Academy of Ideas

#BattleFest2021: From profits to prophets - why has big business gone woke?

Thanks for listening to the BattleFest podcast - you can support us by subscribing, sharing and leaving us a review. Check back next week for more recordings from the Battle of Ideas festival 2021.
FROM PROFITS TO PROPHETS: WHY HAS BIG BUSINESS GONE WOKE?
A new #BattleFest recording from the Battle of Ideas festival 2021: https://www.battleofideas.org.uk/session/from-profits-to-prophets-why-has-big-business-gone-woke/
This debate was run in partnership with the Academy of Ideas Economy Forum.
Is it a positive sign that big corporations are starting to care about something more than profits? Are woke campaigns and branding a distraction from the need to provide good products and services that consumers want? Is there any truth in the critical joke ‘Get woke, go broke’? What does it mean for democracy if corporations play an increasingly activist role in pursuing a liberal agenda?

#BattleFest2021: Is there a case for fossil fuels?

Thanks for listening to the BattleFest podcast - you can support us by subscribing, sharing and leaving us a review. Check back next week for more recordings from the Battle of Ideas festival 2021.
IS THERE A CASE FOR FOSSIL FUELS?
A new #BattleFest recording from the Battle of Ideas festival 2021: https://www.battleofideas.org.uk/session/is-there-a-case-for-fossil-fuels/
This debate was held in partnership with the Ayn Rand Centre UK
Governments have been striving to phase out fossil fuels in favour of renewables, particularly in the past decade, to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. But renewables are intermittent and unreliable. So how can we get secure supplies of energy that are reliable and affordable? Have we been too hasty in phasing out fossil fuels? Is there still a place for them until a new technology, like nuclear fusion, can easily supply all the energy we need? Or is climate change such an immediate danger that we need to learn to live without coal, oil and gas?

#BattleFest2021: A ’nudge’ too far? The rise of behavioural science and technocratic rule

Thanks for listening to the BattleFest podcast - you can support us by subscribing, sharing and leaving us a review. Check back next week for more recordings from the Battle of Ideas festival 2021.
A ‘NUDGE’ TOO FAR? THE RISE OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOCRATIC RULE
A new #BattleFest recording from the Battle of Ideas festival 2021: https://www.battleofideas.org.uk/session/a-nudge-too-far-the-rise-of-behavioural-psychology-and-technocracy/
All societies need expert advice, but what is the line between legitimate advice and sinister attempts to shift behaviour? Why has psychology especially become so prominent in how the government relates to the public? Does the rise of experts and ‘evidence-based policy’ capture a real shift in how people are seen, no longer as agents of their own destiny but as data-points to be managed to generate better policy outcomes? What is the line between a gentle nudge in the direction of better choices and an authoritarian shove? Who even decides what is the better choice? What happened to the traditional model of the self-directing citizen, or was it always a mirage?

#BattleFest2021: 20 years in Afghanistan - what happened?

Thanks for listening to the BattleFest podcast - you can support us by subscribing, sharing and leaving us a review. Check back next week for more recordings from the Battle of Ideas festival 2021.
20 YEARS IN AFGHANISTAN: WHAT HAPPENED?
A new #BattleFest recording from the Battle of Ideas festival 2021: https://www.battleofideas.org.uk/session/20-years-in-afghanistan-what-happened/
With the withdrawal of Western forces now complete, will 20 years of Western-led occupation and the promotion of liberal-democratic values have an impact on the future of Afghanistan, or will conservative, religious values predominate? Has military intervention and nation-building had a small, but positive impact or was attempting to impose democracy from above simply a doomed act of Western hubris?

#BattleFest2021: Who are we? Identity in crisis

Thanks for listening to the BattleFest podcast - you can support us by subscribing, sharing and leaving us a review. Check back next week for more recordings from the Battle of Ideas festival 2021.
WHO ARE WE? IDENTITY IN CRISIS
A new #BattleFest recording from the Battle of Ideas festival 2021:
https://www.battleofideas.org.uk/session/who-are-we-identity-in-crisis/
Do we know who we are anymore? And does embracing our sense of identity hinder or help our ability to engage in collective ambitions, like figuring out what society stands for? How has the atomisation of modern life changed our identities – particularly when the online world offers opportunities to curate and manicure our own view of ourselves? Is identity important, or should we be telling young people that it’s what they do in the world, rather than who they are, that matters? And can today’s culture wars be seen as part of this identity crisis – or should we accept that all aspects of life are now up for grabs on the political stage?
Thanks for listening to the BattleFest podcast - you can support us by subscribing, sharing and leaving us a review.

#EducationForum: Teaching white privilege: making schools less racist or more divided?

Recording of the Academy of Ideas Education Forum discussion on Monday 29 November 2021.
INTRODUCTIONHow should we view the teaching of ‘white privilege’? Is it a helpful tool in combating racial inequality or a divisive idea that sows mistrust?
The concept originated in American academia in the 1980s, but entered British schools last year in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd.
White privilege asserts that white people are automatically advantaged by their skin colour, because they do not have to endure lives beset by racialised systemic discrimination. The fact that black people are more likely to be paid less, sectioned under mental-health rules, or stopped and searched by police is cited as evidence of white privilege at work by advocates of the theory.
Yet opponents of the concept say this reading of the data fans the flames of an unnecessary culture war. They counter-claim that those least likely to go to university, for example, are poor white teenagers in former industrial and coastal towns. White working-class children also trail their Indian, Chinese, Bangladeshi and Black African peers In GCSE attainment, they argue.
To what extent, then, does white privilege help or hinder us in understanding how pupils might make the best progress in education?
Teaching white privilege as an uncontested fact in schools is indoctrination and illegal under the 1996 Education Act, according to the women and equalities minister, Kemi Badenoch. Her pronouncement has prompted the Black Educators Alliance and the Coalition of Anti Racist Educators to accuse the government of censorship and chilling free speech in the classroom.
On the other side of the debate, the campaign group Don’t Divide Us claims it is inundated with concerns from teachers and parents. It says the former fear being publicly accused of racism if they speak out against teaching white privilege, while the latter describe having to list their privileges and unconscious bias in their children’s homework.
In the United States, opposition to the teaching of white privilege was seen as an important factor in Republican Glenn Youngkin taking the key governorship of Virginia from the Democrats recently. The result has been widely interpreted as a bellwether of wider public rejection of the kind of educational social-justice programme proposed by the Democrats, which favours schools adopting the principles of ‘critical race theory’, such as countering the effects of white privilege.
So how should we judge the focus on white privilege and unconscious racial bias in lessons, reading lists and school staff training? Will it make schools more anti-racist – or divided?
The Education Forum explores this important issue in a friendly, open and respectful panel discussion. Are the majority of parents and teachers unaware of the term ‘white privilege’ and not likely to give it a second thought? Or is white privilege in the curriculum about to become the next big issue in education?
SPEAKERSAlka Sehgal CuthbertEducation Forum member; co-ordinator, Don’t Divide Us (DDU); educational advisor and writer. Alka is critical of the term ‘white privilege’ and thinks it does more harm than good.
Andre Ediagbonya-DaviesAndre went to school in Tottenham and is a second-year historian at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He supports expanded discussion on race within education. He believes white privilege is a reality and talking about it is a useful way of helping combat racism.
Julie DupontJulie is a North London parent of three school-age children. She is a committed anti-racist, but is concerned at the way white privilege is communicated in some of her children’s lessons and homework, and in school communications to parents. She thinks it is divisive and does more harm than good.

#Arts&Society: Truth and politics in the theatre - in conversation with David Ireland

Playwright and actor David Ireland does not hold back from dealing with controversial and difficult topics. Born in Northern Ireland, his experiences of living in that troubled country inevitably informs his work. His plays create a stir, with no holds barred, often shockingly hilarious, dialogue. As black comedies they expose the raw nerves of identity politics, sexual and family relationships, and contemporary political tensions and polarisations which can drive people to violence and push them to do mad things.
Among his most recent work is the award-winning Cyprus Avenue, performed at the Royal Court in 2016, with Stephen Rea in the lead role, focused on a unionist convinced his new born grandchild is Gerry Adams and has to be killed. Ulster American, performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 2018, focuses on the challenges of writing a play about Irish identity and had audiences laughing in horror. Sadie, due to be premiered in Belfast in early 2020 but cancelled due to lockdown, was recently screened on BBC4, is a disturbing dissection of a middle-aged working-class woman’s frustration and anger.
In this special Arts&Society Forum for the Battle of Ideas festival, Wendy Earle talks to David Ireland about truth and politics in theatre, artistic survival in a climate of intolerance and cancel culture, and the comedic possibilities of not holding back – and how he gets away with it!
David Ireland is a Northern Irish-born playwright and actor most known for his award-winning plays Cyprus Avenue and Ulster American. He won the Stewart Parker Award and the Meyer-Whitworth Award in 2012 and was shortlisted for the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright 2016. More recently, Sadie was screened on BBC4 and his play YES SO I SAID YES is due to be performed at the Finborough Theatre, Earl’s Court from 23 November to 18 December.
Wendy Earle is the convenor of the Academy of Ideas Arts&Society Forum, and writes on culture and the arts.

#InternationalSalon: From Covid to climate change: challenging the culture of fear?

Recording of the Academy of Ideas International Salon panel discussion on 23 November 2021.
INTRODUCTIONFrom the pandemic to the environment, housing to food supply, politicians and experts often tell us that our choices are limited. When Covid-19 took the world by surprise, governments around the world understandably took a blinkered view – opting to shut down society for fear of the worst. But even before the chaos of the last 19 months, the discussion about how to deal with challenges both political and viral have taken on a fatalistic tone.
The slogan There Is No Alternative might have been coined by Margaret Thatcher to defend the market economy, but a broader reliance on the TINA outlook has come to inform many aspects of modern politics. Politicians and commentators applauded climate activist Greta Thunberg when she accused them of robbing children of their futures. According to climate activists Extinction Rebellion: ‘We are facing an unprecedented global emergency. Life on Earth is in crisis: scientists agree we have entered a period of abrupt climate breakdown, and we are in the midst of a mass extinction of our own making.’ There are some climate activists who shun the idea of any progress at all – believing that it is too late to do anything to stop the damage humans have inflicted on the planet.
This defeatist feeling can be found elsewhere – the Brexit debate descended into banks, industries and politicians telling voters that a rejection of the EU would end in disaster (even world war). Campaigners for fighting racism or sexism argue that life for minorities has gotten worse, despite years of legal and social change. Cynicism among voting populations is common, with scepticism about how much governments do to change politics expressed at every election. Even debate about the end of the pandemic, and how to get back to normal life, has been routinely qualified with assertions that ‘normal’ can never really return. Some people express concerns about this but feel powerless to challenge it in what has become a fatalistic acceptance of the dominant narrative
But despite our penchant for doommongering, some point out that there is proof of what human beings can do when faced with adversity. While global temperatures are rising, this has occurred at a time of rising world population because people are living longer and incomes in most of the world are still expected to rise considerably in coming years. Some commentators point out that, far from a picture of gloom and despair, those of us alive today are the luckiest people in history when it comes to health, wealth, education, culture and more. The success of the vaccine rollout – or the ability for the government to get homeless people off the streets during the pandemic – shows that change can happen when a little bit of pressure is applied.
What happens to politics when we take a fatalistic outlook? Some argue that there is a difference between being doom-laden and telling it like it is – climate activists argue that those who won’t face how bad things have got are simply denying the problem. Where does agency fit into all of this – is action impossible with a modern TINA outlook? Is it right to believe that they are an existential threat to human beings or even life on Earth in general? If not, what explains the popularity of apocalyptic thinking today?
SPEAKERSJosie Appletondirector, civil liberties group, Manifesto Club; author, Officious: Rise of the Busybody State; blogger, notesonfreedom.com
Alex Camerongraphic designer; design and cultural critic
Dr Roslyn Fullermanaging director, Solonian Democracy Institute; author, In Defence of Democracy
Matthew Krugeradvocate, Johannesburg Bar
CHAIRJacob Reynoldspartnerships manager, Academy of Ideas