The Big Ideas Package for Licensing

Humans have always been engaged in the search for wisdom — a deeper understanding of their world, the universe and their own minds. Despite a rapidly changing society and daily life, that pursuit continues. The Big Ideas brings together the world's leading thinkers to contemplate a singular issue.

The theme for 2024 is : What do we fear?

Fear is one of the most primal emotions that everyone experiences. Think about it in that context, and it paints a picture of people huddled around a fire, looking out at glowing eyes in the night. But fear has also evolved with us, attaching itself to every subtle shift in human nature. To being afraid of the wild, we have added a fear of god, a fear of government, a fear of missing out, a fear of disease.

This emotion often drives what we do, whether we realize it or not. Sometimes it’s so strong that it makes us hallucinate. We construct elaborate rituals to confront it, but we also spend our entire lives avoiding it. Fear of the other drives us to war, and fear of destruction drives us to peace. It can also be equally irrational and amusing. We use fear to make us laugh, but it can easily tip over into being genuinely frightening.

This series is meant to explore the human nature behind fear. We investigate what role fear plays in our lives, how it has changed us and what it means to be afraid.