Ideas

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Can you have compassion for someone you never agree with?

Ask yourself: can you? It is a question that George Eliot asks over and over through her characters in Middlemarch, a 19th-century novel that speaks to our own fractious age. Eliot highlights how important it is to see the world from the point of view of others — even characters we don’t like. *This is second episode in our two-part series. It originally aired on April 7, 2002. We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.

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  Why spirituality is central to Indigenous mathematics

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  How 'body horror' helps us confront the fears within us

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  How to change minds and find common ground

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  Why yellow traffic lights were designed to be ambiguous

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  The 'dangerous' promise of a techno-utopian future

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  Open your gift: a podcast of nonfiction recommendations

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  Your tomatoes have a backstory and it’s not always pretty

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  Bringing a farm — and its philosophy — back to life

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  Pt 2 | Architect Frank Gehry on how to exit life

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  Pt 1 | The architecture that brought Frank Gehry to tears

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  The best — and worst — ideas of the last six decades

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  How IDEAS saved a listener from sending a regrettable email

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  CBC Massey Lecturers reveal how the talks changed them

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  The time when a guest said, "I love you!"

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  How an IDEAS episode on traffic changed a doctor's practice

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  How music transports the Afghan diaspora to their homeland