playwright—it’s a defence of the cultural heritage under attack.
Tuesday Jun 24, 2025
Tuesday Jun 24, 2025
Primo Levi is the modern conscience of Europe. Yet our culture warriors downgrade his searing witness to Auschwitz into just another lesson in victimhood or, worse, try and downplay the significance of the holocaust into one of many.
This lecture we restores Levi’s grim brilliance – and expose today’s relativists who would rather talk about “systems” than evil.
📖 Topics Covered
• Why Levi, aged 25, wrote If This Is a Man at break-neck speed – he feared we’d forget
• Auschwitz as a laboratory in total domination – Hannah Arendt’s warning brought to life
• Greek, Italian and French solidarity versus German barbarism – a civilisation stress-test
• How post-war publishers mangled the title into Survival in Auschwitz – and why that ruins the point
• The poverty of modern Holocaust education – classrooms that churn out relativist drivel
• What is lost when we treat genocide as just another case study in “trauma studies”
🎙️ Quote to remember “Consider if this is a man… carve it in your hearts.” – Levi turns the Shema into a moral bayonet.
🔥 Takeaway This talk is not a weepy exercise in guilt-mongering. It is a defence of civilisation – and a challenge to those who prefer moral fog to moral clarity.
Monday Aug 21, 2023
Monday Aug 21, 2023
Trigger warnings and microaggression policies have become increasingly familiar on campus. But while we can snigger at ‘de-stressing parties’ with colouring books, are students any different from the rest of society? After all, many people believe we face an unprecedented range of threats. Anxiety allied to yearning for safety is evident in warnings over formula milk and processed foods, panics over drink-spiking and catcalling, and paranoid parenting that is creating a generation of ‘cotton wool’ kids.
What happened to resilience and how do we explain our existential insecurity? What is the balance between safety and freedom, and how do we successfully argue for taking risks? In the face of society-wide preoccupation with safety, what are the arguments we need today to renew the case for liberty?
SPEAKERS
Ella Whelan, journalist; co-convenor of the Battle of Ideas Festival
READ ON
Letter on Liberty: The case for women’s freedom Ella Whelan, Academy of Ideas, July 2022 https://academyofideas.org.uk/letters-on-liberty-the-case-for-womens-freedom/
Letter on Liberty: Beyond the Harm Principle Rob Lyons, Academy of Ideas https://academyofideas.org.uk/letters-on-liberty-beyond-the-harm-principle/
The danger of safetyism Matthew Crawford, UnHerd, 15 May 2021 https://unherd.com/2020/05/the-hypocrisy-of-safetyism/
LIVING FREEDOM
Living Freedom exists to renew freedom through education and debate, offering young adults the opportunity to explore ideas and debate ideals as they relate to the past, present, and future of freedom. See https://livingfreedom.org.uk/ and @LivingFreedomUK
IDEAS MATTER PODCAST
Ideas Matter is a podcast that takes the most important issues of our times and explores the ideas and intellectual trends that have shaped where we are today. Subscribe via Spotify, iTunes, Podbean or SoundCloud.
Email us at info@ideasmatter.org.uk
Wednesday Aug 16, 2023
Wednesday Aug 16, 2023
Features the discussion ‘The ‘stolen years’: understanding the lockdowns’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023.
It’s not surprising lockdown was experienced as an era of loneliness, anxiety and fear. In every arena, freedom, autonomy and social life were restricted in favour of Zoom calls, family bubbles, and vaccine passports. Some say we are seeing a permanent shift in the experience of growing up. But to what extent has Covid given rise to a distinct generational outlook? Have habits of fraternity and solidarity been damaged irreparably or can we rescue the idea of freedom from widespread fatalism?
LECTURER
Dr Jennie Bristow sociologist, co-author, The Corona Generation
READ ON
Why do young people still support lockdowns? Max Mitchell, UnHerd, 25 March 2023
Generation CUB – how the events of Covid, Ukraine and Brexit will shape our teenagers’ lives forever Jennie Bristow, Telegraph, 10 March 2022
LIVING FREEDOM
Living Freedom exists to renew freedom through education and debate, offering young adults the opportunity to explore ideas and debate ideals as they relate to the past, present, and future of freedom. See www.livingfreedom.org.uk and @LivingFreedomUK
IDEAS MATTER PODCAST
Ideas Matter is a podcast that takes the most important issues of our times and explores the ideas and intellectual trends that have shaped where we are today.
Subscribe via Spotify, iTunes, Podbean or SoundCloud.
Email us at info@ideasmatter.org.uk
Tuesday Aug 08, 2023
Tuesday Aug 08, 2023
Features the discussion ‘What does it mean to be human in a world of generative AI?’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023.
People are fascinated, amused and alarmed – often all three at once, at the generative AI tools that have taken the internet by storm over the last year. Some people welcome the new possibilities that these tools seem to offer for human creativity and flourishing. Others fear the consequences – from students getting AI to write their homework, to artists and journalists losing their livelihood to AI, to reputations being ruined and public discourse polluted by AI-generated scams and 'deepfakes'. What 20th-century events and philosophies originally shaped the invention of AI? What 21st-century phenomena are shaping the way we understand AI now? Will generative AI add to, or detract from, the meaning in our lives?
LECTURER
Sandy Starr deputy director, Progress Educational Trust, author of the Letter on Liberty AI: Separating Man from Machine
READ ON
Computing machinery and intelligence Alan Turing, Mind, Volume LIX, Issue 236, October 1950, Pages 433–460
The cynical hysteria around AI Timandra Harkness, UnHerd, 2 June 2023
LIVING FREEDOM
Living Freedom exists to renew freedom through education and debate, offering young adults the opportunity to explore ideas and debate ideals as they relate to the past, present, and future of freedom. See www.livingfreedom.org.uk and @LivingFreedomUK
IDEAS MATTER PODCAST
Ideas Matter is a podcast that takes the most important issues of our times and explores the ideas and intellectual trends that have shaped where we are today.
Subscribe via Spotify, iTunes, Podbean or SoundCloud.
Email us at info@ideasmatter.org.uk
Sunday Jul 30, 2023
Sunday Jul 30, 2023
Features the discussion ‘The dangers of progress?’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023.
Historically, the quest for freedom was often understood to be bound up with the ideal of progress, but today, society seems less certain of the benefits of progress.
Key features of modernity such as urbanisation, mobility, secularism and affluence are often deemed counterproductive to liberty. How should we define ‘progress’ and how do we account for collapsing belief in its benefits? Are progress and tradition necessarily in direct and bloody competition or can we make the case for a creative tension worth celebrating for social benefits? From industry to the internet, cars to contraceptive pills, has progress gone too far and become a threat to contemporary freedoms?
LECTURERS
Nina Power writer and philosopher; senior editor, Compact
Ralph Schoellhammer political theorist, Webster Vienna Private University
READ ON
Socialism or Barbie-ism, Nina Power, Compact, 24 July 2023
Degrowth is a suicidal ideology, Ralph Schoellhammer, 30 May 2023
LIVING FREEDOM
Living Freedom exists to renew freedom through education and debate, offering young adults the opportunity to explore ideas and debate ideals as they relate to the past, present, and future of freedom. See www.livingfreedom.org.uk and @LivingFreedomUK
IDEAS MATTER PODCAST
Ideas Matter is a podcast that takes the most important issues of our times and explores the ideas and intellectual trends that have shaped where we are today.
Subscribe via Spotify, iTunes, Podbean or SoundCloud.
Email us at info@ideasmatter.org.uk
Sunday Jul 23, 2023
Sunday Jul 23, 2023
Features the lecture ‘‘Dystopian or dysfunctional? The 21st-century state’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023.
In recent years, governments have appeared directionless and often incompetent. Institutions riven with disputes over cultural values seem unsure of what they stand for. Crisis seems to be the word of the year - energy crisis, cost-of-living crisis, climate crisis, housing crisis – meaning a ‘state of emergency’ is now ubiquitous. What is distinct about today’s elites and their attempts to exercise authority? How should we understand the relationship between authority and authoritarian? For those keen to make the case for freedom, what should we be concerned about today and how do we make the case for renewing liberty?
LECTURER
Josie Appleton director, Manifesto Club; author, Officious: Rise of the Busybody state.
READ ON
The emergency addiction Josie Appleton, Notes on Freedom, 21 May 2023
Officious: Rise of the busybody state, Zer0 Books, 2016
LIVING FREEDOM
Living Freedom exists to renew freedom through education and debate, offering young adults the opportunity to explore ideas and debate ideals as they relate to the past, present, and future of freedom. See www.livingfreedom.org.uk and @LivingFreedomUK
IDEAS MATTER PODCAST
Ideas Matter is a podcast that takes the most important issues of our times and explores the ideas and intellectual trends that have shaped where we are today.
Subscribe via Spotify, iTunes, Podbean or SoundCloud.
Email us at info@ideasmatter.org.uk
Sunday Jul 16, 2023
Sunday Jul 16, 2023
Features the lecture ‘Freedom in the age of identity politics’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023.
Loved or loathed, identity politics is inescapable in contemporary battles over freedom. To some, the political embrace of the personal is a vital tool in the struggle against oppressive institutions and practices. To others, identitarian politics is a divisive force in society and represents the antithesis of liberal ideals. In making the case for the free individual, how do we avoid reducing freedom to a lifestyle or consumer choice? Beyond the culture war of identity politics, how should we seek to construct a sense of ourselves and of freedom today?
LECTURER
Dr Joanna Williams, director, Cieo, columnist, spiked, and author of How Woke Won: The Elitist Movement That Threatens Democracy, Tolerance and Reason
READ ON
Freedom in the age of identity politics, Joanna Williams, CIEO, 2023
How identity politics destroys freedom, Roger Scruton, Acton Institute, September 2021
LIVING FREEDOM
Living Freedom exists to renew freedom through education and debate, offering young adults the opportunity to explore ideas and debate ideals as they relate to the past, present, and future of freedom. See www.livingfreedom.org.uk and @LivingFreedomUK
IDEAS MATTER PODCAST
Ideas Matter is a podcast that takes the most important issues of our times and explores the ideas and intellectual trends that have shaped where we are today. Subscribe via Spotify, iTunes, Podbean or SoundCloud.
Email us at info@ideasmatter.org.uk
Sunday Jul 09, 2023
Sunday Jul 09, 2023
Features the lecture ‘Freedom of conscience: 21st century challenges’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023.
For many centuries, in religious and secular times alike, societies have wrestled with dilemmas as to how we should live in accordance with our inner-most thoughts and beliefs. What should we understand by the term freedom of conscience, how did it emerge and why is it so important? What are the main threats to conscience-based freedoms today?
LECTURER
Professor Frank Furedi, sociologist and social commentator; author, 100 years of identity crisis and How Fear Works: culture of fear in the 21st century.
READ ON
On Tolerance: A Defence of Moral Independence, Frank Furedi, Continuum, 2011
There is nothing wrong with unconscious bias Don't let them control your thoughts! Frank Furedi, Roots and Wings, 29 August 2022
LIVING FREEDOM
Living Freedom exists to renew freedom through education and debate, offering young adults the opportunity to explore ideas and debate ideals as they relate to the past, present and future of freedom. See www.livingfreedom.org.uk and @LivingFreedomUK
IDEAS MATTER PODCAST
Ideas Matter is a podcast that takes the most important issues of our times and explores the ideas and intellectual trends that have shaped where we are today. Subscribe via Spotify, iTunes, Podbean or SoundCloud.
Email us at info@ideasmatter.org.uk
Wednesday Apr 19, 2023
Wednesday Apr 19, 2023
Living Freedom Forum in London in April explored Artificial Intelligence and the implications for freedom. Generative AI like ChatGPT and Midjourney have captured the public imagination and barely a day now passes without claim and counter-claim as to benefits or threats posed by artificial intelligence. But what actually is generative technology? How have we come to realise this new technology? And what are the potential benefits and threats?
Speaker: Sandy Starr, deputy director of the Progress Educational Trust
To find out more about Living Freedom visit livingfreedom.org.uk/