rewind 2020

In 2020 we organized our first online festival: Brainwash Digital. Thanks to video connections we were able to present the most exciting ideas and important questions of our time to you. On this page you can find our favorite talks of that weekend and on Youtube you can find the entire list of talks, together with all our livestream registrations of 2021.

Martha Nussbaum – About the Power of Emotions

The godmother of modern philosophy took an hour of her precious time to tell us all about emotions such as fear and anger, and how they threaten our ability to think clearly, and how they now affect the democratic process.  Her razorsharp analyses and comforting reasoning helps us slow down and think deeper about what these emotions actually mean and how they should be interpreted.

 

Fear requires the belief that you will be harmed, and it is easily manipulated by rhetoric

Jia Tolentino – About the Dream of Self Optimization

Jia Tolentino gives us a look inside the palace of mirrors that is our modern digitalized society. In her book Trick Mirror she offers a number of essays on self-idolization, chasing likes and clicks, and showing ourselves better than we are. We really enjoyed this conversation with her in which she shows what this all does to our minds and sense of self.

 

Michael Sandel – About the Common Good

What a riveting deposition by this world renowned philosopher about how our world works. Based on his book The Tyranny of Merit we started a conversation with him in which he explans how wrong it is to mistake a level of education or other forms of modern success with being good, and what this does to those who are not deemed succesful.

 

A market society is a way of life in which market values seep into every aspect of human endeavour