What are we willing to sacrifice to feel safe?
Among the thinkers who weighed in on the theory of the social contract, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) took the position that freedom is good, but security is better. Now we must ask whether the likes of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are justified in their efforts to expose far-reaching government surveillance operations, or whether intelligence agencies are just taking the necessary safety measures to respond to an increasingly volatile world. This animated short video boils down the complex question of freedom vs security to its most essential, asking what are we prepared to give up to feel safe.
videoHistory
In Stalin’s home city in Georgia, generations clash over his legacy
20 minutes
videoThinkers and theories
The prison abolitionist who dares to envision a world without ‘unfreedoms’
16 minutes
videoMathematics
Spiral into the ‘golden ratio’ – and separate the myths from the maths
4 minutes
videoMeaning and the good life
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned
11 minutes
videoHistory
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
13 minutes
videoArt
Background music was the radical invention of a trailblazing composer
17 minutes
videoMetaphysics
What do past, present and future mean to a philosopher of time?
55 minutes
videoArt
Radical doodles – how ‘exquisite corpse’ games embodied the Surrealist movement
15 minutes
videoBeauty and aesthetics
In art, the sublime is a feedback loop, evolving with whatever’s next to threaten us
9 minutes