2015 opens with more questions about crisis, change and values

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As this new year opened, Paris and the wider world were stunned by violent attacks related to cartoons published by French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

Debate’s still raging about the meaning and limits of free speech, tolerance, extremism and decency in the 21st century.
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There seem to be no simple answers. But perhaps there are new questions to ask about how we negotiate diversity and disagreement – against a backdrop of which values, and whose values?

As 2014 drew to a close, Saturday Extra – one of the flagship ‘think spaces’ of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio National network – broadcast a program about the moral challenges facing the world today.

Broadcaster Geraldine Doogue anchored a dialogue between British-based writer, lecturer and broadcaster Kenan Malik; philosopher Philip Pettit, Professor of Politics and Human Values at Princeton University; and me as director of Kapacity.org and Adjunct Professor at the Australian National University.

If we were recording this program today, would we say the same things?