Ideas Matter

About Ideas Matter

Ideas Matter Podcast is home to talks from leading contemporary thinkers on the most important political and cultural issues and intellectual trends of our times. Many were recorded at or reflect the topics discussed at Ideas Matter events, including Living Freedom summer school, The Academy residential weekend and Debating Matters schools debating competition.

Publisher

Ideas Matter

Category

education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

19 Jun 2019

Latest episode

14 Nov 2025

Latest episodes

73 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   14 Nov 2025

   What comes after liberal democracy? | Kolja Zydatis

   What comes after liberal democracy? In this bold, idea-rich lecture, Kolja Zydatis explores the global political topography of our time – a murky, volatile “interregnum” where the old order is collapsing but the new has not yet arrived. Drawing from his and Mark Feldon’s new book, Zydatis offers a panoramic, polemical tour of what he calls hyper-liberalism – a runaway version of liberalism obsessed with borderlessness, identity, and control – and the strange new regimes it has birthed: the Diversity State, the Green Leviathan, and the Biopolitical Machine.

2. 

   7 Nov 2025

   The End of the Liberal Order – and What Comes Next | Jacob Reynolds

   Is the postwar liberal order finally coming undone? And if so – what comes next? The liberal order is dying – not liberalism as an idea, but the postwar regime of managed decline, elite control, and fake freedom. This talk exposes how that order hollowed out real autonomy, smothered politics, and bred a generation of anxious, atomised subjects. But if it's ending, what replaces it? Populist parties are rising – but do they have the stomach for revolution, or just nostalgia and slogans? With five sharp tests – from institutional guts to faith in ordinary people – this lecture challenges any would-be populist movement to prove it stands for freedom, not just power.

3. 

   31 Oct 2025

   Deneen, Yarvin and the "new right": Parasites on Populism? | Dr Tim Black

   This lecture explores the emergence of the American New Right – a diffuse and provocative intellectual tendency gaining visibility in the wake of the populist revolts of 2016. Focusing on figures like Patrick Deneen and Curtis Yarvin, it examines their critiques of liberalism, meritocracy, and democracy, as well as their visions of authority, order, and political renewal. While often dismissed as marginal or extreme, these thinkers articulate deeper dissatisfactions with modernity, autonomy, and the liberal elite consensus. The talk considers whether their ideas offer a serious response to the current political malaise – or reflect a more inward-looking, aristocratic impulse seeking meaning in a post-liberal age.

Who has been a guest on Ideas Matter

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Andrew Doyle
• Sabine Beppler-Spahl
• Ella Whelan
• Dr Jennie Bristow
• Sandy Starr

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

30,454

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Spotify

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 44 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

41

Social presence

0

YouTube

85

Engagement

32

Contact Ideas Matter

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

Questions about Ideas Matter