Battle of Ideas Festival Audio Archive

Battle of Ideas festival 2023: welcome address

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2023 on Saturday 28 October at Church House, London.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
The eighteenth annual Battle of Ideas festival opened with a Welcome Address.
SPEAKERSBen Deloentrepreneur, mathematician and philanthropist
Claire Foxdirector, Academy of Ideas; independent peer, House of Lords; author, I STILL Find That Offensive!
CHAIRAlastair Donaldco-convenor, Battle of Ideas festival; convenor, Living Freedom; author, Letter on Liberty: The Scottish Question

Andrew Tate and the Lost Boys

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2023 on Sunday 29 October at Church House, London.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
From bad influences to rebels without a cause, society has always worried about young men. But the recent popularity of the influencer and self-titled ‘king of toxic masculinity’, Andrew Tate, among young men – and even pre-teen boys – has left schools and parents in a panic. Such is the fear of Tate’s influence that headteachers have reached out to the Department for Education for guidance on how to talk to their lads about his misogynistic views on women.
But the Tate phenomenon is complicated: many young men claim to take his messages about women with a pinch of salt, instead finding meaning in his proselytising about ambition, self-sufficiency and becoming ‘a man’. In fact, almost everyone agrees that we need to talk about men – from campaigns to improve their mental health to authors like Caitlin Moran releasing books called What About Men? The question is, why do we seem to be getting it so wrong?
Some argue that contemporary feminist discussions about young women, from ‘He for She’ campaigns to the fallout from the #MeToo movement, often seem to put boys down in order to raise girls up. Others argue that the contemporary condemnation of ‘toxic masculinity’ has eliminated any discussion about what a ‘positive’ masculinity might look like, leaving boys to turn to online figures to find out how to grow up.
Has our nervousness about masculinity left us unable to talk to boys about what it means to be a man? Does the popularity of Tate and other influencers prove that sexism is still a problem, or should we be more concerned that large numbers of boys are turning to strangers online for life guidance? Are we dealing with a generation of lost boys, or is this crisis in manhood simply a twenty-first century version of the problem epitomised by The Wild One’s Johnny Strabler?
SPEAKERSNick Dixoncomedian; presenter, GB News; host, The Current Thing; host, The Weekly Sceptic
Dr Ashley Frawleysociologist; author, Significant Emotions and Semiotics of Happiness
Matilda Goslingsocial researcher; author, Evidence-Based Parenting and Teenagers – The Evidence Base (forthcoming)
Dennis Kavanaghdirector, Gay Men’s Network
CHAIRToby Marshallfilm studies teacher; member, AoI Education Forum

Marking time: how should lecturers judge students?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2023 on Sunday 29 October at Church House, London.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
If once university and college lecturers were trusted to use their critical faculties, judgement and erudition to grade students, today they are regularly issued with template marking schemes to grade their students’ academic work. Indeed, in some educational settings, algorithmic assessments are seen as the most reliable measure of worth. It is argued that lecturers can’t be trusted to be impartial; that subjective and unconscious bias could skew judgements and marks.
Meanwhile, students are told that they need protection from frank but harsh critiques, whether in crits, tutorials or coursework marking. Indeed, the idea of discrimination now seems to assume only negative connotations, with educators being discouraged from using the concrete judgement of their red pen to determine right from wrong. Surely objective, criteria-based assessment is fairer than relying on one grouchy don’s views – or another woke lecturer’s hostility to ‘unfashionable’ political outlooks?
For some, this demonisation of judgement has undermined confidence in the idea of personal and professional discrimination. For others, a move away from old-fashioned judgment and criticism shows a new sensitivity to students, and a self-awareness of one’s own biases. But is this a demeaning view of thin-skinned students unable to cope with feedback? Some argue such changes are doing students a disservice as their work is, in effect, managed by administrators and pre-approved metrics that perpetuate the idea of ‘teaching to test’. What if a student considers an academic’s judgement as biased, or even bullying? Some institutions have predicted such complaints and have set up processes for student appeals – even litigation. Are academics right to be wary of students; to protect themselves from accusations? Or does that normalise suspicion of others’ motives and self-doubt about one’s own?
What is wrong with creating a better model of evidence-based objective assessment? Can the art of criticism ever be a constructive process? Or is it inherently subjective, and open to abuse?
SPEAKERSMatilda MartinEnglish student, University of Oxford
Dr Vanessa Pupavactranslator; senior lecturer, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham; author, Translation as Liberation
David Swifthistorian; author, The Identity Myth and A Left for Itself
CHAIRAustin Williamsdirector, Future Cities Project; honorary research fellow, XJTLU, Suzhou, China; author, China’s Urban Revolution; convenor, Critical Subjects Architecture School

Putting the past on trial: burning dead witches?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2013 on Sunday 20 October at Barbican, London.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Denouncing racism in football, Prime Minister David Cameron recently declared, ‘we will not let recent events drag us back to the bad old days of the past,’ exemplifying a new trend to look back at the past from a position of moral superiority. Past decades are routinely disparaged today as a toxic legacy, particularly in the discussion about revelations of child abuse in the 1960s and 70s, but also in debates about ‘old-fashioned’ patriotism, traditional religion and ‘dead, white European males’ being taught in school curriculum, not to mention football hooliganism.
Far from celebrating the achievements of the past, the cultural script of the 21st century seems ever-hostile to the practices and values of yesteryear. When it comes to parenting, for example, the experience and insights of previous generations are castigated as dangerously old-fashioned prejudices, far too out-dated for our progressive, enlightened times. And in the debate about Baby-Boomers betraying today’s ‘jilted generation’, the older generations are admonished for the allegedly hedonistic, selfish and unsustainable lifestyles of their youth. Geoffrey Wheatcroft declares, ‘If there is any hope at all, it must be that our crappy generation can slink away in shame, and let a younger generation see if they can manage things better’.
Against this, Irish writer John Waters has warned against a dangerous condescension to the past and what he characterises as an ‘unlimited appetite for past obscenities’. Certainly we seem to have a morose fascination with excavating yesterday’s culture for secret scandals and hidden abuse. In the aftermath of the Savile scandal and amid Operation Yewtree, the police are openly encouraging people to examine their past for any possible abusive behaviour. For critics, this means inviting individuals to make sense of their current problems by seeing them as part of the damage inflicted by past wrongs. Should we accept the implication that their lives today were scripted by past childhood traumas? And are we being encouraged to reinterpret past experiences through the prism of present day preoccupations, obscuring our understanding of the past in its own terms? Why are we so keen to turn backwards and put the past on trial today, rather than concentrating on an optimistic embrace of the future? And was the past so bad anyway?
SPEAKERSJennie Bristowsenior lecturer in sociology, Canterbury Christ Church University; author, The Sociology of Generations: New directions and challenges and Baby Boomers and Generational Conflict; co-author, Parenting Culture Studies
Allan Massieauthor, nearly 30 books, including 20 historical novels, including A Question of Loyalties and Dark Summer in Bordeaux; columnist, Spectator
John WatersIrish newspaper columnist; author, Jiving at the Crossroads and Was It For This? Why Ireland Lost the Plot
Professor Sir Simon Wesselypresident of the Royal College of Psychiatrists; head of the Department of Psychological Medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London
CHAIRClaire Foxdirector, Academy of Ideas; panellist, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze; author, I Find That Offensive

Soul on the slab: is there no limit to what neuroscience can do?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2013 on Sunday 20 October at Barbican, London.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Neuroscience provides previously unimagined access to the inner workings of the brain. For enthusiasts, it could be the scientific holy grail, unravelling the mechanics of consciousness and uncovering the biological basis of the human character. Certainly, astonishing claims are made for new techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Every new advance in brain scanning technology leads to greater claims for the power of science. Scanned subjects’ response to different stimuli, when regions of the brain ‘light up’, are said to correlate with emotions, intentions, and feelings. Might an ability to visualise the mind within the brain provide a window into our innermost thoughts, reveal the sources of our deepest desires?
Despite the tremendous potential of breakthroughs in neuroscience, there is now increasing disquiet at the alleged exaggerations made in its name. Critics such as Thomas Nagel, Sally Satel and Raymond Tallis argue the overzealous application of brain science undermines notions of free will and responsibility, reducing all human behaviour to crude determinism. Others fear the rise and rise of neuroscience is side-lining centuries of insights into the human condition provided by the humanities, philosophy, psychology, politics, even religion. But such concerns are often dismissed as outdated and ill-informed, and even heretical when voiced by scientists themselves. So neuroscience’s colonisation of all aspects of life looks unstoppable, spawning a range of new disciplines such as neurolinguistics, neurogenetics, neuroeconomics, as well as educational, behavioural, cognitive and evolutionary neuroscience. Meanwhile, the supposed unlocking of the secrets of the human mind has attracted fashionable enthusiasm far beyond the world of science: policy makers, marketeers, pollsters, artists, lawyers now see neuroscience as the key to unlocking everything from why consumers make certain choices to why people vote left or right, from why we listen to music to why some of us commit crimes.
Has the explanatory power of neuroscience been overestimated or is it the key to reading our minds? Are those calling for a radical neuro-transformation of criminal responsibility, education, public health, social policy too credulous about what some term ‘neurobollocks’? Or is scepticism about neuroscience driven by a stubborn refusal to accept that we are less autonomous than we think? Should we anyway be seeking to keep what goes on in our brains out of public policy?
SPEAKERSDr Julian Bagginifounding editor, the Philosophers' Magazine; author, Freedom Regained: the possibility of free will and The Edge of Reason: A Rational Skeptic in an Irrational World
Professor Bill Durodiéhead of department and chair of international relations, University of Bath
Professor Geraint Reesdirector, UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience; senior clinical fellow, Wellcome Trust
Dr Sally Satelresident scholar, American Enterprise Institute; psychiatrist; author, Brainwashed: the seductive appeal of mindless neuroscience
CHAIRClaire Foxdirector, Academy of Ideas; panellist, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze; author, I Find That Offensive

Leveson one year on: what future for press freedom?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2013 on Sunday 20 October at Barbican, London.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
It is a year since Lord Justice Leveson published his inquiry into the ‘Culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press,’ but decisions about future press regulation are still far from being resolved. Attempts by Labour peers to include Leveson-type reforms in the recent defamation bill have failed, and the prime minister’s cunning plan to avoid state regulation of the press through a Royal Charter have floundered, as no publishers have agreed to sign up to the proposed regulator. Leveson and his team have been beset by scandals, and rumours that the future of press regulation was decided over pizza in the early hours by politicians and three members of the pro-regulation Hacked Off lobby group, but without a single member of the press present have marred the government’s approach. Even the ongoing support from celebs such as Hugh Grant and Steve Coogan has done little to keep it in favour. As the press formulate an alternative, what’s now been dubbed the ‘pizza charter’ seems doomed to failure.
Is the Leveson report now - as is widely reported in the press – discredited, or is all the muckraking and conspiracy theorising by the press a conscious attempt by the ‘feral’ press to dodge his proposals? With the public apparently supporting the implementation of Leveson –around two-thirds are in favour according to recent polls - how can it be in the public interest to have an unregulated press? Does the Royal Charter proposal does represent any sort of positive alternative to statute-backed regulation, or could the implications for free speech be even worse? Finally, with the so-called ‘blue-chip’ hackers - law firms and insurers – now under the spotlight, were offences by the press as grievous and isolated as was first made out?
SPEAKERSProfessor George Brockhead of journalism, City University London; author, Out of Print: newspapers, journalism and the business of news in the Digital Age
Professor Roger GraefCEO, Films of Record; award-winning filmmaker, including the Bafta winning Police series, Police 2001, Turning the Screws, and The Secret Policeman's Ball; visiting professor, Mannheim Centre for Criminology, LSE
Patrick Hayesdirector, British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA)
Professor Tim Luckhursthead, Centre for Journalism, University of Kent; author, Responsibility without Power: Lord Justice Leveson's constitutional dilemma
CHAIRViv Reganmanaging editor, spiked

Building trust or cleaning up the public realm?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2013 on Sunday 20 October at Barbican, London.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
The problem of collapsing trust has become all-pervasive. Many of society’s most treasured institutions, private and public, seem to have lost the faith of the public. Scandals have led many to question the integrity of the police, the Catholic Church, the banking system, parliament, newspapers, the BBC and the NHS. The responses to such crises now have a familiar script of their own: a public inquiry exposing institutional malaise, followed by swift calls for external regulation, tougher penalties, staff purges and ‘root-and-branch’ retraining. There have also been calls to protect whistleblowers and to ensure greater diversity at management level to guard against perceptions of cronyism.
While a bout of soul-searching is understandable following failures such as Mid-Staffs, however, the jury is out on how far such moves rebuild trust. External regulation is greeted with cynicism, provoking accusations of incompetence if the regulators are recruited from outside the profession (as in the NHS and police) and corruption if they are drawn from within (Libor). Self-regulation, meanwhile, is widely derided as, to quote Jeremy Paxman, akin to ‘the bloke down the pub telling you you’re sober enough to drive.’ For some, however, the crisis that engulfed safeguarding authorities over child abuse provides a salutary lesson of how efforts to restore trust can backfire: with ‘tainted’ senior staff replaced by inexperienced juniors and professional judgement eroded by bureaucratic exercises such as CRB checks. One doctor lamented, ‘every box ticked is a kindness lost’. More broadly, a concern with being seen to be whiter than white may be a distraction from the core work through which all institutions must ultimately win the public’s trust.
Does treating every individual as requiring constant scrutiny and supervision, and encouraging them to report on colleagues, risk undermining the professional ethos institutions draw their strength from? If a witchhunting dynamic is allowed to take hold – and those who seek to defend their reputations dismissed as arrogant troublemakers - are we in danger of driving anyone who doesn’t match up to a sanitised idea of the public servant out of our institutions? Do reasonable demands for accountability become too easily sacrificed to PR-friendly scapegoating and panicked reform? Or are such criticisms merely more buck-passing and resistance to much-needed change for failing organisations? Can anyone be trusted to restore the public’s faith in our institutions?
SPEAKERSLord Victor Adebowalechief executive, Turning Point; non-executive director, NHS England; chancellor, Lincoln University
Paul Daviespartner, PwC
Alex Deanemanaging director, FTI Consulting; Sky News regular; BBC Dateline London panellist; author Big Brother Watch: The state of civil liberties in modern Britain
Brendan O'Neilleditor, spiked; columnist, Big Issue; contributor, Spectator; author, A Duty to Offend: Selected Essays
Jill Rutterprogramme director, Institute for Government
CHAIRClaire Foxdirector, Academy of Ideas; panellist, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze; author, I Find That Offensive

Listening to music: a private or public activity?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2013 on Saturday 19 October at Barbican, London.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
ETA Hoffmann’s famous 1810 review of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony declared instrumental music to be the highest of all art forms because it opened up to listeners the realm of the infinite, ‘a world that has nothing in common with the external world of the senses’. Precisely because of its independence from words, music could express that which lay beyond the grasp of conventional language and be interpreted by any one of us in a multitude of ways. In a celebrated passage in the novel Howards End, EM Forster captures a whole range of types of listener among six characters listening to Beethoven’s Fifth.  Responses ranged from the visceral (Mrs Munt tapping) to the technical (Tibby ‘versed in counterpoint’), from Helen ‘who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music’s flood’ to the nationalistic. What all listeners had in common was that they experience music in public, typically in a concert hall.
Today, however, music is a ubiquitous backdrop to everyday life, experienced in lifts, in TV jingles or on a multitude of radio stations. And who needs the concert hall when we access personal playlists in our own time and schedule? Even listening to music in public – on the street or on a train – can be an intensely private experience. Cultural attitudes have also changed. A new audiences initiative has declared ‘the most alienating of all classical music’s rituals is that concerts take place in concert halls’, which is all too much like a museum. What’s more, it’s suggested that in today’s visual culture, staring straight ahead at the musicians or closing your eyes and listening intently is not sufficient: a visual dimension is necessary to engage contemporary audiences.
Contemporary music ensembles are reminded that millions of people listen to music at festivals, nightclubs, discos and private parties, and expect a similarly immersive experience from concerts. But should all musical experiences really be the same, or is there something to be said for a degree of reverence in some circumstances? Does visual accompaniment distract us or help us concentrate on the layers and subtleties of music? Should we throw off the classical concert hall as a burden? How and where should we listen to music to really hear it?  Is really listening to music a public pursuit or a private passion?
SPEAKERSIvan Hewettchief music critic, Daily Telegraph; professor, Royal College of Music; broadcaster; author, Music: healing the rift
Marshall MarcusCEO, European Union Youth Orchestra; chair; Sistema Europe
Gabriella Swallowcellist, broadcaster and arts commentator
CHAIRAngus Kennedyconvenor, The Academy; author, Being Cultured: in defence of discrimination

Do as I say not as I do: what's wrong with hypocrisy?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2013 on Saturday 19 October at Barbican, London.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Of all scandals involving public figures, the ones that are relished most are those in which the protagonist has been found to be privately indulging in behaviour they have publicly condemned: the pious champion of family values who turns out to have a gay lover on the side, the politician who talks tough about border controls while employing an illegal immigrant as a maid, or the socialist who rails against unearned privilege while quietly sending her children to private school. The resulting charge of hypocrisy has always been an ambiguous one, however. Is the real issue the hypocrites’ inability to live up to their own high standards, or their moralistic condemnation of behaviour that is perfectly reasonable and ought to be blameless? Do the republican ideals of a Thomas Jefferson count for nothing because he was a slave owner, or can we uphold them even as we condemn his hypocrisy?
In recent years, there has been a greater focus on the private lives of politicians and other public figures. If there once existed a gentlemen’s agreement whereby the press turned a blind eye to the private indiscretions of ministers, no such niceties apply today. But should we really be judging people by what they do in their private lives, rather than by their public achievements, or lack of them? Does it really matter if a politician, business leader or sports person is a horrible and immoral person at home, if at work they enact policies that improve people’s lives, create jobs or perform on the sports field? Or should we expect and demand personal integrity and good character in anyone in a position of responsibility and influence? Should we demand more transparency and openness, so we can be sure our public figures are what they claim to be?
Or does a focus on their private lives reflect diminished expectations about what people can and should achieve in the public sphere, regardless of any personal flaws? And does a preoccupation with judging people’s private behaviour by their own public standards reveal a certain relativism – a reluctance to make an absolute judgement about what is and is not acceptable?
SPEAKERSAnne Atkinsnovelist, columnist and broadcaster; prize-winning journalist; regular contributor, BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day
Ruth Dudley Edwardshistorian and journalist; author, The Seven: the lives and legacies of the founding fathers of the Irish Republic (forthcoming)
Dr Michael Fitzpatrickwriter on medicine and politics; author, The Tyranny of Health
Joe Friggieriprofessor of philosophy and former head of department, University of Malta; poet; playwright; theatre director; three-times winner, National Literary Prize
CHAIRDolan Cummingsassociate fellow, Academy of Ideas; author, That Existential Leap: a crime story (forthcoming from Zero Books)

State vs. market: is there a way forward?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2013 on Saturday 19 October at Barbican, London.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
The free market has long been understood as a key aspect of freedom more generally. But critics also see the market as a place of exploitation, as a threat to, rather than an expression of, our freedom. And in the past 150 years there has grown up a counterbalance to the market in the form of the state: both the protector and regulator of the market. Should private businesses be compelled to obey the dictates of the public as personified by the state? Or, conversely, should they enjoy the same freedoms as private individuals – the freedom to buy what they want and sell what they want? Does that extend to discrimination in the labour market? Should employers be able to discriminate against employees they think are too old or customers they just don’t like?
Might it be that an increasingly top-heavy state is holding back the entrepreneurial dynamism of the market, or should we view it as vital life-support to a system far beyond the capabilities of private enterprise, however large? Is it right that the market should be involved in the traditional functions of the state like prisons, healthcare, even the army and the police? And must the state act as a prop to the market by subsidising industries that are failing or would never start up in the first place without a hand-out from the taxpayer? Can it, given the scale of public debt, even afford such largesse? Is it time to find a way past the opposition between state and market? Do the terms even make sense anymore, given the degree of mutual reliance and interpenetration they have now achieved?
SPEAKERSLouise Cooperfinancial analyst and blogger, CooperCity.co.uk
Thomas Hylland Eriksenprofessor of social anthropology, University of Oslo; novelist; author, Ethnicity and Nationalism and Globalization: the key concepts
Phil Mullaneconomist and business manager; author, Creative Destruction: How to start an economic renaissance
Dr Andrew SentanceSenior Economic Adviser to PwC (since 2011); formerly, external member, Monetary Policy Committee, Bank of England
CHAIRAngus Kennedyconvenor, The Academy; author, Being Cultured: in defence of discrimination

East Asia: the new global hotspot?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2013 on Saturday 19 October at Barbican, London.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Kim Jong-un’s North Korea may call for a ‘merciless, sacred, retaliatory war’ against the US imperialists and South Korean ‘puppet warmongers’ it blames for inching the Korean peninsula towards thermonuclear war. But China, despite distancing itself from its communist neighbour’s antics, also feels itself threatened by the US. In the East and South China Seas, across the Pacific, and even in its relations with India, China feels encircled, whatever successes are achieved by its ‘String of Pearls’ strategy of alliances with countries such as Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Is it paranoia or imperialist ambitions that lead China to hack Pentagon computers and build up a carrier fleet? What should we make of Xi Jinping’s talk of his ‘strong-army dream’ and desire for ‘the great revival of the Chinese nation’?
Japanese military posturing over the Senkaku Islands has led its military ally America to call for restraint and cooler heads. But some see the US guarantee of Japan’s security as a potential trigger of world war – analogous to the interlocking alliances that precipitated World War I a hundred years ago. How accurate is it to see conflicts in the East and South China Seas, and nearby, through the lens of the tensions that broke out in 1914? Is Myanmar really a new Serbia? What about the dangers of border skirmishes between India and China? India and Pakistan? And has the friction really gone out of the relationship between China and Taiwan?
Is East Asia really the key cockpit for tomorrow’s major wars? Perhaps saner voices will prevail against the national resentments that characterise China, Japan, America and other states in the region. But what is the exact nature and strength of the different nationalisms at work there, anyway? Does Asia’s arms race reflect rivalry for natural resources, historical resentments, or the simple fact of China’s rise and America’s decline? Could hothead nationalism – whether Japanese, Chinese or North Korean – be the spark that ignites war in the east?
SPEAKERSBen Chueconomics editor, the Independent; author Chinese Whispers: why everything you've heard about China is wrong
Professor Steve Tsangdirector, China Policy Institute, University of Nottingham
James Woudhuysenvisiting professor, London South Bank University
CHAIRRob Lyonsscience and technology director, Academy of Ideas; convenor, IoI Economy Forum

Battle of Ideas festival 2013: welcome address

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2013 on Saturday 19 October at Barbican, London.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
The ninth annual Battle of Ideas festival opened with a Welcome Address hosted by Claire Fox, Director of the Academy of Ideas.
SPEAKERSEvan FueryVice President Exploration Business Development Origination, Statoil
Leonora Thomsondirector of audiences and development, Barbican Centre
Mike Wrightexecutive director, Jaguar Land Rover
CHAIRClaire Foxdirector, Academy of Ideas; panellist, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze; author, I Find That Offensive

Atheism: what's the point?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2012 on Sunday 21 October at Barbican, London.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
From the controversy over teaching ‘intelligent design’ in schools, to arguments over prayers at council meetings or religiously based opposition to euthanasia, abortion or gay marriage, atheists have crossed swords with religious believers over a number of issues in recent years. And the critique is not limited to mainstream religion: champions of science, reason and evidence have also sought to expose the pretences of clairvoyants and alternative-health charlatans. There is a consensus among many educated people that religious values distort rather than contribute to private morality and public debate, and that evidence should always trump faith. But can anything amounting to a value system in itself be built just on atheism, or is atheism no more than a lack of belief in gods?
Just because some atheists have a commitment to reason, does that mean that atheists are overall more likely to be rational than other people? Are atheists really any more likely to be rational in general than those who do believe in a god? Aren’t there just as many atheists who believe in life after death, homeopathy, healing crystals, horoscopes, and a whole raft of superstitions?
Many prominent atheists would no doubt say that they are atheists because of their prior commitment to reason. But it can seem to many observers that it is the atheism that often comes first, rising out of a rejection of religious belief. For some, ‘atheist fundamentalism’ is an unattractive mirror image of the religiosity it opposes, and informed by contempt for the supposedly ignorant and scientifically illiterate population, or ‘nobbers’, as one celebrity scientist calls them. Is this because ‘atheism’ per se really is no more than the negative rejection of a belief in gods? If it is, how relevant is it in a society where fewer and fewer people are being raised with a belief in gods which they can reject? Is it precisely the lack of an experience of this personal emancipation, or journey towards humanism and reason, that leads atheists instead to direct their hostility at religious believers and institutions? How compelling is a negative belief?
Nonetheless, whether it’s the worship of Stephen Fry as the cleverest human on the planet or hostility to the influence of organised religion in politics, there is a growing identification with a non-religious, atheist, and humanist approach as a cultural movement, especially among bright young people. For many, atheism implies support for such progressive causes as the ‘right to die’ and LGBT equality, human rights and liberal education. But is atheism always the same as ‘humanism’? Is it really the idea of ‘atheism’ doing the work in these causes? Are there really such things as atheist values? Aren’t there as many religious people who also have liberal, progressive and humane ideas - especially in societies like Europe where religions have responded to humanism by emulating it in many ways? And aren’t there many religious people - perhaps a majority - who are just as committed as atheists are, maybe even more so, to the idea of a secular state? If so, what is the point of atheism?
SPEAKERSAndrew Copsonchief executive, British Humanist Association
Dr Michael Fitzpatrickwriter on medicine and politics; author, The Tyranny of Health
Alom Shahawriter and science teacher; author The Young Atheist's Handbook
Mark Vernonjournalist; author, God: all that matters and The Big Questions: God
CHAIRDolan Cummingsassociate fellow, Academy of Ideas; author, That Existential Leap: a crime story (forthcoming from Zero Books)

Building an intellectual legacy – the Battle for which ideas?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2012 on Sunday 21 October at Barbican, London.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
‘Ideas are the cogs that drive history, and understanding them is half way to being aboard that powerful juggernaut rather than under its wheels’. AC Grayling
Society seems woefully lacking in Big Ideas, and we seem to crave new thinking. In Britain, great hopes rest on the legacy of the Olympics, but however inspiring the sporting excellence we all witnessed, is it realistic that a summer of feel-good spectacle can resolve deep-rooted cultural problems, from widespread disdain for competitition to community fragmentation? In America, Mitt Romney has pledged to pit substantial ideas against the empty ‘yes, we can’ sloganeering of Barack Obama, with his running mate Paul Ryan dubbed the ‘intellectual’ saviour of the Republican Party, but can they really deliver? Europe, once the home of Enlightenment salons, is now associated more with EU technocrats than philosophes. Looking to the intellectual legacy of the past is considered out of pace with an ever-changing world. We seem estranged from ideas associated with important moments in history - the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the American and French Revolutions. Can even a basic idea like free will survive the challenges of neuroscience and genetics? When the internet offers information at the click of a mouse, what’s the point of pedagogy?
Some contend intellectual life has rarely been healthier; after all today’s governments appoint economists, philosophers and scientific advisers to positions of influence, and the fashion for evidence-based policy puts a premium on academic research. Nevertheless, the emphasis is on ‘what works’ utility and short-term impact rather than open-ended, risky ideas. Often data is passed off as Truth, and Socratic dialogue replaced by rows over conflicting evidence. The scramble for the next Big Idea seems to have replaced the creative and painstaking development of ideas. It’s as though serious ideas can be conjured up in brainstorming sessions or critical-thinking classes. But think-tanks kite-flying the latest outside-of-the-box, blue-skies-thinking speak more to pragmatism and opportunism than following in the tradition of Plato. Ideas become free-floating, divorced from their origins, and take on any meaning one cares to ascribe to them. Hence freedom can mean protection, its defence leading to illiberal regulations; equality can mean conformity and sameness; tolerance becomes a coda for indifference, and individualism denotes little more than selfishness.
Where apparently novel concepts catch on, from sustainability to fairness, identity to offence, they are often little more than fashionable sound-bites. Other ideas are even described as dangerous; those who espouse the ‘wrong’ ideas branded as modern-day heretics. But can we ever hope to approach the truth if we stifle dissent? Is intellectual life on the wane? Is it conservative to cling to old ideas, or if we don’t stand on the shoulders of giants, are we doomed to stand still ? Might truth seeking be more important than the Truth?
SPEAKERSAndrew Keenentrepreneur; founder, Audiocafe.com; author, Digital Vertigo: how today's online social revolution is dividing, diminishing, and disorienting us
Ivan Krastevchairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia; permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna
Dr Ellie Leereader in social policy, University of Kent, Canterbury; director, Centre for Parenting Culture Studies
Rob Riemenwriter and cultural philosopher; founder & president, Netherlands-based Nexus Institute; author, Nobility of Sprit: a forgotten ideal and The Eternal Return of Fascism
CHAIRClaire Foxdirector, Academy of Ideas; panellist, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze; author, I Find That Offensive

Risk, regulation and red tape

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2012 on Sunday 21 October at Barbican, London.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
We often seem to struggle today to get the balance right between reasonable risk-taking and sensible precaution. It seems every new risk is met with ever-more petty, sometimes draconian, measures and laws. Excessive safety regulations threaten to make normal parts of life – like the humble school trip – increasingly impractical. At the same time, nobody wants to do away with sensible precautions that protect life and limb. Is there a danger that in a bid to free ourselves from excessive regulations, we might go to the opposite extreme and get burned in an unlicensed bonfire of red tape?
Whether it is the dangers of nuclear power, the risks of excessive drinking, the uncertainties around GM crops or the threat posed by trolls on Facebook, the mantra is always the same: ‘Better safe than sorry.’ And while more serious incidents may appear to demand action, policies often regulate far beyond the original cause. Recently, there has been some kick-back against this risk-averse culture, but for ‘common sense’ to prevail, we have to trust one another to exercise it, and trust powerful organisations and institutions to take public welfare seriously too. And who trusts corporations not to put profits first and safety second? Who trusts the media to self-regulate in the era of Leveson? Who argues banks should be free to take more risks in the wake of the financial crisis? And who trust bankers even to abide by existing regulations after the Libor rate-fixing scandal? Organisations have responded to the trust deficit by instituting procedures to minimise risk – and protect their reputations. So, for example, the scientific community champions the precautionary principle, even when it inhibits the scope of their own research. Or, in child-protection circles, many self-imposed regulations are seen as necessary to protect agencies in the event of something going wrong.
If we don’t take risks sometimes, how can we make progress, or even learn from our mistakes? At the same time, letting powerful organisations off the leash entirely might mean throwing out important regulations designed to protect the vulnerable from abuse. Might freeing firms from the red tape of employment law be a green light to unfair dismissal? When some procedural measures are designed to protect individuals from unwanted state intrusion, how much red tape can we afford to throw on the bonfire? How do we properly assess safety in an age in which both private and public bodies are encouraged to imagine the worst possible outcome, rather than prepare for what’s probable? Will more regulation help, or are there deeper cultural issues at stake?
SPEAKERSMarco Amitranopartner and head, risk assurance services, PwC
Josie Appletondirector, civil liberties group, Manifesto Club; author, Officious: Rise of the Busybody State
Nick Butlervisiting professor and chair, King's Policy Institute, King's College London; treasurer, the Fabian Society; former special advisor to Gordon Brown; former group vice-president, strategy and policy development, BP
Mark Littlewooddirector general, Institute of Economic Affairs
Simon Nixonchief European commentator, Wall Street Journal; author, The Credit Crunch: how safe is your money?
CHAIRClaire Foxdirector, Academy of Ideas; panellist, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze; author, I Find That Offensive