Ideas at the House

In 2010, journalist Jennifer Senior's magazine story, All Joy and No Fun, became an overnight sensation with its blunt declaration that parents love their children and hate their lives. Anyone who experiences or observes the agony and ecstasy of modern parenting knows that children bring both happiness and misery. We spend more time with our children, but feel guilty about the quality of our parenting and our children are more accomplished yet more depressed than ever before. What does it all mean? 

Jennifer Senior has expanded her idea into a new best-selling book and while she might not have all the answers, her questions cast some much needed light on the reality of parenting today.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When civil war broke out in Somalia in 1991, Elman Ali Ahmed became an ardent peace activist, spreading the mantra "put down the gun, pick up the pen" until his assassination in 1996. Three years ago, his 19-year-old daughter Ilwad Elman returned to Somalia and now runs the Elman Peace and Human Rights Center in Mogadishu with her mother, Fartun Adan. In a country ranked the fifth worst place in the world to be a woman, Ilwad and her mother work with victims of rape, and towards the rehabilitation of child soldiers. For this extraordinary young woman, changing the world means carrying on the work of her parents and rebuilding Somalia, one project at a time.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy has been one of the most visible reporters of the dramatic events in Egypt in recent years. In parallel with her coverage of revolutionary politics has been her call for social and sexual revolutions. Beaten, sexually assaulted and detained by riot police in Cairo in 2011, she called for a holistic campaign against sexual violence in Egypt. Her views on misogyny in the Arab world and what she describes as ' the Islamist hatred of women' have stirred controversy and link the quest for political freedom with radical freedom for women. What does the future hold for both of these revolutions? 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The news is everywhere and we check it constantly - but what is it doing to our minds?

A part of modern society that we take for granted, almost a replacement for religion, the news can be all consuming – but at what cost to the individual? Alain de Botton, bestselling author of Religion for Atheists and sell out success at the Opera House in 2012, dismantles our fixations and neuroses on a range of news categories in News: A User’s Manual. From politics to murders, from economics to celebrities, from the weather to paparazzi shows— he will submits them to unusually intense analysis.

He raises questions like: How come disaster stories are often so uplifting? What makes the love lives of celebrities so interesting? Why do we enjoy politicians being brought down? Why are upheavals in far off lands often so . . . boring?

In The News: A User’s Manual, De Botton shares the ultimate manual for our news-addicted age, one sure to bring calm, understanding and a measure of sanity to our daily (and sometimes even hourly) interactions with the news machine.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Drug taking has moved from being outlawed behaviour, seen only on the fringes of society, to a widely accepted activity, even when illegal. In Britain, for all the talk of a "war on drugs," no one ever tried to wage one. Instead, drug taking has become more and more legally and socially acceptable. We frame drug-taking as either a harmless diversion or, when taken to excess in the form of addiction, as an illness that needs to be cured. Regardless of the impact on physical and mental health, the hard truth is that self-stupefaction of any kind is morally wrong. Drug taking is pure self-indulgence. It prioritises personal pleasure and instant gratification in a way that wreaks havoc with any kind of ethical framework. If we don't want to succumb to a culture of violence, greed, and selfishness, we should make sure that the moral argument about drugs is not pushed aside. Not even the most rabid advocate of legalisation would argue that more drug taking would be a good thing, so let's have the courage to deter it by clearly saying: "it's wrong."

Peter Hitchens is an English journalist and author. His latest book is The War We Never Fought: The British Establishment's Surrender to Drugs.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When natural resources like timber, water and mineral deposits can be extracted from ecosystems, they become assets with dollar values that can be bought and sold internationally and enable developing countries to grow and participate in the global economy. If growth is the key to emerging from poverty, then this might seem like a good thing. But what if these same resources being sold to richer nations come from an ecosystem that people depend on for their livelihood? What if new growth is actually proportional to the creation of new poverty?

The cult of 'growth' has dictated policy for decades. But if well-being, not growth, is our goal, selling resources that bring long term wellbeing to communities for short term gain is a very bad deal. Hard as it may be for the West to understand, protecting the ecological resources of communities might be more important than GDP figures.

Vandana Shiva holds a PhD in physics, but is best known as an environmental, and anti-globalisation activist and as a leading figure of 'ecofeminism.' Shiva is based in India and is the author of over twenty books, including Staying Alive and Biopiracy. She is a former recipient of the Sydney Peace Prize.

Chair: Simran Sethi is an award-winning Indian American journalist. She is currently undergoing a research fellowship at the University of Melbourne in Australia on the loss of agricultural biodiversity in our food system.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When someone commits a crime, we want them punished. If wrongdoers go to prison more often and for longer, everyone seems happy. But we live in a system where people do eventually come out of prison and rejoin the community. And this is where what has happened to them in prison really starts to matter. If prisons are a rank breeding ground for recidivism, where drug use is unchecked and non-violent offenders are initiated into the criminal world, do you want someone who has spent time there living near you? Or would you rather see them going straight back to jail? As incarceration rates grow, if we want anyone who has been to jail to have a chance in life, maybe we need to look at a different approach: the kind of prison model that could make a killer a good neighbour.

Erwin James is a convicted murderer and Guardian journalist. James was released in August 2004 having served 20 years of a life sentence.

Chair: Hamish Macdonald is an Australian broadcaster and news presenter. He is the host and creator of the Network Ten show The Truth Is...?, for which he travelled to Afghanistan, Chernobyl, and a Norwegian jail to reveal surprising truths about issues that seemed mistakenly settled in public debate.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the US, 40% of women are out earning their partners; females are recipients of more -- and higher -- degrees than their male counterparts; and 75% of couples in fertility clinics are requesting girls over boys.

While men once dominated thanks largely to their size and strength, this advantage has been eroded in a post-industrial society. Male-dominated sectors like manufacturing continue to decline in the West while health care and services where women dominate are in the ascendant.

The boys club has begun to dissipate. Not only are feminine traits like social intelligence and open communication increasingly in demand, but women are also increasingly adopting traditional male traits such as aggression. Men, on the other hand, are struggling to make the same move in the other direction. If the past belonged to men, then the future belongs to women. A social equilibrium that existed for millennia has been disrupted -- how will the parts settle after the upheaval? Does the rise of women mean the end of men? And what are the social implications of a change that potentially leaves half the population -- an entire gender -- useless for all but biological purposes (for now)?

Hanna Rosin is an American journalist and author. She is a senior editor at The Atlantic and the editor and founder of DoubleX, Slate's women's section..Her latest book is the best-selling The End of Men and the Rise of Women.

Chair: Julia Baird is a journalist, TV personality, and author of Media Tarts: How the Australian Press Frames Female Politicians. She is currently working on a biography of Queen Victoria.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the US, 40% of women are out earning their partners; females are recipients of more -- and higher -- degrees than their male counterparts; and 75% of couples in fertility clinics are requesting girls over boys.

While men once dominated thanks largely to their size and strength, this advantage has been eroded in a post-industrial society. Male-dominated sectors like manufacturing continue to decline in the West while health care and services where women dominate are in the ascendant.

The boys club has begun to dissipate. Not only are feminine traits like social intelligence and open communication increasingly in demand, but women are also increasingly adopting traditional male traits such as aggression. Men, on the other hand, are struggling to make the same move in the other direction. If the past belonged to men, then the future belongs to women. A social equilibrium that existed for millennia has been disrupted -- how will the parts settle after the upheaval? Does the rise of women mean the end of men? And what are the social implications of a change that potentially leaves half the population -- an entire gender -- useless for all but biological purposes (for now)?

Hanna Rosin is an American journalist and author. She is a senior editor at The Atlantic and the editor and founder of DoubleX, Slate's women's section..Her latest book is the best-selling The End of Men and the Rise of Women.

Chair: Julia Baird is a journalist, TV personality, and author of Media Tarts: How the Australian Press Frames Female Politicians. She is currently working on a biography of Queen Victoria.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Few people would argue with the wonders of connectivity, communication and access to infinite quantities of information that the Internet has enabled. But our understanding of the digital future is shaped by those who are making it, and they often have a vested commercial interest in a mass audience buying what they offer. If we take off our rose-coloured glasses, we see that the wonder-gadgets and techno-solutionism can become just another way to sell us things and if we're not the customer, we're generally the product. The lofty ideals of the early Internet have been hijacked to give every digital touchpoint an illusory benevolence. But the reality is much more ambiguous. The digital future has not been written. We need to avoid utopian complacency and think about our digital lives so we can make sure the Internet lives up to its promise, not its darkest possibilities.

Evgeny Morozov is a Belarusian writer and researcher whose commentary on technology has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Economist, and New Scientist. He is the author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, and most recently, To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.