The Minefield

In August, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh from The Bookshelf on Radio National, teamed up with the indomitable Sophie Gee — Professor of English at Princeton University, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Sydney, and co-host of the podcast The Secret Life of Books — and Scott Stephens from The Minefield, to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen (1775–1817).In front of a live audience at the State Library of New South Wales, the quartet discussed Austen’s innovative approach to fiction, why her novels are of such abiding interest to moral philosophy, the importance of “a room of her own” when writing, and her subtle critique of patriarchy, gender norms, slavery and religion.Finally, they reflect on three exemplary moments in Austen’s last three novels — Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816) and Persuasion (1818).This episode was originally broadcast on The Bookshelf on Thursday, 11 September 2025.

Whether it is in geopolitics or in social and personal relationships, the overweening desire to “save face” can have manifestly unjust and outright damaging consequences.Those who continue to languish under Iran’s oppressive regime take little comfort in Ayatollah Ali Khamenei being afforded the opportunity to shore up his public standing following the US missile strikes on its nuclear facilities. And Hannah Arendt correctly observed at the heart of the ‘Pentagon Papers’ a willingness on the part of the US government to lie to the American people about the status of the war in Vietnam, and thus to prolong an unwinnable and inhumane war, in order to protect “the reputation of the United States and its President”.When saving face is paramount to all other considerations, others invariably pay the price in order for the untrammeled supremacy of the ego to persist.But “ego” does not quite grasp the social complexity bound up with the concept of “face” — which suggests something closer to “honour” or a kind of thick social reputation, standing or prestige that is conferred by others, the loss of which is no mere bruised ego but a threat to one’s social existence.While this concept of “face” has partly been appropriated from Chinese culture, it nonetheless has roots in the ancient of honour/shame cultures of the Mediterranean and Asia Minor, and, as Kwame Anthony Appiah points out, finds expression fully as much in Western Europe and West Africa as it does in East Asia.Thus Immanuel Kant will warn about the moral dangers of “defamation” and of the intentional dissemination of scandalous information which, even if true, “detracts from another’s honour” and “diminishes respect for humanity as such … making misanthropy or contempt the prevalent cast of mind”. He concludes:“It is, therefore, a duty of virtue not to take malicious pleasure in exposing the faults of others so that one will be thought of as good as, or at least not worse than, others, but rather throw the veil of philanthropy [Menchenliebe] over their faults, not merely by softening our judgements but also by keeping our judgements to ourselves; for examples of respect that we give other can arouse their striving to deserve it.”Kant recognises that frequently the desire to humiliate another is not about their reproof, but about our own relative aggrandisement.Does this suggest that giving someone the ability to “save face”, even when they are found to be in the wrong, can function as both a rejection of the zero-sum logic that often prevails in honour/shame cultures (in which there is only so much social prestige to go around) and a constructive way of keeping them within a moral community?

There is something undeniably disorienting about the way AI features in public and political discussions.On some days, it is portrayed in utopian, almost messianic terms — as the essential technological innovation that will at once turbo-charge productivity and discover the cure to cancer, that will solve climate change and place the vast stores of human knowledge at the fingertips of every human being. Such are the future benefits that every dollar spent, every resource used, will have been worth it. From this vantage, artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the end, the ‘telos’, the ultimate goal, of humanity’s millennia-long relationship with technology. We will have invented our own saviour.On other days, AI is described as representing a different kind of “end” — an existential threat to human life, a technological creation that, like Frankenstein’s monster, will inevitably lay waste to its creator. The fear is straightforward enough: should humanity invent an entity whose capabilities surpass our own and whose modes of “reasoning” are unconstrained by moral norms or sentiments — call it “superintelligence” — what assurances would we have that that entity would continue to subordinate its own goals to humankind’s benefit? After all, do we know what it will “what”, or whether the existence of human beings would finally pose an impediment to its pursuits?Ever since powerful generative AI tools were made available to the public not even three years ago, chatbots have displayed troubling and hard-to-predict tendencies. They have deceived and manipulated human users, hallucinated information, spread disinformation and engaged in a range of decidedly misanthropic “behaviours”. Given the unpredictability of these more modest algorithms — which do not even approximate the much-vaunted capabilities of AGI — who’s to say how a superintelligence might behave?It’s hardly surprising, then, that the chorus of doomsayers has grown increasingly insistent over the last six months. In April, a group of AI researchers released a hypothetical scenario (called “AI 2027”) which anticipates a geopolitical “arms race” in pursuit of AGI and the emergence of a powerful AI agent that operates largely outside of human control by the end of 2027. In the same vein, later this month two pioneering researchers in the field of AI — Eliezer Yudkowsy and Nate Soares — are releasing their book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: The Case Against Superintelligent AI.For all this, there is a disconcerting irony that shouldn’t be overlooked. Warnings about the existential risk posed by AI have accompanied every stage of its development — and those warnings have been articulated by the leaders in the field of AI research themselves.This suggests that warnings of an extinction event due to the advent of AGI are, perversely, being used both to spruik the godlike potential of these companies’ product and to justify the need for gargantuan amounts of money and resources to ensure “we” get there before “our enemies” do. Which is to say, existential risk is serving to underwrite a cult of AI inevitabalism, thus legitimating the heedless pursuit of AGI itself.Could we say, perhaps, that the very prospect of some extinction event, of some future where humanity is subservient to superintelligent overlords, is acting as a kind of decoy, a distraction from the very real ways that human beings, communities and the natural world are being exploited in the service of the goal of being the first to create artificial general intelligence?Guest: Karen Hao is the author of Empire of AI: Inside the Reckless Race for Total Domination.

In the middle of August, the Bendigo Writers Festival found itself at the centre of a firestorm after over fifty participants decided to withdraw — some claiming they were required to engage in a form of “self-censorship”, and others withdrawing in solidarity.Reports have it that, two days before the festival was due to open, a “code of conduct” was sent to those taking part in the one of the four La Trobe Presents panels, “urging compliance with the principles espoused in [the university]’s Anti-Racism Plan, including the definitions of antisemitism and Islamophobia in the Plan”. The code also asked participants to practice “respectful engagement” and “[a]void language or topics that could be considered inflammatory, divisive, or disrespectful”.For many of those due to take part in the writers’ festival, this code of conduct amounted to a demand for self-censorship over what they hold to be a “genocide” taking place in Gaza, and would prevent them from criticising the actions of the State of Israel, “Zionism” as an ideology and, by extension, “Zionists”.This is just the latest of a series of controversies surrounding Australian writers’ festivals — some of which pre-date the massacre of Israeli civilians on 7 October 2023 and the onset of Israel’s devastating military incursion into Gaza, but which have now intensified and been rendered even more intractable by those events.The conflict in Gaza has placed severe strain not only on the relationships between Australian citizens and communities, but also on our civic spaces and modes of communication: from protests on streets and demonstrations on university campuses, to social media posts and opinion pieces. Given that writers’ festivals intersect with each of these social spheres, it is unsurprising that they should prove so susceptible to the fault lines that run through multicultural democracies.Leaving the wisdom or effectiveness of “codes of conduct” aside, it is worth considering whether there are constraints inherent to public debate in a democracy — which is to say, forms of self-limitation and fundamental commitments that ensure the cacophony of conflicting opinions does not descend into a zero-sum contest.

Greg Marston, a Professor at the University of Queensland, shares his insights on Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a potential remedy for job displacement due to AI. He discusses how AI can boost productivity while threatening employment, calling for a shift in how society values work. The conversation touches on the historical context of economic policies, the importance of care labor, and the need for systemic reforms. Marston highlights the need for a visionary approach to ensure economic security in a rapidly changing job landscape.

In March, an ABC Four Corners investigation detailed widespread instances of abuse, injury and neglect in childcare centres across the country. Just a few months later, in a climate of already heightened public awareness and media scrutiny, a series of deeply disturbing allegations came to light of child sex abuse in childcare centres in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.The nature and extent of these instances of neglect and abuse, as well as the fact they involved the most vulnerable among us, suggested a systemic problem in Australia’s $20 billion childcare sector — something that tougher regulation or a national register of childcare workers or improved child safety training or even CCTV cameras will not fully address.Put simply: the concern isn’t simply that a few ‘bad actors’ managed to slip through the regulatory cracks, but that something more thoroughgoing or pervasive is undermining the quality of the care and education being provided to young children. Interestingly, both the Education Minister, Jason Clare, and the Minister for Early Childhood Education, Jess Walsh, have implicated the profit motive itself as compromising the care of some providers. Walsh singled out “some repeat offenders who continue to put profit ahead of child safety”, and Clare has acknowledged that “overwhelmingly higher levels” of quality are found among the not-for-profit providers.The federal government has announced a series of measures that, it hopes, will restore the trust of parents and the public in Australia’s childcare system — two-thirds of which is comprised of for-profit companies that have benefitted greatly from the subsidies provided to parents by the government. One of these measures is the ability to strip unsafe early education and care providers of their eligibility for subsidised care.But it is government subsidies themselves that have fuelled demand in the first place, precipitating a rapid influx of stock-market listed companies hoping to reap their own share of the windfall. It’s a familiar story that has played out since the late-1970s: rather than running vital utilities or social services themselves, government delegates the provision of vital goods and services to “the market” into which it intervenes through funding or regulation. Michael Maron has termed this the advent of the “regulatory state”.But are there some social goods — which is to say, goods that are integral to the possibility of human flourishing — that should not be exposed to the perverse incentives afforded the market? As Andrew Hudson, CEO of the Centre for Policy Development, has pointed out: “For too long, early childhood education has operated as a private market — leaving governments with limited tools to manage quality, access, or safety across the system. That’s what needs to change.”Unless there is an overriding commitment to the wellbeing and flourishing of the children on the part of the organisation — as the animating principle or ‘telos’ of the organisation itself — what reason is there not to cut corners, to limit staff pay, to reduce overhead, to maximise efficiency, to do the bare minimum in order to approach compliance?When the wellbeing of children is made subordinate to the goal of profit, it is the children themselves who are worse off.You can read Luara Ferracioli and Stephanie Collins reflect on whether early childhood care and education are compatible with the profit motive on ABC Religion & Ethics.

Garrett Cullity, a Professor of Philosophy and Director at the Centre for Moral, Social and Political Theory, sheds light on the complexities surrounding climate commitments. He discusses the recent International Court of Justice opinion that underlines nations' obligations to combat climate change. The conversation dives into Australia's political tension over net zero ambitions, examining the clash between climate policy and economic interests. Cullity emphasizes the need for genuine action rather than mere 'virtue signaling' in facing environmental challenges.

On 24 July, French President Emmanuel Macron announced his intention to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September, as part of France’s “historical commitment to a just and durable peace in the Middle East”. Just five days later, UK Prime Minister Keir announced that the UK, too, will recognise a Palestinian state in September:“unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza and commits to a long term sustainable peace, including through allowing the UN to restart without delay the supply of humanitarian support to the people of Gaza to end starvation, agreeing to a ceasefire, and making clear there will be no annexations in the West Bank.”These announcements come at a pivotal moment. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is worsening by the day, with the UNRWA Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, reporting that one in five children are malnourished and more than 100 people have died from starvation. Meanwhile, negotiations between Israel and Hamas that would see hostages returned and a durable ceasefire reached have broken down and there is little prospect of them resuming.It is important to note that, whereas in the past the prospect of recognition of a Palestinian state has been used as a way of getting representatives of the Palestinian Authority to meet certain conditions, here the threat recognition is being used to pressure Israel into abandoning its own intransigence.Even among those who are committed to a two-state solution, however, there remains some doubt as to whether recognition would materially change anything for Palestinians, at least in the short term. So what would be the point of bringing recognition forward in the peace process?

There are few things more peculiar to a person than their preferences. Why it is they enjoy one genre of music over another, or a particular artist within that genre but not others. Why they derive specific pleasure from a certain type of fiction (romantasy, say, or Scandinavian procedurals) whereas others (like Agatha Christie’s Poirot crime novels or dystopian sci-fi) leave them cold.And then there’s that whole undergrowth of what we might call “guilty pleasures”: low-brow books or formulaic television series or lowest-common-denominator movies that we secretly enjoy but would be mortified if anyone found out.Which suggests, of course, that the network of preferences we call “taste” most often has a class dimension to it. Having specific tastes, and finding certain things distasteful, signals our belonging to the social stratum that has learned how to appreciate those cultural objects. It’s not that taste is altogether emptied of its subjective dimension — its ability to evoke authentic feeling, real enjoyment — but rather inner appreciation is in a kind of performative dialogue with the expectations of others.And yet even within the realm of taste, there are subtle distinctions. Immanuel Kant one between “the taste of sense” (what is pleasant to me) and “the taste of reflection” (which may not be immediately enjoyable, and which may require effort or patience or instruction before yielding its treasures). According to Kant, what is truly “beautiful” is only available to the taste of reflection — a form of enjoyment that we want to enjoy with others.In our world of endless digital reproduction, we increasingly rely on recommendation algorithms to curate our encounters with culture — algorithms that work along the lines of, “If you liked that, you will probably like this …” Algorithms, in effect, attempt to make our preferences legible, which is to say, predictable, offering us more of the same in order to keep us interested and engaged.In this way, algorithms can only work at the level of what Kant called the taste of sense — they can operate along the lines of “likes” or “dislikes”.But algorithmic recommendations cannot read the subtleties of our preferences, they tend toward massification, and they rule out the possibilities of both aesthetic achievement — learning how to appreciate, even love, what we didn’t initially “like”.

In a justly famous 1910 essay titled “The Moral Equivalent of War”, the American philosopher William James rejected the “fatalistic view” that war is an inevitability between nations, and expressed his hope of “a future when acts of war shall be formally outlawed as between civilized peoples”.For all this, however, James confessed that he did not believe “peace either ought to be or will be permanent on this globe, unless the states … preserve some of the old elements of army-discipline”. He feared that, in the absence of the cultivation of certain martial virtues — “intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private interest, obedience to command” — a “peace-economy” would ultimately devolve into a “simple pleasure-economy”. Hence his appeal to discover what he would call a “moral equivalent of war”:“If now — and this is my idea — there were, instead of military conscription, a conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against Nature, the injustice would tend to be evened out, and numerous other goods to the commonwealth would remain blind as the luxurious classes now are blind, to man’s relations to the globe he lives on, and to the permanently sour and hard foundations of his higher life.”What William James is calling for, of course, is a form of national service — a mass mobilisation of young men (and it is, unquestionably, men that James has in view), not in order to engage in warfighting, but for the sake of nation-building. The cultivation of manliness and military discipline that would result, James hoped, would then form a kind of “cement” upon which peaceful societies could be built.It is a compelling vision, and resonates with calls in many quarters for the establishment of forms of compulsory national service and the restoration of rites of passage for young men — collective experiences meant to initiate them into adulthood, and prepare them for the responsibilities that come along with it. These calls are also arising at a time when the very concept of masculinity itself is shrugging off a degree of the shame or opprobrium it has accumulated (most often in the form of the adjective “toxic”), particularly under the aegis of the #MeToo movement.Indeed, one of the more conspicuous dynamics at work during the 2024 US presidential campaign was the relentless association of “liberals” or “Democrats” with weakness, enfeeblement, effeminacy, hysterical emotionality … whereas Donald Trump and his ilk were powerful, rebellious, virile, stoic — in a word, masculine. It was hardly coincidental that Trump made so many appearances at UFC events and on macho podcasts. In its own way, the 2024 US presidential election was restaging the ancient contrast between Sparta and Athens, between Rome and Greece.“Extreme fitness” content online, the almost religious significance of gyms and the iconography of the “swoll” male body does seem to point to a kind of rejection of the liberal “pleasure economy” in favour of the military virtues of “hardihood”, discipline, preparedness to struggle, “contempt of softness”.And yet this performative masculinity ultimately lives and thrives online — and as such, is not only narcissistic but eschews the “surrender of private interest” and “obedience to command” that William James believed needed to be cultivated in order to ward off self-directed egotism.If we accept that young men may be craving the restoration of a sense of honour, of pride even, to the concept of masculinity, can this be done without the performative egotism, without the contempt for “softness”, without the will to dominate, that seems so much part of online culture?You can read Samuel Cornell’s article “Welcome to the age of fitness content — where men train for battle without ever experiencing war” on ABC Religion & Ethics.