Academy of Ideas

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe THE TROUBLE WITH BOYS: IS MASCULINITY IN CRISIS? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8949 The dynamics of gender relations have shifted rapidly over the past few decades. The days of traditional, fixed social roles for men and women have...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe BATTLE BITES - TOXIC ON TWITTER: SHOULD WE CLAMP DOWN ON TROLLS? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/9151 In September 2014, it emerged that the Kate and Gerry McCann – the couple whose daughter Madeline disappeared in Portugal in May 20...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe DOSE OF REALITY: THE ETHICS OF DRUG DEVELOPMENT http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8973 Whenever medication is prescribed to you by a doctor, given to you in a hospital or sold to you over-the-counter, almost every substance you ingest,...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe JUDGEMENT BY OUR PEERS: IS THE JURY OUT? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8944 Most people value trial by jury and see it as a cornerstone of Western justice, epitomised by the popular film, Twelve Angry Men. Yet the jury system is of...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe FROM BETTING TO MINIMUM PRICING: SAVING THE POOR FROM THEMSELVES http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8940 The government was widely mocked for this year’s ‘beer and bingo budget’, apparently aimed at giving the working classes more of wh...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe DO FILMS WARP MINDS? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8978 In January 2014, the British Board for Film Classification (BBFC) published new guidelines, announcing a new focus on preventing the sexualisation of girls. The board has also...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe JUDGE RULE: IS THE LAW TAKING OVER POLITICS? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8916 We can all agree that the rule of law is important. But does it have limits? Should we be wary of an increasing tendency for ‘rule by law’? Nowadays, t...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe IMMIGRATION: WHO SHOULD CONTROL OUR BORDERS? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8952 Immigration is a fraught political issue. Those opposing immigration – and especially the EU policy of granting freedom of movement to all EU citizens...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe VICTIM'S LAW: THERAPEUTIC JUSTICE OR MORAL CRUSADE? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/9041 In 1999, the then home secretary, Jack Straw, said he was ‘determined to ensure that (victims’) needs are placed at the very heart of the crimin...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe YEAR OF CODING: PROGRAMMING KIDS FOR WORK? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8930 2014 has been declared Year of Code, to encourage us all to understand the maths and science behind the user-friendly computer apps we all use. One key i...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe COMMUNITY TREATMENT ORDERS: THE PSYCHIATRIC ASBO? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8950 When Community Treatment Orders (CTOs) were created under the Mental Health Act 2007, it was hoped that psychiatric patients discharged from hospi...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe WHY IS AYN RAND SO POPULAR TODAY? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8978 It’s often said that when you’re young, you fall in love with Ayn Rand and then, as you get older, you grow out of her individual-oriented philosophies. That, aft...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe 'CINDERELLA LAW': CRIMINALISING PARENTAL AUTHORITY? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8929 The Queen’s Speech in June 2014 announced that the UK government was considering making ‘emotional cruelty to children’ by parents and carers in...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe IN CONVERSATION: ISRAEL http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/9068 Following the discovery of the bodies of three murdered Israeli teenagers in the West Bank at the start of July, Israel launched a military offensive against Gaza. Over the...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe DRIP BY DRIP: HAVE WE GIVEN UP ON PRIVACY? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/9016 The revelations made last year by Edward Snowden, a former contractor at the US National Security Agency (NSA), were a sharp reminder of just how much th...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe WHAT DO ANIMALS KNOW? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8981 In 2012, prominent cognitive neuroscientists gathered at Cambridge University to announce the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, claiming: ‘The weight of evidence indica...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe TO BOLDLY GO: WHAT IS THE POIJT OF SPACE EXPLORATION? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8997 When Neil Armstrong made his first steps on the moon on 21 July 1969, he was watched by over 500million people. Many stayed up through the nig...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe POLICING THE NIGHT-TIME ECONOMY: KILLING THE LADS' NIGHT OUT? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8946 The night-time economy has been one of Britain’s few recession-proof industries. Yet it has increasingly become an area for legislatio...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe MULTINATIONALS: CURSE OR BLESSING FOR THE DEVELOPING WORLD? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8953 With the increasing ‘globalisation’ of the world economy in the past 25 years, multinational corporations have been moving into more and...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe UKRAINE: COLD WAR REBOOTED? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8992 The recent crisis in Ukraine has been widely portrayed in the West as a rerun of the Cold War, with a peaceful pro-EU Ukraine being pulled apart as the result of an agg...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe BUSINESS BASHING: SHOULD CORPORATIONS CARE? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8933 These are said to be unprecedentedly uncertain times for business, but one area where there seems to be much certainty is that businesses need to do mor...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe COMPUTER SAYS NO? VETTING, BARRING AND CHILD PROTECTION REVISITED http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8931 Four years ago, the government resolved to scale back criminal-records vetting to ‘commonsense levels’, following concerns that ex...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe AMERICA: THE TWILIGHT YEARS? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8977 America’s problems at home and abroad have led many to wonder if the US is in decline. US foreign policy, from Syria to Ukraine, appears rudderless and impotent. The I...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe FROM CANARY WHARF TO CHINA: IS THE BUBBLE GOING TO BURST AGAIN? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8942 Six years on from the nadir of the financial crisis, no Western economy has got close to where it would have been if pre-crisis grow...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe COTTON-WOOL CAMPUS http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8926 When University College London’s students’ union banned a Nietzsche reading group in March, on the grounds that discussions about right-wing philosophers could encourage fascism...