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Think modern democracy is stagnant, stifled by bureaucracy and undone by a fickle populace? Plato saw it coming from some two-and-a-half millennia away. This short animation from BBC Radio 4 explains why Plato had little love for democracy, and believed that it was the true elite – trained philosophers, of course – who should steer the ship of state.
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Fairness and equality
How the first woman of colour to be elected to the US Congress remade education
21 minutes
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History of ideas
Tantra is, and was, a subversive philosophy of feminine power
19 minutes
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Rituals and celebrations
From roaring fire and molten glass an artist creates a healing ritual
13 minutes
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Ecology and environmental sciences
Producing food while restoring the planet – a glimpse of farming in the future
7 minutes
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Archaeology
Ancient Greek sculptures were colourful. Why does the white marble ideal persist?
6 minutes
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Economics
We all play by economic rules set by men. What could a feminist economics look like?
30 minutes
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Ecology and environmental sciences
Yo-Yo Ma performs a work for cello in the woods, accompanied by a birdsong chorus
4 minutes
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Art
‘Long Live Degenerate Art’ – how a Surrealist group in Cairo defied repression in 1938
4 minutes
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Thinkers and theories
Metaphysics and beyond – Martha Nussbaum on Aristotle’s indelible ideas
43 minutes