Academy of Ideas

Listen to the debate from the Battle of Ideas Festival 2019. Earlier this year, Gillette produced an advert aimed at challenging ‘toxic masculinity’. Although somewhat frivolous, the example illustrates a growing trend among the world’s biggest companies to weigh in on social issues. In perhaps the most infamous example of all, in 2017, Pepsi released an advert with Kylie Jenner healing divisions...

Listen to the debate from the Battle of Ideas Festival 2019.   There is something of an obsession with ‘normality’ today. Sally Rooney’s novel, Normal People, was widely acclaimed for its sensitive portrayal of everyday contemporary relationships. The TV smash hit Fleabag was likewise praised for its unflinching portrayal of ‘normal’ British middle-class sexual mores. But attitudes towards ‘normal...

Recording of a debate at the Battle of Ideas festival 2019. Today’s political culture seems obsessed with dark, apocalyptic visions. From young people staging ‘die-ins’ to protest about the environment to talk of an ‘insect apocalypse’, fears and threats loom large. Extinction Rebellion argues that the threat of catastrophe means we must reject growth and material progress in favour of a new eco-a...

Listen to the debate from the Battle of Ideas Festival 2019. Monty Python’s Life of Brian was released in the UK on 8 November 1979. The film had problems from the start, with its funding withdrawn by EMI films at the last minute, but it was rescued by former Beatle George Harrison putting up the money for it to be made. Forty years later, it would be nice to say that we’re more relaxed about reli...

Listen to the debate from the Battle of Ideas Festival 2019. ‘Humour is a weapon of the patriarchy.’ So says Titania McGrath, the Twitter superstar who describes herself as an activist, healer and radical intersectionalist poet. Titania has become famous for her ‘woke’ words of wisdom, such as ‘heterosexuality is a hoax’. Of course, those of us who have been following Titania’s rise to fame will k...

Listen to the debate from the Battle of Ideas Festival 2019. A recent EU report found 89 per cent of Jews living in member countries feel anti-Semitism has increased over the past decade, while 85 per cent believe it to be a serious problem. Anti-Semitism has traditionally been associated with the political right and with national chauvinism, but today it is often radical Islamists or even leftist...

Listen to the debate from the Battle of Ideas festival 2019 . Many commentators have observed that Britain enjoys, by European standards at least, a uniquely stable party-political system. In many other European countries, collapsing empires, social uprisings or world wars fuelled new parties and shifting popular allegiances. Britain, on the other hand, is notable for the longevity – and adaptabil...

Recording of the opening remarks from a Battle of Ideas festival satellite event on Monday 18 November 2019. Schools are unique institutions. Their most obvious role is in relation to education and the generational transfer of knowledge. However, they also mediate between the state and parents in shaping the next generation. Schools enforce behavioural expectations and instil particular values whi...

Recording of a debate at the Battle of Ideas Festival 2018 . Since the fall of communism, the dominant narrative around international politics and economics has been that of a stable order defined by liberal, free-market values and agreements. In recent years, faith in the liberal international vision seems to have been shattered. In response to the rise of China and resurgence of Russia, populist...

In 2019, over than a dozen US states have either passed or attempted to pass stricter abortion legislation. Georgia's new law bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. Alabama's new law would more or less ban abortion entirely. How should those who are pro-choice respond? This Battle of Ideas debate from 2016 remains very relevant. Original introduction In her new book, Ann Furedi, chief executi...

Recording of the debate at the Battle of Ideas Festival 2018 . Visiting Europe in the summer, President Trump lambasted Germany’s relationship with Russia, took a dig at Theresa May’s Brexit strategy and seemingly sided with Vladimir Putin against America’s own intelligence agencies. The UK’s former foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, also famously made numerous diplomatic gaffes. Once diplomacy was...

After three decades teaching at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, there have recently been calls from campus activists for Camille Paglia to be sacked from her post for having 'dangerous' views. Listen to this discussion at the Battle of Ideas Festival 2016, with Paglia in conversation with Claire Fox, and decide for yourself. Original session introduction Internationally renowned Americ...

Listen to the debate from the Battle of Ideas Festival 2018 . In Brexit Britain, much focus has fallen on the divides that cut across generational, educational and class lines. But increasingly there is a new geographical divide that is taking shape – one where voguish metropolitan regions, prosperous urban centres and university towns contrast starkly with vast swathes of territory now labelled ‘...

This is a recording from the Academy of Ideas Economy Forum on Monday 8 April 2019. The session title was ‘How can we revive UK economic growth?’ ( academyofideas.org.uk/events/archive…conomic_growth ) The speaker is John Mills, an entrepreneur, economist and author, noted for his writing on Brexit, the Labour Party and the exchange rate. In the political world, he formerly served as chair of Labo...

Recording of a debate at the Battle of Ideas Festival 2018 at The Barbican, London. Should funding for cultural projects be scaled back in a time of fiscal crisis? As we approach the National Lottery’s 25th anniversary, many are asking questions about where funding for culture should come from. Some anti-austerity campaigners say that new projects like the V&A museum in Dundee, at a cost of £80mil...

Recording of a debate at the Battle of Ideas Festival 2018. After the fall of the Soviet Union, a broad political consensus emerged that ‘there is no alternative’ to capitalism, which even the 2008 financial crash did little to disturb. But now things appear to be changing, with support for politicians like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders who call for a new way of organising the economy. A slew o...

Recording of a debate at the Battle of Ideas Festival 2018 . ‘There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.’ Oscar Wilde’s view of art as essentially an aesthetic pursuit, one concerned with transcendent beauty and the human condition, has arguably now been superseded. But artists are routinely being ‘called out’ if their work represen...

Recording of a debate at the Battle of Ideas Festival 2018. According to the 2017 Ipsos MORI Veracity Index, nurses and doctors are the most-trusted people in the UK. But in certain contexts, this trust seems to evaporate. Take the ever-present anti-vaccination (or ‘anti-vax’) movement, the popular reaction when medical professionals decide it is no longer right to try to keep very sick children a...

Recording of a debate from the Battle of Ideas Festival 2018 . From racist attacks to ominous  propaganda, anti-Semitism appears to be  making a comeback in Europe. In the UK,  the Labour Party has been very publicly  split over how it deals with the issue.  In one respect, it looks like the simple  return of what has been called ‘the longest  hatred’. But while anti-Semitism has long  been seen a...

A recording of a discussion at the Battle of Ideas Festival 2018 . Published in 1997, Frank Furedi’s book Culture of Fear was widely acclaimed as perceptive and prophetic. In his new book, How Fear Works, Furedi seeks to explore two interrelated themes: why fear has acquired such a morally commanding status in society today and how the way we fear has changed from the way it was experienced in the...

A recording of the debate at the Battle of Ideas Festival 2018. Science fiction has long explored the use of robots for sex, but the application of new technologies has been pushing the boundaries of sexuality towards the mechanical in real life. Interaction with fully functioning robotic sexual partners could soon be a practical alternative to actual sex. Advocates claim many people could benefit...

A recording of a debate at the Battle of Ideas Festival 2018 at The Barbican, London on Sunday 14 October.  In Blueprint: how DNA makes us who we are, the world’s leading behavioural geneticist, Robert Plomin, argues that our inherited DNA differences make us who we are as individuals. This conclusion is at odds with the importance ascribed to our education and the environment in which we grow up...

A recording of a debate at the Battle of Ideas festival at the Barbican in London on 14 October 2018. Over the past year, debates about democracy and its woes have been ubiquitous. There are fears tech giants and algorithms are undermining elections. Liberal democratic values such as free speech and universalism are questioned, even by liberals. Populism is variously claimed to be a threat to demo...

A recording of a  debate  at the Battle of Ideas festival 2018 in London on Saturday 13 October. What does it mean to be a woman? For some it’s about motherhood, others femininity, and some reject the whole idea of ‘womanhood’ outright. The Conservative Party’s proposed changes to the law around gender recognition have caused a fair amount of controversy around the question of what gender means an...

In the third of our end-of-year round-ups for 2018, the Academy of Ideas team - Claire Fox, Alastair Donald, Geoff Kidder, Rob Lyons, Jacob Reynolds and Ella Whelan - discuss everything non-Brexit in 2018. Is there a populist revolt spreading across Europe? What has happened in the gender wars of 2018? And is free speech still under threat?