Academy of Ideas

Highlights from the AOI's Justice Money Power debates at the City of London Festival In this week’s podcast we here some of the most informative and inspiring speeches from the Institute’s recent Justice, Money and Power debates at the City of London Festival, including chairman of the Night Time Industry Association’s Alan Miller’s defence of the night-time economy as a force for societal good at our Fight For Your Right To Party debate at the Bishopsgate Institute. Economist Phil Mullan gives a worrying prognosis for the British economy unless we can stimulate real econonic growth at our Are We Heading For Another Crisis? event, also at the Bishopsgate Institute. Architect Alastair Donald makes a powerful argument for building huge numbers of new houses across the UK to end the housing crisis at A Tale Of Two Cities: Skyscrapers And Slums at London & Partners, and Professor of Law John Fitzpatrick gives a history of the development of human liberties since Magna Carta and proffers what his thinks should be the next great leap in human freedom at A Twenty-First-Century Magna Carta. Full recordings of the Justice, Money and Power series will be available for download soon. 

In this week’s Podcast of Ideas, Rob speaks to Greg Lukianoff from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) about the fight for freedom of speech on US campuses amid an increasingly intolerant climate. Following the Institute’s inaugural University in One Day this week, we hear Sebastian Morello’s mini-lecture from the event on why Pico della Mirandola’s 1486 Oration on the Dignity of Man is a foundational work for humanist thought. David Bowden and Adam Rawcliffe come in to give us their views on the week’s news stories, and Nadia Butt reports back on last weekend’s Debating Matter National Final at the British Library in London.

In this week’s Podcast of Ideas, Rob Lyons and David Bowden dissect the week’s news including the pope’s encyclical on climate change, the Rachel Dolezal fiasco and the oppressive licensing laws killing off the nation’s nightlife. Professor Alan Hudson talks about University in One Day, the Institute’s new initiative for sixth formers, and why the Renaissance matters. Jason Smith tells us about next week’s Debating Matters National Final, and we hear some of the highlights from the recent Birmingham Salon event on the rise of transgender issues as a political force. 

In official terms, ‘the vulnerable’ used to be narrowly defined by the 1995 Care Commission report as referring to people in extreme circumstances, like the homeless, or those unable to look after themselves mentally or physically. Today, however, it is the term of choice to describe anyone and everyone deemed to be in need of sympathy, especially those hit by government cuts – ‘a savage attack on the most vulnerable members of our society’, etc - but also much more widely. The unemployed are vulnerable to depression; women are vulnerable to ‘everyday sexism’; immigrants are vulnerable to trafficking or even slavery, not to mention FGM; teenage girls are vulnerable to body-image issues; and teenage boys are vulnerable to being warped by pornography. A coroner recently called on the Ministry of Defence to review its care for vulnerable soldiers at risk of suicide and bullying. Meanwhile, more radical campaigners increasingly seem to see ‘vulnerability’ as a collective condition affecting just about everyone under rampageous capitalism. Solutions invariably involve calls for more support and protection for those deemed vulnerable. Nurseries, schools and universities create new systems and activities to support growing numbers of these deemed ‘vulnerable’ – often merely by dint of youth – aiming to ‘build resilience’ and develop ‘survival strategies’. Politicians have called for teacher training to include methods for helping children develop ‘grit, determination and the ability to work in teams in challenging circumstances’. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility has said schoolchildren should be taught character and given the resilience and determination to overcome setbacks in life. But can grit and determination really be taught? Or does a preoccupation with vulnerability actually threaten to sap our resilience, making us dependent on external support? If we begin by defining ourselves and others as powerless, how can we hope to change the conditions that undermine material, physical and mental well-being? And with so many labelled vulnerable, how do education and welfare professionals differentiate between competing claims and judge how to allocate scarce resources? SPEAKERS Debora Green  head of student support and wellbeing; University of Sheffield Jen Lexmond  director, Character Counts Dr Mark Taylor  deputy head of school, Addey and Stanhope comprehensive school; London convenor, IoI Education Forum Professor Sir Simon Wessely  head, department of psychological medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London; president, Royal College of Psychiatrists CHAIR Kathryn Ecclestone  professor of education, University of Sheffield; author, Governing Vulnerable Subjects in a Therapeutic Age (forthcoming)

In this edition of the Podcast of Ideas, Rob Lyons talks to Alastair Donald from the Future Cities Project about what can be done to solve the UK's housing crisis and barrister Jon Holbrook comes in to tell us why he would scrap the Human Rights Act. Rob also talks to Dr Fiona McEwen from King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry on new research, which appears to show that autism is largely caused by genetic and not environmental factors, members of the Institute of Ideas team give us their opinions on the week's stories, and Geoff Kidder reports back from the inaugural session of the Dublin Salon.