Is Might Right?
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 6 February 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
'The strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must'. So claimed the powerful Athenians, according to the Ancient Greek historian Thucydides. Plato tried to demonstrate that might does not make right, and thinkers ever since, from Hobbes and Rousseau to Kant and Carl Schmitt, have placed the idea that might is right at the centre of their political philosophies, for better or worse. Matthew Sweet traces the intellectual history of the idea, with Angie Hobbs, Margaret MacMillan, Lea Ypi, and Hugo Drochon. Angie Hobbs' book Why Plato Matters Now, and Lea Ypi's book Indignity, are both out now, Hugo Drochon's book Elites And Democracy is published in March Producer: Luke Mulhall
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:05.6 | Oh, hello. You have chosen a BBC podcast, but before you listen to it, we thought you might like our podcast too. |
| 0:12.1 | You might. You might. It is called Sightraught with me, Nick Grimshaw. |
| 0:15.2 | And me, Annie Mack. And we talk about the week in music. |
| 0:18.2 | All the news, all the cultural happenings in the UK and beyond, |
| 0:22.2 | and great guests. And it's on BBC Sounds. Yes, where you can also enjoy lots of playlists, |
| 0:27.7 | music mixes and live radio, everything from my six music breakfast show to Radio 3 Unwind. |
| 0:34.5 | But obviously start with our podcast, sidetrack. Obviously. Obviously. |
| 0:40.1 | So if you like music, listen on BBC Sans. |
| 0:44.0 | Hello, you're listening to the Arts and Ideas podcast with me, Matthew Sweet. |
| 0:55.2 | I want you to think of tonight's show as something to put in your emergency kit, like a hammer under glass, like those plasters you keep in the bottom of your handbag, like Kendall Mint Cake. And we're going to stock it with ideas from the world's most significant dead thinkers. |
| 1:01.2 | Plato, Russo, Kant, Hobbes, and we have a pretty starry living cast to help us, too. |
| 1:07.6 | You want public intellectuals, we've got them tonight. We've got Hugo Drokon, |
| 1:12.1 | the political historian, Nietzsche expert, and author of the imminent elites and democracy. |
| 1:17.7 | We've got Angie Hobbes, Dwyen, of classical philosophy and ethics. Her most recent book is |
| 1:23.3 | Why Plato Matters Now. That's Now, right now. Lea Oupi is also here, |
| 1:29.5 | Professor of Politics and Philosophy, whose memoir of growing up in Enver Hodges, Albania, |
| 1:35.2 | free, has now been joined by indignity, which examines her grandmother's life and the political |
| 1:40.7 | systems under which she lived. And with us on a line from Toronto is Margaret McMillan, |
| 1:46.0 | historian of international relations, |
| 1:48.4 | wreath lecturer, companion of honour, |
| 1:50.7 | to the king and ours for the next hour. |
... |
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