CONTENTS The Battle of Ideas is an annual festival which 2 Ticket prices and festival information 3 Why the Battle of Ideas? brings together 400-plus speakers for over 3 Registration times 100 debates over the course of the weekend, and through stand-alone satellite events held SATURDAY from September to November throughout the 4 Welcome Address UK and Europe. You can find out more about 4 Saturday Keynote Controversies 6 The Politics of the Personal these satellite events on pages 52–59. 8 Intellectual Life 10 Understanding America This brochure will help you plan and navigate your visit to 12 The New Political Landscape the festival weekend. The debates are organised by room 14 Battle for the Economy or by themed topic areas we call ‘strands’. For example, the 16 Culture Wars ‘Science and Ethics’ strand covers contemporary issues in 18 City Life medicine, genetics and space exploration. The festival is 20 Contemporary Controversies organised so that you can follow one strand throughout the day, or pick and choose debates from different strands on WEEKEND ATTRACTIONS topics that interest you. 22 Battle Specials Whatever you decide to do, with such a wide range of 23 Book Club Salons debates and discussion, we are sure there will be plenty for 24 Lunchtime Shorts everyone to think about. 25 Festival Attractions and Entertainment ESSENTIAL INFORMATION 28 Battlefields: Barbican maps 30 Saturday Timetable 31 Sunday Timetable SUNDAY 32 Sunday Keynote Controversies 34 Eye on the World 36 Debating the Past 38 Law and Order 40 Tech Futures 42 Crisis of Political Language 44 Battle for Education 46 Contemporary Controversies 48 State of the Nation 50 Science and Ethics SATELLITES 52 UK Satellite Events 56 Battle of Ideas Europe 60 Thanks BATTLEOFIDEAS.ORG.UK 1 BOI Brochure 2017 1.7.indd 1 12/10/2017 18:56 BATTLE OF IDEAS TICKETING INFORMATION The Battle of Ideas takes place at the Barbican, London, on Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 October. SPECIAL TICKET OFFER FOR SCHOOL PUPILS HARGRAVE FOUNDATION SCHOOLS CHAMPION WEEKEND RATE A limited number of FREE ONE-DAY tickets are available to Standard ticket £100 school pupils. Standard concession ticket £45 Standard IoI associate ticket £60 Just email [email protected] stating IoI associate concession ticket £40 which day you would like to attend free, the name of your School Students £20 school and give a postal address to send the free ticket to. And Immunocore Student and STEM Under-30 Champion £27.50 if you want to attend the whole weekend you can do so for just £10 for the other day! DAY TICKETS (Saturday or Sunday) Standard ticket £55 GETTING TO THE BARBICAN Standard concession ticket £30 The Barbican is located in the heart of the City of London IoI associate ticket £40 and is accessible by rail, road and underground. The nearest IoI associate concession ticket £25 Underground stations are Barbican, Moorgate and St Paul’s. School Students £10 For more information about accessibility and travel options, visit: barbican.org.uk/your-visit Tickets are available from the Barbican Box Office or online at www.battleofideas.org.uk/tickets INTERNET ACCESS Free wifi: search for WiFi Zone – The Cloud TWITTER IMMUNOCORE STUDENT AND STEM The festival hashtag is #battleofideas and you can follow the UNDER-30 CHAMPION Institute of Ideas @instofideas SPECIAL TICKET OFFER FOR STUDENTS PRESS, PARTNERS AND SPONSORSHIP A limited number of CUT-PRICE weekend tickets for For partnership enquiries or to arrange press passes, request undergraduate and postgraduate students are available for £27.50. interviews and for general media enquiries, please contact Adam Rawcliffe: SPECIAL STEM UNDER-30 TICKET OFFER [email protected] / +44 (0)20 7269 9231 If you are 30 or under, and work in any STEM activity, leading biotechnology company Immunocore is sponsoring weekend FURTHER ENQUIRIES tickets for this year’s Battle of Ideas for £27.50. If you have any questions about Battle of Ideas tickets, contact: Geoff Kidder: [email protected] / +44 (0)20 7269 9220 or Barbican Box Office: +44 (0) 20 7638 8891 2 BOI Brochure 2017 1.7.indd 2 12/10/2017 18:56 WHY THE BATTLE OF IDEAS 2017? WELCOME TO THE BATTLE OF IDEAS 2017 holding people to account by critically engaging with their Society in 2017 is in a very fluid state. There is a palpable views and policies. Yet too often, we walk away, throwing out sense of momentous change in the air. Recent events have cavalier insults as we leave. shown that political life doesn’t follow a preordained script, that democracy throws up unexpected results and voters are BREAKING OUT OF THE ECHO CHAMBERS not a stage army to be called up to give a mandate and then When new Labour MP Laura Pidcock told an interviewer be returned to barracks. If once we were told that we had she would never hang out with Tory women because they reached the ‘end of history’, now there is a sense that the are ‘the enemy’, she caused controversy. But she is not alone centre will not hold - a widespread feeling that, after years of in preferring to avoid engaging her opponents. Too many political failure, the status quo is not good enough. Whether are happy to be confined to the safety of ‘echo chambers’, you are inspired by the likes of Brexit as a democratic unwilling to hear and discuss other points of view. As a rebellion against the establishment, or worried about its consequence, there is an increasing tendency to caricature consequences for stability, this sense of the world order and defame those ‘on the other side’. We promiscuously brand unravelling, of history being made, can be as disorientating as people as terfs, deplorables, white supremacists or Nazis for it is exhilarating. raising awkward questions about identitarian orthodoxies. Brexit voters, who have suffered the consequences of a DEALING WITH UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS stagnating economy for years, are accused of wrecking This new period creates both new uncertainties and UKplc by billionaire business leaders or written off as poorly possibilities right across society. We face uncomfortable educated, xenophobic dupes by enlightened professors. questions about everything from Western values to national sovereignty, from the alleged rise of the far right in Europe In response, it is too easy to lash out and label millions who and America to the pros and cons of automation and Big voted Remain as traitors and elitists if they query the fiasco Data. Establishing a space and willingness to discuss these that passes for Brexit negotiations. Yet whatever side we are on, shifting trends is an essential antidote to knee-jerk posturing, ascribing the most malign of motives to each other can mean whether in response to Islamist terror attacks or the horrific debate is reduced to shallow name-calling and lashing out at tragedy at Grenfell Tower. If ever we needed a sense of straw men. This is less a battle of ideas than a negation of the solidarity, a shared project of opening up public dialogue, to very enterprise of intellectual inquiry and political change. weigh up future options, to reflect on which philosophical and intellectual values matter, it is now. And yet contemporary JOIN THE CONVERSATION trends seem inhospitable to this much-needed robust, grown- The Battle of Ideas festival aims to be different - a uniquely up debate. The free speech wars are intensifying, with ever open forum, where you can meet your ‘enemy’, listen to more restrictions emerging daily on what we can and cannot opinions you have never heard before, argue back, and even say. Accusations of that weasly notion ‘hate speech’, cultural occasionally change your mind. We promise no off-the-shelf appropriation, whitewashing, mansplaining, triggering, etc are answers. More modestly, we bring together a vast range frequently used to chill our ability to discuss freely at the very of international speakers to kick-start passionate, serious- time when we need to talk openly about how we respond to minded discussion and public conversations with free- unprecedented challenges. thinking, inquisitive, opinionated attendees. Between us all, we will try and untangle everything from the bastardisation You don’t have to be a Conservative to agree with Prime of political language to understanding what makes modern Minister Theresa May when she declared to her party America and Brexit Britain tick, beyond the headlines. conference (between coughs and pranks): ‘[We] must come Since 2005, the festival’s slogan has been FREE SPEECH together… to win the battle of ideas in a new generation …at ALLOWED, a crucial rebuttal to today’s climate of offence- stake are the very things we value’. Yes, the stakes are high taking. If you’re willing to challenge and be challenged, and the importance of a battle of ideas has never been more and leave the comfort of the echo chamber, see you at the pressing. However, despite such rhetoric, battling over ideas Barbican on 28 and 29 October. is in jeopardy. Winning others’ hearts and minds means a Claire Fox, director, Institute of Ideas, on behalf of the Battle commitment to persuading those you don’t agree with and of Ideas Committee 2017 REGISTRATION: SATURDAY FROM 08:30, SUNDAY FROM 09:00, LEVEL –1 BATTLEOFIDEAS.ORG.UK 3 BOI Brochure 2017 1.7.indd 3 12/10/2017 18:56 SATURDAY 28 OCTOBER KEYNOTE CONTROVERSIES CINEMA 1 IS THERE A CULTURE WAR DIVERSITY: DOES IT MATTER? KEYNOTE AGAINST POPULISM? 12:00—13:15 CONTROVERSIES 10:00—11:30 These sessions take on some of Do the votes for Brexit and Trump signal Diversity is widely celebrated in the big ideas and themes of our a new populism? While some identify contemporary society.