Socialist and journalist Musa al-Gharbi identifies himself as part of an elite class of progressives that he calls: "symbolic capitalists" -- knowledge workers with elevated salaries and cultural status like professors, broadcasters, and bankers. He says it's the top 20 per cent, not the notorious one per cent, who pose a substantial impediment to progress.

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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 World Economic Forum to control our lives. To its supporters, it represents a gentler, more humane form of capitalism. IDEAS contributor Ira Basen lays out the origins, its aims and its potential, for both good and ill. *This episode originally aired on May 23, 2023.

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What happens when original artworks become endless copies? German philosopher Walter Benjamin called it the death of "aura," and his concept predicted our digital age. He describes "aura" as the energy that encases an object. In the '20s, Benjamin experimented with hashish under medical supervision, and his thinking while on drugs evolved to a theory of art history. 

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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 like being in a fish bowl. While being hospitalized meant he lost his sense of freedom and control, he never lost hope. Luke's documentary is both a personal essay and a series of conversations with health-care professionals and others who have bipolar disorder. *This episode originally aired on Feb. 11, 2025.

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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 and culture. The activist, lawyer, designer, musician, filmmaker, and prolific teacher takes IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed on a tour of Iqaluit and into a journey to decolonization that continues still. *This episode originally aired on January 29, 2025.

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 learn from the successes and failures of the past about how to create a more peaceful world? And what solutions are obstructed by lack of will? Nahlah Ayed and guests explore what peacemaking and rebuilding mean for us today, and try to chart a course for the future. *This is the last episode in our five-part series, Inventing Peace. +

Rhythm is more than a fundamental feature of music. It's what makes us human. Rhythm begins in the womb and the heartbeat. And neuroscience research reveals that for the rest of our lives, rhythm will continue to have a core impact on our innermost selves: how we learn to walk, read and even bond with others. Rhythm — as one researcher puts it — is life. *This episode originally aired on April 30, 2020.

Air is one of the most essential elements for human life. Yet even though we depend on air, we humans are dramatically changing the atmosphere — making the air unbearably hot in some parts of the world, unbreathable in the most polluted parts of the world, and pushing the climate toward tipping points. As humans who caused this, we have to adapt to ways we’ve altered our air.

For thousands of years, Shipwrecks have been a mainstay trope of literature and storytelling. IDEAS dives into the history of shipwreck tales to discover the allure of maritime disaster, why they resonate today, and why life so often feels like it’s heading for the rocks.

As the United Nations turns 80, calls for reform are louder than ever. Against the backdrop of multiple global crises, strongman diplomacy and rising threats from climate change to AI, a growing campaign is calling on the UN to revisit the outdated charter established in 1945 and work on reinventing the organization. 

"We need to start rethinking what kind of institution we would like to establish to make sure the 21st century does not become as violent as the 20th century," says Tim Murithi, head of the Peacebuilding Interventions Program at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation.

The apartheid era in South Africa ended in 1991 with the National Peace Accords. The peace agreement also paved the way for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Yet TRC head Desmond Tutu considered the process “scandalously unfinished.” Lawyer Prakash Diar agrees: "You don’t undo centuries of colonization just like that.”

Diar and writer Kagiso Lesego Molope were young activists in apartheid-era South Africa. They saw the toll that oppression and state violence took: on their families, communities, and themselves. In our fourth episode of our series Inventing Peace, they consider the history of the history of this pivotal peace agreement and what other countries might learn.

An Ontario trucking union predicts a shortage of 30,000 truckers in Canada as old hands retire faster than new ones take on the job. IDEAS producer Tom Howell visits a trucking school in northern Ontario, where recruits consider their options, and the road ahead. *This episode originally aired on March 4, 2024.

Eight composers, five instruments, and a world of metal. IDEAS explores a project by the University of British Columbia called The Heavy Metal Suite that conveys the challenges and opportunities of the mining industry, through music. Each composer draws inspiration from their country’s mineral resources in their original pieces. *This episode originally aired on May 28, 2024.

In June 1985, Air India Flight 182 exploded off the coast of Ireland. It's considered the worst terror attack in Canadian history. Sujata Berry's 16-year-old brother, Sharad was on that flight. The shock of his horrific death morphed into an unshakeable grief. The family's sorrow was augmented with the lack of justice for victims' families — a flawed investigation, evidence lost and what Sujata says was "an unsatisfactory verdict." It's taken Sujata 40 years to chip away at her grief and try to understand what happened to her and her family. She explores love, loss and the grief that binds them in her documentary, All that Remains.

Smell this yogurt, is it still good? Our sense of smell has the ability to keep us healthy and safe. In fact in some cases, our ability to detect "off" foods using our sense of smell can be superior to dogs and other animals. Smell is often undervalued and yet capable of inspiring profound admiration if we stop turning our noses at it. Producer Annie Bender examines what we lose when we take our powerful — but often misunderstood — sense of smell for granted. *This episode originally aired on June 3, 2024.

For almost four years, the Bosnian War in the former Yugoslavia was characterized by ethnic hatreds, atrocities, and a refugee crisis. So when leaders of the warring factions were sequestered in an American air base and forced to come up with the 1995 peace agreement known as the Dayton Accord, the world was relieved. But is a cessation of violence the same as real peace? *This episode is the third in a five-part series called Inventing Peace.

Acclaimed author Gabor Maté joins the conversation in part two of our series exploring Wilhelm von Humboldt’s public education system. Maté is a former English teacher. In this episode we ask: Is Humboldt's 200-year-old system equipped to meet the challenging demands of the 21st century? And does it still reflect his ideals, especially at the university level? *This episode concludes our two-part series. It originally aired on April 16, 2024.

Ahead of the Massey tour, Alex Neve sits down with Nahlah Ayed to talk about his lectures, Universal: Renewing Human Rights in a Fractured World. 

This year, the lectures are coming to: 

Toronto, Sept. 19

Vancouver, Sept. 25

Edmonton, Oct. 1

Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Oct. 15

Ottawa, Oct. 30

Tickets are available now for the 2025 CBC Massey Lectures — and selling fast! For information on how to get tickets, go to cbc.ca/masseys. 

Two hundred years ago, Wilhelm von Humboldt created the education system as we know it today. At the heart of his philosophy of education was the concept of Bildung — reaching one's inner potential. Yet over the years, as his public education system was adopted, Bildung may well have been the critical piece left out. *This episode is part one of two-part series. It originally aired on April 15, 2024.

In the 19th-century, feminist and scholar Pandita Ramabai travelled America delivering lectures on how the caste system and patriarchy shaped the trajectory of women’s lives. When she came back to India, she explained America's customs around gender and race relations, and their experiment with democracy. IDEAS explores her rich life and legacy.

Guests in this episode:

Radha Vatsal is the author of No. 10 Doyers Street (March 2025), as well as the author of the Kitty Weeks mystery novels. Born and raised in Mumbai, India, she earned her Ph.D. in Film History from Duke University and has worked as a film curator, political speechwriter, and freelance journalist.

Tarini Bhamburkar is a research affiliate at the University of Bristol. Her research explores cross-racial networks and international connections built by British and Indian women's feminist periodical press between 1880 and 1910, which sowed the seeds of the transnational Suffrage movement of the early 20th century. 

Sandeep Banerjee is an associate professor of English at McGill University and a scholar of Global Anglophone and World literature, with a focus on the literary and cultural worlds of colonial and postcolonial South Asia. 

Readings by Aparita Bhandari and Pete Morey.