Intelligence Squared

Eight years ago the banners said ‘Behold the new Kennedy!’ Tears flowed and expectations were sky-high as Obama spoke on election night surrounded by his young family. Here was America’s saviour, the man who could overcome the legacy of slavery, heal a divided nation, even reclaim its moral leadership. In fact, Obama’s record has been one of failure. Once the world’s policeman, today America is se...

Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. So said Winston Churchill and who would disagree? One man, one vote, the rule of law, equality and a free press. These are the principles which tens of thousands have been imprisoned or lost their lives for in despotic regimes from South America to Burma. But is the assumption that democracy always leads to a fre...

25 years ago, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the future looked rosy. Liberal democracy, freedom and individual rights were on the march, triumphing over tyranny and repression. The end of the Cold War had brought an end to history, declared Francis Fukuyama. A quarter of a century on, that sunny picture has clouded over. History has come bouncing back, says Peter Frankopan, the Oxford historian...

Beveridge would be turning in his grave. The benefits system that his 1942 report introduced has become a travesty. Right now there are some 4.5m people in the UK living in households where nobody has a job. Behind that figure lies a subsection of society mired in multi-generational unemployment. What was meant to be a safety net has become a poverty trap. Far from being the short-term stopgap tha...

In February 2012 Intelligence Squared Asia presented leading voices and influential figures in a debate about foreign intervention. This discussion raised questions such as: Does foreign intervention lend itself to long-term partnerships characterized by respect and progress? Does it pose fundamentally damaging practical and moral problems? What country has the right to meddle in the affairs of an...

How do we decide? The in-out referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union on June 23 is a once-in-a-generation vote. For some of us it’s a matter of gut political instinct: we are natural inners or outers. But for many, coming to an informed decision on how to vote is a challenge, given the swirl of claims and counterclaims being made by pro-EU campaigners on one side, and Brexit suppor...

It was a blast. Since the Industrial Revolution, we enjoyed unprecedented economic growth, propelled by a seemingly unstoppable wave of technological innovation. For 100 years from around 1870, life in the West was transformed by inventions such as electricity, the car and domestic appliances, which led to soaring growth, better lives and booming wealth for all. The poor became less poor, and the...

The law allows me to kill myself, but what if I have a progressive illness and reach a stage when I long to end my life but cannot do so unaided. Isn't it needlessly cruel and illogical that as the law stands, no friend or family member or doctor can then help me die without risking prosecution and a possible jail sentence? No it isn't, say those who oppose legalising assisted suicide. Think of th...

Michael Sandel is one of the world's most acclaimed and popular political philosophers. He has given the Reith lectures, been called "the most influential foreign figure of the year" by China Newsweek, and his online video lectures for Harvard University attract millions of viewers. His book 'Justice' was an international bestseller. Now he turns his attention to the markets. In this special Intel...

When Tony Blair became prime minister in May 1997, he had a landslide majority, an approval rating of 93 per cent, and he went on to become Labour’s longest-serving premier. At his last PMQs he got a standing ovation in the chamber of the House of Commons. How things have changed. Nowadays all we hear about is the accusations of lies, hubris and money-making business deals. But is this disillusion...

What if doctors no longer played God and you became CEO of your own health? What if medicine were tailor-made for your own DNA? What will the world be like when people start living to 150 – or even forever? If only the wealthy can afford super-longevity, will the growing gap between rich and poor lead to a new form of social inequality? These are some of the questions Intelligence Squared explored...

Today’s global art market is reminiscent of a roller coaster - even as it rotates and retrenches - the ride continues to propel, excite and surprise. With a tenfold increase in buyers over the last decade, unprecedented numbers of influencers are playing a part in work being made, seen and sold. Art has inextricably become dominated by the market. Private collectors on museum boards have become th...

We assume that democracy is what every country should have. But what has democracy done for India? Easy. It has stimulated corruption on a massive scale, and if you want to get rich in India the most direct way is to run for parliament and reap the payoffs businesses are obliged to make to the local MP. Caste, that Indian curse, becomes more entrenched as politicians exploit caste allegiances to w...

Renowned polyglot and polymath, George Steiner has long been recognised as one of the most original minds and brilliant lecturers of our generation. In this talk from April 2009, he argued that at the deepest level there is no essential difference between the language of poetry on the one side, and the language of science, philosophy and politics on the other. Poets and scientists may appear to in...

In January 2009, a panel of experts came to the Intelligence Squared stage to debate the motion "The United Nations is terminally paralysed: the democratic world needs a forum of its own". Speaking for the motion were Radek Sikorski, Foreign Minister of Poland; Robert Kagan, an expert in US National Security and Foreign policy; Denis Macshane MP, former Minister of state at the Foreign and Commonw...

Barack Obama’s foreign policy came under expert scrutiny in this Intelligence Squared debate from 2010, as influential hawks and doves debated whether the president’s policies have left America looking feeble on the world stage. Historian and academic Simon Schama clashed with General Jack Keane, former vice chief of staff of the US Army, on the motion “Obama’s foreign policy is a gift to America'...

Some people just can’t bring themselves to acknowledge that a relationship is over. Finished. Unsalvageable. David Cameron, for instance. His long awaited speech on Europe has been one big exercise in denial. Yes, we should stay married to Europe, he says, because we can now renegotiate our wedding vows and get the EU to do things our way. Who is he kidding? If it were so easy to pick ‘n mix what...

"Immigrant-bashing, woman-hating, Muslim-smearing, NHS-undermining, gay-baiting”. That’s how one critic has described the Daily Mail. It depicts a world where traditional British values are under siege – from the EU, rising crime, and benefit scroungers – and it assures its readers that they are not alone in their anxieties. It loves nothing more than a good health scare. According to the Mail, al...

RIP Umberto Eco, bestselling Italian author and semiotician perhaps best-known for his novel 'The Name of the Rose', who sadly died aged 84 earlier this week. This week's podcast revisits our event from November 2011, when we were lucky enough to host Eco as he discussed the persistence of conspiracies, the infinity of lists, the future of books, and writing fiction. Eco was in conversation with P...

Enough is enough. Paris, Sharm El-Sheikh, Istanbul, Jakarta. Isis is the global crucible of terrorism and must be stopped using all means available. After the Paris attacks last November, the US and its allies stepped up the bombing of Isis targets in Syria. Unquestionably, the campaign has had some effect and Isis is not the unstoppable force it seemed to be a year ago. Ramadi was taken by Iraqi...

Mired in allegations of sexual abuse, corruption in the Vatican and the first papal resignation in six centuries, the Catholic Church is in crisis. Two thousand years of arcane methods, tired dogma and unpalatable lies have left the papacy crippled and out of touch. The secularised West has lost faith in notions of infallibility, of temporal power and of a world in which gay marriage, abortion and...

On November 19th Intelligence Squared hosted the ultimate clash of civilisations: Greece vs Rome. It was also the ultimate clash of intellectual titans. Boris Johnson, Mayor of London and ardent classicist, made the case for Greece; while Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at Cambridge and redoubtable media star, championed Rome. As Boris argued, the Greeks got there first: in literature, history,...

Anne-Marie Slaughter is the Washington power player who upset the feminist applecart. At the peak of her career — as first female Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department — she turned her back on her dream job with Hillary Clinton in order to spend more time with her teenage sons. How, cried her contemporaries, could she have sacrificed her high-powered career for her family? Slaught...

Botticelli's Venus. Warhol's Marilyn. Chen Yifei’s Beauties. Historically, the creation of art has been largely the preserve of men. And not a lot has changed. In recent years, the top 100 highest grossing living artists at auction were men, selling predominantly to male buyers. Women run just a quarter of the biggest art museums in the world, earning about a third less than their male counterpart...

Cairo. The facts say one thing: the biggest city in Africa and the Middle East and now so chaotic and polluted that most visitors to Egypt prefer to avoid it. This same city also speaks to us of history and humanity – Moses and Jesus, Arab poets and Napoleon’s scholars who were here beside the Nile. It speaks of brilliance, beauty and power, of Europeans looking on in amazement at a Cairo that was...