Academy of Ideas

#EconomyForum: China, Covid-19 and the West

ECONOMY FORUM: Earlier this year, as what would become known as Covid-19 struck Wuhan, there was some discussion about how China’s GDP might temporarily fall and what impact that fall might have on the world economy. There was little sense that the disease might become a pandemic and affect the whole world. Now, with most Western countries facing unprecedented falls in economic output, China appears to have ridden the storm remarkably well. Like it or not, the UK, EU and US are remarkably dependent upon on China – and not just for PPE. Beyond the tempers on all sides, what real cleavages – China vs the West, China vs its neighbours, and among Western allies over tactics toward Beijing – can we expect to develop in 2020-21? Austin Williams and James Woudhuysen discuss.

#BookClub: The moral dilemma of Ian McEwen’s Machines Like Me

BOOK CLUB: Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda’s assistance, he co-designs Adam’s personality. This near-perfect human is beautiful, strong and clever - a love triangle soon forms. These three beings will confront a profound moral dilemma. Ian McEwan’s subversive and entertaining new novel poses fundamental questions: what makes us human? Our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart? This provocative and thrilling tale warns of the power to invent things beyond our control. Max Sanderson introduces.

#Arts&SocietyForum: How Salman Rushdie changed everything

ARTS & SOCIETY FORUM: Kate Abley’s first novel, Changing the Subject, is an entertaining narrative about ordinary people in an extraordinary situation. She says ‘You don’t have to have read any Salman Rushdie to engage with this talk: I will make it my job to inspire you to try him. Under the feeble cover of having written a novel myself, I would like to make the experimental assertion that it is possible to describe novels in English as Pre-Rushdie and Post-Rushdie. Of course, there were rumblings of change before 1981 and the publication of Midnight’s Children. But it was that book which delivered the fatal blow to literarty-farties grumbling since the 1930s that the “The novel is dead”.’ Kate Abley and Wendy Earle discuss.

#LockdownDebates: How much should we listen to experts?

LOCKDOWN DEBATE: In the past few years, the idea that we should do what the experts tell us has lost some of its power. Some experts admit that there was, perhaps, a belief that the science was more definitive than it actually is. Even on the core advisory group, SAGE, there are significant differences of view amongst scientists, from the core understanding of the biology of the new coronavirus to estimates of how far it has spread, and over the rules informing social distancing and the efficacy of facemasks. But to what extent is or should our response to this threat be regarded as a scientific question, or as moral or political choices? What is the place of expertise in politics? How will the relationship between politics, expertise and democracy change in the future? Dr Clare Gerada, Timandra Harkness, Jill Rutter and Karol Sikora discuss.

#EducationForum: Is it time to reopen our schools?

EDUCATION FORUM: When should schools reopen and what does this debate tell us about what we value most about schools? Is it their role as engines of social mobility, as safeguarders of vulnerable children, as an unofficial child-minding service, exams or something else? Is it really a big deal if children miss a few months at school? David Perks and Joanna Williams discuss.

#EconomyForum: Covid-19, from Germany to the developing world

ECONOMY FORUM: In Germany, as in the UK, the economy is predicted to contract sharply as a result of the lockdown. But has this crisis become a convenient distraction from the deeper, structural problems of the German economy? And as the economic pain becomes clear, who will bear the brunt? Developing economies could suffer the greatest effects from the Covid-19 pandemic even though they have been little discussed in the West. They constitute a diverse range of countries, but it is possible to identify some key themes that, to a greater or lesser extent, threaten them. There are the direct effects on already hugely overstretched healthcare systems, the economic consequences of lockdowns, the impact of the slump in demand from the developed economies, and tougher financial conditions such as capital outflows and higher debt servicing costs. Daniel Ben-Ami and Sabine Beppler-Spahl discuss.

#Arts&SocietyForum: The Burial at Thebes and the tragic imagination in poetry

ARTS & SOCIETY FORUM: 'News poet’ Dr Andrew Calcutt, principal lecturer at the University of East London, introduces Antigone by the Ancient Greek tragedian Sophocles, translated as The Burial at Thebes by Seamus Heaney. Focusing on the messenger’s speech (a recurring feature in Greek tragedy), Andrew explains how this directed him towards a new way of news reporting.

#EconomyForum: How can we escape a coronavirus depression?

ECONOMY FORUM: How can we avoid the worst of a coronavirus depression? Are these lockdowns doing more harm than good? What will be the long-term economic impacts of the pandemic and the reaction to it? Joan Hoey, Phil Mullan and Jake Pugh discuss.