FODI: The In-Between | 04 | Eleanor Gordon-Smith and Slavoj Žižek | The age of doubt, reason and conspiracy

FODI: The In-Between | 04 | Eleanor Gordon-Smith and Slavoj Žižek | The age of doubt, reason and conspiracy

Author: Festival of Dangerous Ideas February 24, 2022 Duration: 33:39
Against the pillars of Enlightenment, how can we make sense of conspiracy theories, tribalism, and deepening divisions between our beliefs? In a conversation moderated by Simon Longstaff, Eleanor Gordon-Smith and Slavoj Žižek discuss the proliferation and saturation of knowledge, the rise of conspiracy theories, and whether or not the Age of Enlightenment is coming to an end.

Eleanor Gordon-Smith is a philosopher and radio producer currently at Princeton University, where she is a Graduate Fellow of the University Centre for Human Values.

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural theorist. 

Produced by The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, The Ethics Centre and Audiocraft.


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.
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