Democracy is Not Worth Dying for (2024) - Geraldine Doogue, Masha Gessen, Paul Ham & David Runciman

Democracy is Not Worth Dying for (2024) - Geraldine Doogue, Masha Gessen, Paul Ham & David Runciman

Author: Festival of Dangerous Ideas February 5, 2025 Duration: 1:00:53

Democracy has often been presented as an ideal, where citizens can participate and benefit from a fair society. But as we face growing inequality, political turmoil, and loss of faith in modern life, the price of preserving democracy might be proving too steep. 

 

Masha Gessen is an opinion columnist for The New York Times and a Distinguished Professor at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. They have written extensively on The Russian-Ukrainian war, Israel/Palestine, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump. 

Paul Ham is an author and former Sunday Times correspondent, with a Master's degree from the London School of Economics. Paul lives in Paris and devotes his time to writing history and (when possible) to teaching Narrative History at Sciences Po, France's preeminent tertiary school for the humanities.

David Runciman is Professor of Politics at the University of Cambridge and was Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies from 2014-2018.

Chaired by journalist, Geraldine Doogue.


For more than a decade, the Festival of Dangerous Ideas has curated a space where provocative thinking isn't just welcomed, it's the entire point. This podcast is a direct line to that stage, offering an archive of talks that deliberately unsettle comfortable opinions and interrogate the stubborn problems we often agree to ignore. Each episode captures a live conversation from Australia's original disruptive ideas festival, presenting arguments that can be exhilarating, uncomfortable, and vitally important. You’ll hear from a compelling roster of festival alumni-including leading experts, intellectual troublemakers, and visionary authors-who share perspectives that conventional discourse frequently sidelines. The discussions here aren't theoretical exercises; they grapple with the pressing and difficult issues shaping our society and culture right now. Tuning in means granting yourself access to a decade-long tradition of intellectual courage, where the core assumption is that some truths are only reached by first entertaining a dangerous idea. It’s a chance to listen as boundaries are pushed, not for shock value, but for clarity. The result is a consistently challenging and refreshing audio experience that complicates simple narratives and expands what feels possible to talk about.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Festival of Dangerous Ideas
Podcast Episodes
Speaking Bluntly (2024) - Antoinette Lattouf, Andy Mills & Josh Szeps [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:03:13
Journalists play a vital role in a democracy, holding power to account. The traditional model of journalism sees journalists as disinterested seekers of the truth, striving for 'objectivity' and suppressing their own opi…
David Runciman (2024) - Votes for 6 year olds [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:40
When it comes our most divisive political, economic and social issues there is a fracture between the views of the old and the young. As older generations continue to monopolise wealth and how policy is shaped, younger g…
Jem Bendell (2024) - Breaking Together [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:32
The process of global collapse has begun – driven by the damage we have caused to the Earth's natural systems. And governments and corporations aren't going to save us. So are we going to cling to our old individual ways…
Masha Gessen (2024) - The War of the Narratives [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:25
In an age of creeping authoritarianism, anyone who questions the logic of competing narratives when it comes to historical conflicts risks being silenced. Russian American journalist Masha Gessen says however, in order t…