If there is something inherently suspicious about political appeals to “the heart” — which is to say, attempts to exploit unreflective prejudices and reactive emotions — then it is also true that a form of politics that is unresponsive to heart-felt appeals to a common humanity, to compassion, to decency, is dangerous.How can we maintain the precarious balance between a politics that trades cheaply on emotion, and one that both comes from and appeals to the heart?Guest: Christos Tsiolkas is the author of eight novels — Loaded, The Jesus Man, Dead Europe, The Slap, Barracuda, Damascus, 7 ½, The In-Between — and the short story collection, Merciless Gods. He is a playwright, screen writer, essayist, radio host and currently a <a href="https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/contributor/christos-tsiolkas">film critic for The Saturday Paper</a>. In September last year, he delivered the <a href="https://www.library.gov.au/whats-on/events/2025-ray-mathew-lecture-christos-tsiolkas">2025 Ray Mathew Lecture</a> at the National Library of Australia, on the topic “Fence-Sitting”.

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