Academy of Ideas

#BattleFest2014: Should we fear democracy?

After surging forward through the latter
part of the twentieth century after the defeat of fascism,
decolonisation and the fall of the Berlin Wall, democracy appears to be
in something of a retreat. According to the Economist, even
though 45 per cent of the world’s population live in countries that
‘hold free and fair elections’, there is now widespread recognition that
‘democracy’s global advance has come to a halt, and may even have gone
into reverse’. After many years of trying to spread democracy abroad,
the US and other Western powers seem to have lowered their sights
following the tragic, contemporary debacle in Iraq. Elsewhere, the ‘Arab
Spring’ has fared little better. Even in the established democracies of
the West, democracy appears to have lost its enduring appeal, with
declining voter turnout and a hollowing-out of once mass-membership
political parties. It was once claimed that only democracies could
develop economically; now, democracy is blamed for gridlock. The
contrast between the failure of the US Congress to agree a budget and
the ability of China to get things done is much remarked upon.
Very few in the developed world openly discount democracy as an
ideal, but nearly everyone agrees the reality is flawed. Some would
reform it in various ways: lowering the voting age, using more new
technology, etc. Occupy activists oppose ‘representative democracy’
altogether, preferring ‘direct democracy’. Some argue for limits on
democracy in favour of the considered opinion of experts. Elected
governments in Greece and Italy have even been replaced by interim
technocratic administrations during the European economic crisis, and
democratic mandates can be annulled when people vote the ‘wrong way’, as
when the Irish voted ‘No’ to the Lisbon Treaty in 2008 or when the
Muslim Brotherhood was voted into power in Egypt. And far from being
cheered as a historic democratic exercise that ousted an entrenched
Gandhi dynasty, this year’s election in India provoked fears that
815million voters were expressing atavistic religious prejudice.
If anything sums up the contemporary concern with democracy, it is
the word ‘populism’. In Europe, it is the fear of people voting for the
wrong sort of political party: the Front National in France, the PVV in
the Netherlands, UKIP in the UK. In America, it is the fear of what used
to be called the ‘moral majority’: conservative voters out of step with
the liberal consensus on social issues.
Are populist political movements simply throwbacks, appealing to the
bigotry of greying voters? Or do they give voice to the frustrations of
citizens who feel increasingly cut off from an aloof and deracinated
political class? Will the twenty-first century see the demise of
democracy in favour of technocratic governance? What has so tarnished
our view of what used to be the foundational principle of Western
civilisation?







Speakers




Professor Ivan Krastev
Chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia; permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna




Professor Chantal Mouffe
Professor of political theory, University of Westminster; author, Agonistics: thinking the world politically




Brendan O'Neill
editor, spiked; columnist, Big Issue; contributor, Spectator




Dr David Runciman
professor of politics, Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS), Cambridge University; author, The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War 1 to the Present


Chair



Claire Fox
director, Institute of Ideas; panellist, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze

#BattleFest2014: Cultural regeneration or gentrification?

Cultural policy is seen as essential in
helping to regenerate previously unfashionable areas of east London and
right across the capital. Every neighbourhood seems keen to emphasise
its credentials as a creative, artist-friendly hub and no urban space is
complete without short-let ‘pop-up’ shops and restaurants, temporary
cinemas or urban beaches. Supporters argue that such playful,
small-scale interventions can help ‘citizens take ownership of their
city’ and engender a community spirit seen as sorely diminished after
the 2011 riots.
Yet others are more sceptical about the merits of such schemes,
seeing them as invariably corporate-sponsored examples of ‘hipster
gentrification’, which undermines rather than bolsters civic engagement,
with even the creatives of east London’s Tech City complaining
development of the area will change its ‘unique character’.
While many artists claim to be committed to being friendly with
residents and helping to improve neighbourhoods, the sceptics argue that
they are, knowingly or unwittingly, helping gentrification. CityLab
magazine recently called it ‘Artwashing’: getting an area cleaned up
before properties are bought up cheap, with existing residents removed
and flats sold for the highest price possible.
Some hail the rise of artist-led cultural initiatives as a radical
challenge to both the problems of austerity and the perceived stifling
sanitisation of contemporary public life. Are playful, small-scale
interventions and urban explorations a challenge to the sanitised city,
or merely part of it? To what extent do they provide a means to nurture
the urban realm and engender community spirit? In any case, is
gentrification inevitable?







Speakers



Alan Miller
co-director, NY Salon; co-founder, London's Truman Brewery; partner, Argosy Pictures Film Company


Emma Dent-Coad
leader, Labour Group, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council; design and architecture journalist






Feargus O’Sullivan
Europe correspondent, CityLab




James Stevens
strategic planner, Home Builders Federation


Chair



David Bowden
coordinator, UK Battle Satellites; columnist, spiked

#BattleFest2015: From Magna Carta to ECHR - do we need a British Bill of Rights?

Next year marks 800 years since the signing
of Magna Carta. While the build-up to its anniversary has been dominated
by arguments about whether it should be taught in schools as part of
lessons on ‘British values’ aimed at tackling ‘Trojan Horse’ extremism,
others have strongly suggested Britain needs a contemporary equivalent.
Whilst the coalition’s Commission on a Bill of Rights produced
ambivalent conclusions, leading Conservative politicians have pledged
that it will be a key part of their general election manifesto. Yet
while the original brief for the Bill of Rights was for a document
‘which incorporates and builds on Britain’s obligations under the
European Convention on Human Rights’ such a move is widely seen as a
potential replacement for the Human Rights Act with Britain leaving the
ECHR altogether.
Supporters see a British Bill of Rights as an important move in
regaining control over key areas of national sovereignty, threatened by
increasingly activist judges based in Strasbourg. Many opponents,
including leading civil-liberties campaigners, charge the proposal as
being a return of Tories as ‘the nasty party’ keen on limiting
individual and worker protections enshrined under the Human Rights Act.
In any case, it is not clear what immediate gains a UK government would
make from leaving the ECHR, given the increasing willingness of British
courts to challenge government policies – for example, on workfare - and
the need to meet Western standards around universal human rights.
Some see the British Bill of Rights as an opportunity to rethink our
contemporary attitude to rights. Historically, many see a rights culture
as standing in a British tradition dating back to the Magna Carta of
1215 and embracing the 1688 Bill of Rights. Others see sharp
distinctions between the natural-rights tradition dating back to John
Locke and that which culminated in the French Declaration of the Rights
of Man in the wake of the French Revolution and the American Bill of
Rights of 1791.  Is it significant that these documents that talk the
language of natural rights tend to seek freedom from the state whereas the human rights
tradition embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
and the European Convention on Human Rights (1950) tend to seek the
state’s protection?
Could a British Bill of Rights represent a more democratic
alternative to the ECHR, or simply greater powers for unelected judges
in Britain rather than their counterparts in Strasbourg? Does it
represent an opportunity to safeguard civil liberties and national
security, as various supporters hope, or risk sacrificing hard-won
rights to contemporary opportunist politicians? What advantages would it
hold over the existing framework provided by the Human Rights Act?
Would its introduction be a triumph for democracy or populism? Who
should we trust to make our laws?







Speakers




Jon Holbrook
barrister and writer on legal issues for spiked and the New Law Journal




Martin Howe QC
barrister; member, Commission on A Bill of Rights




Helen Mountfield QC
barrister, Matrix Chambers, London; trustee, Equal Rights Trust




Rupert Myers
barrister and writer




Adam Wagner
barrister, 1 Crown Office Row
Chair



Claire Fox
director, Institute of Ideas; panellist, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze

#BattleFest2012: To build or not to build?

This podcast was recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival at the Barbican in London on Sunday 21 October, 2012


From Boris Island to the Dale Farm gypsies, no building
project seems too big or small to fall foul of the UK’s notoriously
stringent planning laws, which sometimes seem to exist to prevent
development rather than manage it. In contrast to China, which delivers
new development equivalent to a country the size of Greece every six
months, the UK planning system seems to be in a permanent state of
denial. The Thames Gateway, High Speed Rail 2, Heathrow’s third runway,
Battersea Power Station redux, Green Belt housing and even Eco-Towns
have all run up against a wall. Perhaps the biggest issue is in housing,
where building languishes at the lowest levels since the First World
War. By some estimates, five million people are waiting on housing
registers. According to Shelter, the younger generation bears the brunt
with a fifth of 18- to 34-year-olds living with their parents because
they can’t afford to rent or buy a home.
At Inside Housing, Colin Wiles argues the need to build three
million new homes on greenfield land in the next 20 years. But few
others seem willing to countenance actually increasing housing stock.
The charity Intergenerational Foundation argues the problem is
‘under-occupation’ and that elderly people should be encouraged to move
out of their ‘big houses’ to make room for larger families. Eight
‘radical solutions’ to the housing crisis discussed on the BBC News
website included curbing population growth, forcing landlords to sell or
let empty properties, and banning second homes. Meanwhile, the likes of
the National Trust, the Countryside Alliance and the Campaign to
Protect Rural England campaign against any liberalisation of planning.
More broadly, many people distrust developers, fearing they will scar
the countryside and destroy our architectural heritage.
Some ask why has planning lost its way and what happened to the big
visionary plans of the past. David Cameron wants us to rediscover how
‘to build for the future with as much confidence and ambition as the
Victorians once did’. But will cutting ‘red tape’ and simplifying the
system be enough? Does the new ‘presumption in favour of sustainable
development’ merely reinforce the ‘green tape’ that is already a barrier
to development? What are the smart ways to deliver good urban
development? Is the solution better top-down planning, more bottom-up
planning, or something else altogether?

Speakers

Professor Kelvin Campbellmanaging director, Urban Initiatives; author, Massive Small: the operating system for smart urbanismPenny Lewislecturer, Scott Sutherland School of Architecture, Robert Gordon University; co-founder, AE FoundationPaul Minersenior planning officer, Campaign to Protect Rural EnglandDaniel MoylanThe Mayor of London's Aviation Adviser; Conservative councillor, Royal Borough of Kensington and ChelseaChristine Murrayeditor, The Architects' JournalChair:



Michael Owens
commercial director, Bow Arts Trust; owner, London Urban Visits; formerly, head of development policy, London Development Agency

#BattleFest2014: Opera: are we all invited?

Despite the economic crisis, art in Greece
is booming. By 2015, new museums and cultural organisations are
scheduled to open their doors to the public, many of them privately
funded rather than state-run as in the past. As Greek classical
orchestras and opera companies find themselves in a bleak financial
situation due to government spending cuts, private funding seems to have
offered a way out. At the same time, non-traditional venues such as
Syntagma Square’s metro station and airplane flights have been used as
opera stages, in an effort to promote it to new audiences.
Yet the question of how opera, along with other elite art forms such
as classical music and theatre, can and should be made more accessible
to all is a fraught one. Some argue, for example, that the key lies in
demystifying some of opera’s difficulty by incorporating elements from
popular culture and emphasising its contemporary socio-political
relevance. Yet others warn that such an approach risks alienating
current and potential audiences who are attracted to art precisely
because it is so strange and diverts us from everyday concerns. They
argue that the opera world – especially critics - should certainly focus
their energies on inspiring and explaining opera’s virtues for the
curious, while accepting that The Ring Cycle isn’t for everyone.
Can such projects – whether privately or state funded - really be
justified when they bring little obvious benefit to most Greeks,
especially in a period of economic crisis? What emphasis should
performers and critics place on making opera more accessible versus
making judgments on purely artistic grounds? Does opera, or any other
‘difficult’ art form, by definition need to be held to different
standards of accessibility than popular culture?







Speakers




Dr Eugenia Arsenis
director; dramaturg, Center for Contemporary Opera, New York




Dolan Cummings
associate fellow, Institute of Ideas; editor, Debating Humanism; co-founder, Manifesto Club




Dr Nikos Dontas
head, Dramaturgy Department, Greek National Opera; music critic, Kathimerini




Dimitrios Kiousopoulos
historian; columnist, Eleftherotypia




Ioannis Tselikas
assistant professor, Hellenic American University; music editor and performer


Chair



Alan Miller
co-director, NY Salon; co-founder, London's Truman Brewery; partner, Argosy Pictures Film Company





Produced by




Geoff Kidder director, membership and events, Institute of Ideas; convenor, IoI Book Club; IoI’s resident expert in all sporting matters




Ira Papadopoulou director of cultural affairs, Hellenic American Union




Dr Nikos Sotirakopoulos assistant lecturer in sociology, University of Kent

#BattleFest2013 Private education - public harm?

Recorded on Saturday 19 October, 2013. as part of the School Fights strand at the Battle of Ideas festival 


The place of independent schools in Britain’s education
landscape has never been so intensely debated. According to Martin
Stephen, former high master of St Paul’s School, two of the three main
political parties hate independent schools ‘to the core of their being’,
while the Conservatives are run by so many public schoolboys that they
cannot afford to extend ‘the merest hand of friendship’ to such schools
without being caricatured by the media. But do private schools protest
too much about ‘posh prejudice’? The 7% of pupils who attend fee-paying
schools go on to dominate Oxbridge places and elite professions such as
law, the media and science. Are those who defend private schools
prepared to defend the perpetuation of such inequality on the grounds of
individual freedom?
Or is it not true that independent schools are full of ‘toffs’ when a
third of pupils in schools in the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’
Conference (of independent schools) have bursary support? Might the
growing popularity of private schools be an indictment of failing
comprehensive schools? Is it right that parents who make sacrifices for
their children’s education are made to feel such an outlay is morally
questionable? Is it necessarily wrong to pay for education? And when so
many politicians across the political divide have enjoyed the benefits
of a private education, from Eton boys David Cameron, Oliver Letwin and
Boris Johnson to supposed class warriors Ed Balls, Harriett Harman and
Chuka Umunna, it is hypocritical of them to distance themselves from the
independent sector and seek to undermine it? Is opposition to private
schools motivated as much by a stale left-wing prejudice against
aspiration as a real commitment to public provision?
What if one values both equality and choice? Are these ideals
hopelessly incompatible when it comes to the debate about private
education? And where do new models of schooling that combine private and
public provisions, such as Free Schools and Academies, fit into the
debate? Is opposition to private schools just part of a more general
hostility to private institutions? Or is it essential to forging a fair
education system that benefits all pupils?






Speakers




Professor James Conroy
Dean for European Engagement and professor of philosophical and religious education, University of Glasgow




Fiona Millar
columnist, Guardian, co-founder, Local Schools Network




David Perks
principal, East London Science School; author, What is science education for?; co-author, Sir Richard Sykes Review of school examinations and A defence of subject-based education




Dr Martin Stephen
director of education, GEMS UK; former high Master, St Paul's School

Chair



Kevin Rooney
Politics teacher and head of social science, Queen's School, Bushey; blogger at Fans for Freedom

#BattleFest2012: Banning the Brave New World? The ethics of science

Recorded on Sunday 21 October, 2012


For many years, the only hybrid human/animal embryos that
could be legally created in the UK were those resulting from fertilising
a hamster’s egg with a man’s sperm, as a means of testing male
fertility. In 2008, it became legal to create all manner of hybrid
human/animal embryos for research purposes, provided that such embryos
were destroyed within two weeks of their creation. 2012 saw the
establishment of a new £5.8million Centre for Mitochondrial Research at
Newcastle University, to develop techniques for preventing the
transmission of debilitating mitochondrial disease. But these techniques
cannot be tested in clinical trials without a change in the law, and
the government has commissioned a ‘public dialogue’ on the issue. Some
object that mitochondrial-exchange techniques involve the creation of
children with ‘three parents’, while others claim that this objection
misunderstands the relevant science.
Those involved in such debates are familiar with the ‘yuck factor’ -
the instinctive revulsion said to be felt by many, whenever the natural
order of things is interfered with. The yuck factor is an obstacle often
negotiated by appeal to scientific evidence, with tensions defused by
incorporating ethics committees and ethical considerations into the
practice and regulation of biomedicine. But while such procedures
address the feelings prompted by scientific advances, they also result
in substantive moral objections being either condescendingly dismissed
as the irrational ‘yuck’ reaction, or subordinated to the scientistic
framework of ‘evidence’. There seems to be scant room for more moral or
political arguments, either in favour of, or in opposition to,
biomedical progress.
This raises the question of how developments in biomedicine are
understood and debated by the public, and whether the public has any
meaningful input. By definition, there is no direct public input into
scientific research (which is specialised work evaluated by means of
peer review), but biomedical policy is supposedly developed under the
auspices of the broader democratic process. Such policy affects not only
the application of research once it has been conducted, but – if
research techniques are contentious, for example if they involve the use
of human embryos – whether the research is permitted to proceed at all,
much less receive public funds. How are these decisions arrived at?
What role do democracy, morality and a grasp of the actual science play
in the process? Speakers:Professor David Jonesdirector, Anscombe Bioethics Centre; co-editor, Chimera's Children: Ethical, Philosophical and Religious Perspectives on Human-Nonhuman ExperimentationProfessor Robin Lovell-Badgehead, stem cell biology and developmental genetics, National Institute for Medical ResearchKen MacLeodaward-winning science fiction writer; author, Descent, The Restoration Game and Intrusion; writer-in-residence, MA Creative Writing, Edinburgh Napier University 2013-2014Güneş Taylorresearcher, University of Oxford; MSci, Human GeneticsChair:



Sandy Starr
communications officer, Progress Educational Trust; webmaster, BioNews

#BattleFest2013: Building an intellectual legacy – the Battle for which ideas?

Recorded on Sunday 21 October 2013 at the Battle of Ideas festival at the Barbican in London
‘Ideas are the cogs that drive history, and understanding them is half way to being aboard that powerful juggernaut rather than under its wheels’. AC Grayling
Society seems woefully lacking in Big Ideas, and we seem to crave new thinking. In Britain, great hopes rest on the legacy of the Olympics, but however inspiring the sporting excellence we all witnessed, is it realistic that a summer of feel-good spectacle can resolve deep-rooted cultural problems, from widespread disdain for competitition to community fragmentation? In America, Mitt Romney has pledged to pit substantial ideas against the empty ‘yes, we can’ sloganeering of Barack Obama, with his running mate Paul Ryan dubbed the ‘intellectual’ saviour of the Republican Party, but can they really deliver? Europe, once the home of Enlightenment salons, is now associated more with EU technocrats than philosophes. Looking to the intellectual legacy of the past is considered out of pace with an ever-changing world. We seem estranged from ideas associated with important moments in history - the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the American and French Revolutions. Can even a basic idea like free will survive the challenges of neuroscience and genetics? When the internet offers information at the click of a mouse, what’s the point of pedagogy?
Some contend intellectual life has rarely been healthier; after all today’s governments appoint economists, philosophers and scientific advisers to positions of influence, and the fashion for evidence-based policy puts a premium on academic research. Nevertheless, the emphasis is on ‘what works’ utility and short-term impact rather than open-ended, risky ideas. Often data is passed off as Truth, and Socratic dialogue replaced by rows over conflicting evidence. The scramble for the next Big Idea seems to have replaced the creative and painstaking development of ideas. It’s as though serious ideas can be conjured up in brainstorming sessions or critical-thinking classes. But think-tanks kite-flying the latest outside-of-the-box, blue-skies-thinking speak more to pragmatism and opportunism than following in the tradition of Plato. Ideas become free-floating, divorced from their origins, and take on any meaning one cares to ascribe to them. Hence freedom can mean protection, its defence leading to illiberal regulations; equality can mean conformity and sameness; tolerance becomes a coda for indifference, and individualism denotes little more than selfishness.
Where apparently novel concepts catch on, from sustainability to fairness, identity to offence, they are often little more than fashionable sound-bites. Other ideas are even described as dangerous; those who espouse the ‘wrong’ ideas branded as modern-day heretics. But can we ever hope to approach the truth if we stifle dissent? Is intellectual life on the wane? Is it conservative to cling to old ideas, or if we don’t stand on the shoulders of giants, are we doomed to stand still ? Might truth seeking be more important than the Truth?
Speakers:
Andrew Keenentrepreneur; founder, Audiocafe.com; author, Digital Vertigo: how today's online social revolution is dividing, diminishing, and disorienting us
 
Professor Ivan KrastevChairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia; permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna
 
Dr Ellie Leereader in social policy, University of Kent, Canterbury; director, Centre for Parenting Culture Studies
 
 
Rob Riemenwriter and cultural philosopher; founder & president, Netherlands-based Nexus Institute; author, Nobility of Sprit: a forgotten ideal and The Eternal Return of Fascism
 
Chair:
 
Claire Fox director, Academy of Ideas; panellist, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze