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IN OUR TIME
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PROGRAMME INFO |
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The big ideas which form the intellectual agenda of our age are illuminated by some of the best minds in the world. Melvyn Bragg and three guests investigate the history of ideas and debate their application in modern life. |
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LISTEN AGAIN |
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PRESENTER |
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BIOGRAPHY |
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| "I'm fascinated by the fact that we live in a time when so many people are doing fantastic work, and thinking in areas which it's not remotely possible for me to keep up with & and these people are prepared to talk about it. They're prepared to come on In Our Time and other programmes on Radio 4 and try and talk to the rest of us ..." |
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LATEST PROGRAMME |
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PSYCHOANALYSIS AND DEMOCRACY
The 20th century saw the birth and rise of psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud led people to think about how the mind functioned and how our behaviour might be understood through the process of working with a psychoanalyst, either one-to-one or in a group.
Freud thought a lot about this process and in 1922 he published Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, in which he pronounced that the group "wants to be ruled and oppressed and to fear its masters." He was writing at a time when ideas about rules and oppression were much discussed because the 20th century was also a century of fascism, totalitarianism and dictatorship.
Freud died in 1939, just as a wave of despotism was sweeping across Europe. To what extent does psychoanalysis function by the rules of a dictatorship and to what extent does it function like a democracy? Is there a part of us that craves dictatorship and, if so, why? Is there a war going on in our own minds between ideas that we allow in to our consciousness and other ideas that we repress?
Guests
Adam Phillips
Author of Equals and general editor of the new Penguin translations of Freud
Sally Alexander
Professor of History, Goldsmiths College, University of London
Malcolm Bowie
Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature and Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford
Next week: Heritage and History
The 19th century Whig interpretation said British history was a story of ever increasing liberty and prosperity. Two world wars destroyed that belief and in the 20th century historians abandoned nationalist narratives to concentrate on the meaning of individual lives. Heritage on the other hand is built upon a concept of a shared idea of national identity. What is the relationship between history and heritage and what will the legacy of our time be? Guests: David Cannadine, Miri Rubin and Peter Mandler.
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RELATED LINKS
BBC information on mental health
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