Ideas Matter

Trigger warnings and microaggression policies have become increasingly familiar on campus. But while we can snigger at ‘de-stressing parties’ with colouring books, are students any different from the rest of society? After all, many people believe we face an unprecedented range of threats. Anxiety allied to yearning for safety is evident in warnings over formula milk and processed foods, panics over drink-spiking and catcalling, and paranoid parenting that is creating a generation of ‘cotton wool’ kids.

What happened to resilience and how do we explain our existential insecurity? What is the balance between safety and freedom, and how do we successfully argue for taking risks? In the face of society-wide preoccupation with safety, what are the arguments we need today to renew the case for liberty?

SPEAKERS

Ella Whelan, journalist; co-convenor of the Battle of Ideas Festival

READ ON

Letter on Liberty: The case for women’s freedom Ella Whelan, Academy of Ideas, July 2022 https://academyofideas.org.uk/letters-on-liberty-the-case-for-womens-freedom/

Letter on Liberty: Beyond the Harm Principle Rob Lyons, Academy of Ideas https://academyofideas.org.uk/letters-on-liberty-beyond-the-harm-principle/

The danger of safetyism Matthew Crawford, UnHerd, 15 May 2021 https://unherd.com/2020/05/the-hypocrisy-of-safetyism/

LIVING FREEDOM

Living Freedom exists to renew freedom through education and debate, offering young adults the opportunity to explore ideas and debate ideals as they relate to the past, present, and future of freedom. See https://livingfreedom.org.uk/ and @LivingFreedomUK

IDEAS MATTER PODCAST

Ideas Matter is a podcast that takes the most important issues of our times and explores the ideas and intellectual trends that have shaped where we are today. Subscribe via Spotify, iTunes, Podbean or SoundCloud.

Email us at [email protected]

Features the discussion ‘The ‘stolen years’: understanding the lockdowns’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023.

It’s not surprising lockdown was experienced as an era of loneliness, anxiety and fear. In every arena, freedom, autonomy and social life were restricted in favour of Zoom calls, family bubbles, and vaccine passports. Some say we are seeing a permanent shift in the experience of growing up. But to what extent has Covid given rise to a distinct generational outlook? Have habits of fraternity and solidarity been damaged irreparably or can we rescue the idea of freedom from widespread fatalism?

LECTURER

Dr Jennie Bristow sociologist, co-author, The Corona Generation

READ ON

Why do young people still support lockdowns? Max Mitchell, UnHerd, 25 March 2023

Generation CUB – how the events of Covid, Ukraine and Brexit will shape our teenagers’ lives forever Jennie Bristow, Telegraph, 10 March 2022

LIVING FREEDOM

Living Freedom exists to renew freedom through education and debate, offering young adults the opportunity to explore ideas and debate ideals as they relate to the past, present, and future of freedom. See www.livingfreedom.org.uk and @LivingFreedomUK

IDEAS MATTER PODCAST

Ideas Matter is a podcast that takes the most important issues of our times and explores the ideas and intellectual trends that have shaped where we are today.

Subscribe via Spotify, iTunes, Podbean or SoundCloud.

Email us at [email protected]

Features the discussion ‘What does it mean to be human in a world of generative AI?’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023.  

People are fascinated, amused and alarmed – often all three at once, at the generative AI tools that have taken the internet by storm over the last year. Some people welcome the new possibilities that these tools seem to offer for human creativity and flourishing. Others fear the consequences – from students getting AI to write their homework, to artists and journalists losing their livelihood to AI, to reputations being ruined and public discourse polluted by AI-generated scams and 'deepfakes'. What 20th-century events and philosophies originally shaped the invention of AI? What 21st-century phenomena are shaping the way we understand AI now? Will generative AI add to, or detract from, the meaning in our lives? 

LECTURER 

Sandy Starr deputy director, Progress Educational Trust, author of the Letter on Liberty AI: Separating Man from Machine 

READ ON 

Computing machinery and intelligence Alan Turing, Mind, Volume LIX, Issue 236, October 1950, Pages 433–460 

The cynical hysteria around AI Timandra Harkness, UnHerd, 2 June 2023 

LIVING FREEDOM 

Living Freedom exists to renew freedom through education and debate, offering young adults the opportunity to explore ideas and debate ideals as they relate to the past, present, and future of freedom. See www.livingfreedom.org.uk and @LivingFreedomUK 

IDEAS MATTER PODCAST 

Ideas Matter is a podcast that takes the most important issues of our times and explores the ideas and intellectual trends that have shaped where we are today. 

Subscribe via Spotify, iTunes, Podbean or SoundCloud.  

Email us at [email protected]  

Features the discussion ‘The dangers of progress?’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023.

Historically, the quest for freedom was often understood to be bound up with the ideal of progress, but today, society seems less certain of the benefits of progress. 

Key features of modernity such as urbanisation, mobility, secularism and affluence are often deemed counterproductive to liberty. How should we define ‘progress’ and how do we account for collapsing belief in its benefits?  Are progress and tradition necessarily in direct and bloody competition or can we make the case for a creative tension worth celebrating for social benefits? From industry to the internet, cars to contraceptive pills, has progress gone too far and become a threat to contemporary freedoms?

LECTURERS Nina Power writer and philosopher; senior editor, Compact Ralph Schoellhammer political theorist, Webster Vienna Private University

READ ON Socialism or Barbie-ism, Nina Power, Compact, 24 July 2023 Degrowth is a suicidal ideology, Ralph Schoellhammer, 30 May 2023

LIVING FREEDOM Living Freedom exists to renew freedom through education and debate, offering young adults the opportunity to explore ideas and debate ideals as they relate to the past, present, and future of freedom. See www.livingfreedom.org.uk and @LivingFreedomUK

IDEAS MATTER PODCAST Ideas Matter is a podcast that takes the most important issues of our times and explores the ideas and intellectual trends that have shaped where we are today.

Subscribe via Spotify, iTunes, Podbean or SoundCloud.

Email us at [email protected]

Features the lecture ‘‘Dystopian or dysfunctional? The 21st-century state’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023.

In recent years, governments have appeared directionless and often incompetent. Institutions riven with disputes over cultural values seem unsure of what they stand for. Crisis seems to be the word of the year - energy crisis, cost-of-living crisis, climate crisis, housing crisis – meaning a ‘state of emergency’ is now ubiquitous. What is distinct about today’s elites and their attempts to exercise authority? How should we understand the relationship between authority and authoritarian? For those keen to make the case for freedom, what should we be concerned about today and how do we make the case for renewing liberty?

LECTURER Josie Appleton director, Manifesto Club; author, Officious: Rise of the Busybody state.

READ ON The emergency addiction Josie Appleton, Notes on Freedom, 21 May 2023 Officious: Rise of the busybody state, Zer0 Books, 2016

LIVING FREEDOM Living Freedom exists to renew freedom through education and debate, offering young adults the opportunity to explore ideas and debate ideals as they relate to the past, present, and future of freedom. See www.livingfreedom.org.uk and @LivingFreedomUK

IDEAS MATTER PODCAST Ideas Matter is a podcast that takes the most important issues of our times and explores the ideas and intellectual trends that have shaped where we are today.

Subscribe via Spotify, iTunes, Podbean or SoundCloud.

Email us at [email protected]

Features the lecture ‘Freedom in the age of identity politics’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023. Loved or loathed, identity politics is inescapable in contemporary battles over freedom. To some, the political embrace of the personal is a vital tool in the struggle against oppressive institutions and practices. To others, identitarian politics is a divisive force in society and represents the antithesis of liberal ideals. In making the case for the free individual, how do we avoid reducing freedom to a lifestyle or consumer choice? Beyond the culture war of identity politics, how should we seek to construct a sense of ourselves and of freedom today?

LECTURER Dr Joanna Williams, director, Cieo, columnist, spiked, and author of How Woke Won: The Elitist Movement That Threatens Democracy, Tolerance and Reason

READ ON Freedom in the age of identity politics, Joanna Williams, CIEO, 2023 How identity politics destroys freedom, Roger Scruton, Acton Institute, September 2021

LIVING FREEDOM Living Freedom exists to renew freedom through education and debate, offering young adults the opportunity to explore ideas and debate ideals as they relate to the past, present, and future of freedom. See www.livingfreedom.org.uk and @LivingFreedomUK

IDEAS MATTER PODCAST Ideas Matter is a podcast that takes the most important issues of our times and explores the ideas and intellectual trends that have shaped where we are today. Subscribe via Spotify, iTunes, Podbean or SoundCloud.

Email us at [email protected]

Features the lecture ‘Freedom of conscience: 21st century challenges’ recorded at Living Freedom Summer School 2023.   

For many centuries, in religious and secular times alike, societies have wrestled with dilemmas as to how we should live in accordance with our inner-most thoughts and beliefs. What should we understand by the term freedom of conscience, how did it emerge and why is it so important? What are the main threats to conscience-based freedoms today?

LECTURER

Professor Frank Furedi, sociologist and social commentator; author, 100 years of identity crisis and How Fear Works: culture of fear in the 21st century.

READ ON

On Tolerance: A Defence of Moral Independence, Frank Furedi, Continuum, 2011

There is nothing wrong with unconscious bias Don't let them control your thoughts! Frank Furedi, Roots and Wings, 29 August 2022

LIVING FREEDOM

Living Freedom exists to renew freedom through education and debate, offering young adults the opportunity to explore ideas and debate ideals as they relate to the past, present and future of freedom.  See www.livingfreedom.org.uk and @LivingFreedomUK

IDEAS MATTER PODCAST

Ideas Matter is a podcast that takes the most important issues of our times and explores the ideas and intellectual trends that have shaped where we are today. Subscribe via Spotify, iTunes, Podbean or SoundCloud.

Email us at [email protected]

Living Freedom Forum in London in April explored Artificial Intelligence and the implications for freedom. Generative AI like ChatGPT and Midjourney have captured the public imagination and barely a day now passes without claim and counter-claim as to benefits or threats posed by artificial intelligence. But what actually is generative technology? How have we come to realise this new technology? And what are the potential benefits and threats?

Speaker: Sandy Starr, deputy director of the Progress Educational Trust

To find out more about Living Freedom visit livingfreedom.org.uk/ 

Initiated in 2015, Debating Matters Beyond Bars is a project which takes DM's schools-debating format inside prisons. Using our acclaimed substance-over-style format, teams of prisoners engage in debate with one another on a whole range of contemporary social, political and cultural topics. The programme aims to inspire them to think about issues beyond their current situation and to look forward to their life ahead – in other words, beyond bars!

In this podcast, Mo Lovatt - DM's national coordinator - and Geoff Kidder sat down with former Beyond Bars competitor Jon Floyd to discuss the impact the programme had on him when he took part in 2015 while he was serving his sentence. We were also joined by Heather Phillips, the chief executive of Beating Time, which runs, amongst other things, Inside Job – an employment programme she set up with Jon in 2020. 

For Jon, taking part in Beyond Bars was the catalyst for starting that programme with Heather as well as a whole range of initiatives he’s been involved with since 2015. As he says in the podcast, Beyond Bars gave him a purposeful activity, helped him change direction and kickstarted his journey of rehabilitation.

The theme of this year's The Academy, the weekend residential summer school, is ‘Old Roots of the New Disorder’. The event takes place on 16/17 July.

In this special podcast, The Academy convenor Jacob Reynolds talks to Professor Frank Furedi, keynote lecturer, about why at a time when the global geo-political and economic crisis afflicts all dimensions of human existence, The Academy represents an opportunity to gain clarity about our predicament.

With the shake-up in geopolitics, we put current events in context through a weekend of lectures and discussions. We’ll look to history, literature and philosophy and feature plenary discussions on the origins and breakdown of the post-Cold War era and fatalism and the challenges to agency today. There will also be discussions on history and literature from the Battle of Marathon and the Hungarian Revolution to Ulysses and the modernist solution to Houellebecq and the misery of post-Modernism.

Bringing together people of all ages and backgrounds, this is an unmissable event for all those who want to get to grips with a changing world.  If you’d like to join us for a weekend of stimulating debate in a beautiful location, book your tickets here