Do books have a future in the new digital world order? And can we engage productively with problematic cultural content?

This week luminary philosopher A.C Grayling and cultural content creator Mary McGillivray join host Lloyd Vogelman on the couch for an unfiltered conversation that digs into the personal side of the Principle of Charity.

A. C. Grayling CBE MA DPhil is the Principal of Northeastern University London and its Professor of Philosophy. He is a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He is the author of over thirty books of philosophy, biography, history of ideas and essays. He was a columnist for The Guardian, The Times and Prospect Magazine. He has twice been a judge for The Booker Prize, in 2014 serving as the Chair of the judging panel. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Vice President of Humanists UK, Patron of the Defence Humanists, Honorary Associate of the Secular Society and a Patron of Dignity in Dying.

Mary McGillivray is a content creator making visual culture analysis accessible for the next generation. She holds a Masters degree in History of Art and Architecture from The University of Cambridge and is currently a PhD candidate at The University of Melbourne. Mary has worked with art galleries and cultural institutions across Australia, the UK and Europe to bring their collections to a massive online audience of highly engaged young viewers and she also appears on ABC Arts.

CREDITS

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman

This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics Centre

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and X

This podcast is produced by Jonah Primo and Sabrina Organo

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

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

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

This special episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival with Emile and Lloyd joined on stage by eminent philosopher A.C Grayling and digital content creator Mary McGillivray. Together they consider the merits and pitfalls of various forms of factual information distribution.

This is arguably the greatest time in the history of the world for reading, with literally the entirety of human knowledge available in books or in the online world of articles, blogs etc. If you want to develop a deep understanding of the world we live in, you just have to read. But with the rise of online video platforms like YouTube and TikTok, many people - young people in particular, are getting their factual content, not from reading, but from these alternative sources.

Research has shown that we are evolutionarily adapted to taking in knowledge audiovisually - we apparently process video images 60,000 times faster than text - and that reading, as a form of communication is complex and inefficient.

For a long time, reading was the only available technology to disseminate ideas beyond the campfire, fuelled most powerfully by the invention of the printing press. Now that we have the technology to create video content, which sits most naturally with the way we’re evolved to take in information, maybe we should thank reading for its help in bridging the techno- gap, and let our books collect dust as we finally return to the way we most naturally absorb knowledge about the world.

In this conversation we look at the tsunami of non-fiction video content that has taken so many young people’s attention away from the written word, and ask whether it’s a merciful release from the boring and inefficient world of reading, a release into a promised land of enlivened, engaging, memorable video content, or whether it signals a slow spiral into a shallow, unfocused, unimaginative and insubstantial way of understanding of the world we live in.

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You can be part of the discussion @PofCharity on Twitter, @PrincipleofCharity on Facebook and @PrincipleofCharityPodcast on Instagram.

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman.

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and Twitter.

This Podcast is Produced by Jonah Primo and Sabrina Organo

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

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

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

With David Baddiel and Simon Sebag Montefiore.

In Principle of Charity on the Couch, Lloyd has an unfiltered conversation with the guests, throws them curveballs, and gets into the personal side of Principle of Charity.

David Baddiel is a comedian, author, screenwriter and television presenter.

In 1992, he performed to 12,500 people with Rob Newman at the Wembley arena in the UK’s first ever arena comedy show and was credited as turning comedy into “The New Rock’n’Roll”. Alongside The Lightning Seeds, the pair also wrote the seminal football anthem Three Lions. David has made several acclaimed documentaries, including the 2016 travel documentary David Baddiel On The Silk Road (Discovery) and in 2017, The Trouble with Dad (Channel4). More recently he created and presented Confronting Holocaust Denial and Social Media, Anger and Us on BBC Two.

Recently he published the Sunday Times bestselling non-fiction polemic Jews Don’t Count, and due to the success of this book, David has also written and presented a documentary under the same title for Channel 4, which was released in late 2022. David’s most recent non-fiction book, The God Desire, was published earlier this year.

Simon Sebag Montefiore is the internationally bestselling author of prize-winning books that have been published in forty-eight languages. CATHERINE THE GREAT & POTEMKIN was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize; STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR won History Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards; YOUNG STALIN won the Costa Biography Award, the LA Times Book Prize for Biography, the Kreisky Prize and the Grand Prix de la Biographie Politique; JERUSALEM: THE BIOGRAPHY - A HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE EAST won the Jewish Book Council Book of the Year Prize and the Wenjin Book Prize in China; THE ROMANOVS: 1613-1918 won the Lupicaia del Terriccio Book Prize. He is the author of the Moscow Trilogy of novels: SASHENKA, RED SKY AT NOON and ONE NIGHT IN WINTER, which won the Political Fiction Book of the Year Award. His latest book is THE WORLD: A FAMILY HISTORY OF HUMANITY which has been a NYT and Sunday Times top ten bestseller.

CREDITS

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman

This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics Centre

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and X

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

Find Danielle at danielleharvey.com.au

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

In this episode we spend time with David Baddiel and Simon Sebag Montefiore and ask - ​​Where do Jews really come from? Are they white or people of colour? And how should we deal with the ethnic diversity within Jewish populations, with differences between Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrachi Jews?

Questions around whether Jews are white or people of colour has become a fraught issue. In an ideal world (or the ideal for at least most of us in the multicultural liberal west,) it shouldn’t matter. However, race, ethnicity and politics have always been intertwined, and this question takes us to some surprising places in the battle of racial politics.

In particular, both the far right and now the progressive left are drawing a lot of meaning from the question ‘are Jews white or people of colour?’, with Jews seemingly on the wrong side of each of their equations. They are non-white for the far right, and quintessentially white for the progressive left.

To help answer this question and more, we have two guests with very different lenses. Our first, Simon Sebag Montefiore, is one of the world’s leading historians. He outlines the historical, archaeological and genetic consensus, and any counterviews, on where Jews come from and how Jewish populations have moved through the ages. We also have author, comedian and documentarian David Baddiel to help with the cultural and political significance of this question, and to explore whether Jews are privileged enough to be ‘deemed’ white, regardless of their Middle Eastern heritage.

BIOS

David Baddiel is a comedian, author, screenwriter and television presenter.

In 1992, he performed to 12,500 people with Rob Newman at the Wembley arena in the UK’s first ever arena comedy show and was credited as turning comedy into “The New Rock’n’Roll”. Alongside The Lightning Seeds, the pair also wrote the seminal football anthem Three Lions. David has made several acclaimed documentaries, including the 2016 travel documentary David Baddiel On The Silk Road (Discovery) and in 2017, The Trouble with Dad (Channel4). More recently he created and presented Confronting Holocaust Denial and Social Media, Anger and Us on BBC Two.

Recently he published the Sunday Times bestselling non-fiction polemic Jews Don’t Count, and due to the success of this book, David has also written and presented a documentary under the same title for Channel 4, which was released in late 2022. David’s most recent non-fiction book, The God Desire, was published earlier this year.

Simon Sebag Montefiore is the internationally bestselling author of prize-winning books that have been published in forty-eight languages. CATHERINE THE GREAT & POTEMKIN was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize; STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR won History Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards; YOUNG STALIN won the Costa Biography Award, the LA Times Book Prize for Biography, the Kreisky Prize and the Grand Prix de la Biographie Politique; JERUSALEM: THE BIOGRAPHY - A HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE EAST won the Jewish Book Council Book of the Year Prize and the Wenjin Book Prize in China; THE ROMANOVS: 1613-1918 won the Lupicaia del Terriccio Book Prize. He is the author of the Moscow Trilogy of novels: SASHENKA, RED SKY AT NOON and ONE NIGHT IN WINTER, which won the Political Fiction Book of the Year Award. His latest book is THE WORLD: A FAMILY HISTORY OF HUMANITY which has been a NYT and Sunday Times top ten bestseller.

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

Featuring the wonderful Benjamin Law and Professor John Rasko AO. In Principle of Charity on the Couch, Lloyd has an unfiltered conversation with the guests, throws them curveballs, and gets into the personal side of Principle of Charity.

BIOS

Benjamin Law is an Australian writer and broadcaster. He’s the author of The Family Law (2010), Gaysia (2013), the Quarterly Essay Moral Panic 101 (2017) and editor of Growing Up Queer in Australia (2019). Benjamin is also an AWGIE Award-winning screenwriter. He’s the co-executive producer, co-creator and co-writer of the Netflix comedy-drama Wellmania (2023), playwright of Melbourne Theatre Company’s sold-out play Torch the Place (2020), and creator and co-writer of three seasons of the award-winning SBS/Hulu/Comedy Central Asia TV series The Family Law (2016–2019).

Benjamin works and lives on Gadigal Country, part of the Eora Nation (Sydney). He is a board member of Story Factory, committee member of the Jesse Cox Audio Fellowship and ambassador for Plan Australia, the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation, Victorian Pride Centre, Bridge for Asylum Seekers and the Pinnacle Foundation.

Professor John Rasko AO is internationally renowned as Australia’s pioneer in the clinical application of adult stem cells and gene therapies. As a clinical hematologist, pathologist and scientist with a renowned track record in gene and stem cell therapy, experimental haematology and molecular biology he has published over 220 academic papers. He is Deputy Director and leads the Program in Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Program at The Centenary Institute and is Head, Department of Cell & Molecular Therapies at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney.

CREDITS

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman

This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics Centre

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and X

This podcast is produced by Jonah Primo and Danielle Harvey

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

Find Danielle at danielleharvey.com.au

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

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

Featuring the wonderful Benjamin Law and Professor John Rasko AO

In this episode with the help of a cultural critic and a genetic expert we consider how to best make sense of our ancestral past and the dangers of over identifying with tribes alongside the very real opportunities science is giving us to change our genetics.

While we are all unique individuals, who of course come from families and a line of ancestors, in the end we are responsible for our own lives. While we may look to our ancestry for helpful hints as to how to live well, how much, if at all, should our heritage define or constrain us?

On a genetic level we have inherited some of the traits of our forebears, and even if, for example the colour of our skin, hair or facial features does express our genetic connection to race, that necessarily ‘mean’ something to us or should it be embraced? What about inherited genetic disorders, are there responsibilities around passing these on that need to be considered?

While knowing which ‘tribe’ we come from can offer a deep sense of belonging, even pride, for some the reminder of our heritage is irrelevant or even shameful or simply unhelpful. The deep psychological pull towards identifying as part of a ‘tribe’ can be particularly true if we are discriminated against because of your heritage and background. If you’re attacked because you’re black, Islamic, Asian, Jewish, deaf etc, you quickly find that you are part of that tribe, whether it’s personally important to you or not.

There are of course many dangers of over-identifying with tribes. Tribal thinking is always fraught with danger - any look at history will tell you that. These questions about whether our heritage matters, and what it means, have also become heavily politicised.

We make sense of our lives through the stories we tell ourselves. Many of us seek out our ancestry, our tribe, as a way of knowing who we are. Yet inherited genes from past individuals, randomly shaken up in their journey across generations and finally passed from our parents to us are just that – random. So how much should our ethnic heritage matter, and is it the most important part of our individual stories?

BIOS

Benjamin Law is an Australian writer and broadcaster. He’s the author of The Family Law (2010), and editor of Growing Up Queer in Australia (2019). Benjamin is also an AWGIE Award-winning screenwriter. He’s the co-executive producer, co-creator and co-writer of the Netflix comedy-drama Wellmania (2023), playwright of Melbourne Theatre Company’s sold-out play Torch the Place (2020), and creator and co-writer of three seasons of the award-winning SBS/Hulu/Comedy Central Asia TV series The Family Law (2016–2019).

Professor John Rasko AO is internationally renowned as Australia’s pioneer in the clinical application of adult stem cells and gene therapies. As a clinical hematologist, pathologist and scientist he has published over 220 academic papers. He is Deputy Director and leads the Program in Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Program at The Centenary Institute and is Head, Department of Cell & Molecular Therapies at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney.

CREDITS

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman

This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics Centre

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and X

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

Find Danielle at danielleharvey.com.au

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

In Principle of Charity on the Couch, Lloyd has an unfiltered conversation with the guests, throws them curveballs, and gets into the personal side of Principle of Charity.

BIOS

Tyson Yunkaporta is an Aboriginal scholar, founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deakin University in Melbourne, and author of Sand Talk. His work focuses on applying Indigenous methods of inquiry to resolve complex issues and explore global crises.

John Humphreys is the Chief Economist at The Australian Taxpayers' Alliance. He has worked previously as a policy analyst for the Australian Treasury. John was the founder of the Australian Libertarian Society, the Liberal Democratic Party (now called "Libertarian Party"), and the Friedman Conference. He also ran a research centre and education charity in Cambodia for many years, for which he was awarded a knighthood in 2016. 

CREDITS

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman

This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics Centre

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and X

This podcast is produced by Jonah Primo and Danielle Harvey

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

Find Danielle at danielleharvey.com.au

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

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