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Radio Atlantic

Ideas of the Year, 2017 Edition

Radio Atlantic

The Atlantic

Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.41.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2017

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Every year is impossible to synthesize. Yet 2017 was not just another year. To help us wrangle the chaotic, extraordinary events of the last 12 months into some sort of shape, we posed a question to journalists from across The Atlantic's staff, and to our listeners: What were the ideas of 2017? In this episode, Jeff and Matt discuss the many different responses to that question we collected, and share their own ideas of the year. Share yours: 202-266-7600. And here's to the year ahead. If you listen to Radio Atlantic, we value your feedback. Please help us out by answering a quick survey. It should only take a few minutes. Just to go theatlantic.com/podcastsurvey. Links –The End of History and the Last Man (Francis Fukuyama, 1992) –“It's Still Not the End of History” (Timothy Stanley and Alexander Lee, September 1, 2014) –“This Article Won’t Change Your Mind” (Julie Beck, March 13, 2017) –“The Challenge of Fighting Mistrust in Science” (Julie Beck, June 24, 2017) –“Professor Smith Goes to Washington” (Ed Yong, January 25, 2017) –“The Climate Scientist Who Became a Politician” (Ed Yong, February 2, 2017) –“Do Scientists Lose Credibility When They Become Political?” (Ed Yong, February 28, 2017) –“The Movement of #MeToo” (Sophie Gilbert, October 16, 2017) –“How America Lost Faith in Expertise” (Tom Nichols, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2017 Issue) –“A Political Opening for Universal Health Care?” (Vann R. Newkirk II, February 14, 2017) –“The Fight for Health Care Has Always Been About Civil Rights” (Vann R. Newkirk II, June 27, 2017) –“The Republican Lawmaker Who Secretly Created Reddit’s Women-Hating ‘Red Pill’” (Bonnie Bacarisse, The Daily Beast, April 25, 2017 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

How do you summarize a year like 2017?

0:04.0

Paraphrase Bart Simpson perhaps?

0:06.0

In conclusion, 2017 is a land of contrast.

0:10.0

Okay, we can do better than that.

0:11.0

We ask journalists across the Atlantic to help us look back on the year that was,

0:15.0

not just the people or the events that defined it, but at the ideas that drove it.

0:19.0

Our closing question for 2017?

0:22.0

What were the ideas of the year? This is Radio Atlantic. Hello I'm Matt Thompson Executive Editor of The Atlantic and once again I'm Matt Thompson, executive editor of The Atlantic.

0:44.0

And once again, I am here with my esteemed co-host,

0:46.0

our editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg.

0:49.0

Hi Jeff.

0:50.0

Hi, Matt, and Merry Christmas.

0:52.0

And Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you. You don't even have to say happy holidays anymore. There is so many no it's actually next year. It's going to be illegal to say happy holidays. I can't even wish you a happy new year? Nope.

1:02.6

Just Merry Christmas.

1:03.6

Dang it. Free expression really is dying in America.

1:05.6

Yeah, exactly.

1:07.0

Now, we are going to hear a little bit from our other esteemed co-host, Alex in a minute but she is not with us in

1:15.4

person this week she is with us in sound for our last episode is so freaky

1:20.9

sounding what you're trying to say is she's on vacation so freaky sounding.

1:25.0

What you're trying to say is she's on vacation. Yes, exactly.

1:26.0

That's what you're trying to say.

1:27.0

Yes.

...

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