Shows
Ideas MatterIdeas Matter: ‘What’s wrong with the Professional Managerial Class?’From the series ‘The elite: old and new’, theme of the boi charity’s event The Academy, held online in November 2021.
The term ‘professional managerial class’ was coined in 1977. Thinkers on both left and right have drawn attention to the rise (and rise) of a seemingly new group in society who neither labour in traditional occupations nor own significant amounts of capital. This group of salaried professionals – in the civil service, education, management, public relations, public health etc. – not only increasingly manage the key institutions of society. They are also said to exert a social and ideological influence, pro...2021-12-2234 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: ‘Brideshead Revisited: World wars and the end of the old elite’From the series ‘The elite: old and new’, theme of the boi charity’s event The Academy, held online in November 2021.
Published in the weeks after VE day in 1945, just as British voters swept a Labour Government into power, Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited was a surprise bestseller in both the UK and America, and captured the imagination of generations of readers. The story follows the life of Captain Charles Ryder and his fateful obsession with the aristocratic Flyte family as they slowly fall from grace and fortune during the interwar years. So how does Waugh make sense of...2021-12-2225 min
Over The Wire PodcastIdeas Matter: ‘The insecurity of the ruling class and the rise of the cultural elite’ Podcast: Ideas MatterEpisode: Ideas Matter: ‘The insecurity of the ruling class and the rise of the cultural elite’Pub date: 2021-11-26Notes from Over The Wire Podcast:How do we understand the ‘elite’ and what gives them power? Has the elite changed its character and, if so, then how, and from when? This lecture examines the role of culture in elite self-understanding and self-definition and looks at how culture became a key battleground in challenges to their authority.Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarization2021-12-1136 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: ‘Globalism and the challenge to the international elite’From the series ‘The elite: old and new’, theme of the boi charity’s event The Academy, held online in November 2021.
In recent years, populist movements have thrived on a sense of anger at global elites who have distanced themselves from political control by their own national populations. The coronavirus pandemic has further served to suggest that the global system is extremely fragile. Yet, as betrayed by the likes of COP26 conference on climate change, the appetite for supranational decision-making is as strong as ever. This lecture examines the ‘globalist’ elite and their political culture of supranationalism, and asks w...2021-12-1034 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: ‘The Stonewall Phenomenon: takeover of the institutions?’From the series ‘The elite: old and new’, theme of the boi charity’s event The Academy, held online in November 2021.
From arguments in museums about the status of colonial-era collections to the proliferation of ever more expansive diversity policies in public service organisations, major institutions are at the forefront of the culture wars. What can controversies such as Stonewall’s involvement at the BBC, and the new elite activism of organisations such as the National Trust and Civil Service tell us about the changing face of major institutions and how power operates today?
Lecture by Clair...2021-12-0746 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: ‘The insecurity of the ruling class and the rise of the cultural elite’From the series ‘The elite: old and new’, theme of the boi charity’s event The Academy, held online in November 2021.
Political discourse revolves around questions of power relations. Yet defining who really has power over society seems harder than ever. How do we understand the ‘elite’ and what gives them power? Has the elite changed its character, and if so how, and from when? This lecture examines the role of culture in elite self-understanding and self-definition and looks at how culture became a key battleground in challenges to their authority.
Lecture by Professor Frank Furedi, so...2021-11-2636 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: ‘The elite: old and new - introduction’Introduction to the series ‘The elite: old and new’, theme of the boi charity’s event The Academy, held online in November 2021.
Politics has always been inseparable from the question: who has power? In previous eras, the answer to that question was to examine the issue of social class. Today, it is harder to offer such easy answers. Many speak of multiple ‘elites’ including business, educational, cultural and media. If traditional elites are in retreat, or anxious to broadcast their support for a new set of ‘progressive’ values around race, sex and gender, does this mean that they no longer...2021-11-2611 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: ‘Sin or Freedom: what was the foundation of America?’Fifth podcast in the series ‘The use and abuse of history’, theme of the boi charity’s event The Academy, held online in April 2021.
The founding ideals of the United States of America are increasingly called into question. Rather than an experiment in democratic self-government and throwing off the shackles of British imperialism, America is seen as a racist creation devoted to the institution of slavery. This episode assesses the contrast between the lofty ideals of the American founding fathers and the ‘original sin’ of slavery. Was its foundation marked by a distinctive attempt to take control of history...2021-07-2344 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: ‘Relic or Spectre: what was Fascism?’From the series ‘The use and abuse of history’, theme of the boi charity’s event The Academy, held online in April 2021.
The most common historical comparison in contemporary debates is to fascism. From the pro-trump riot at the Capitol to laws requiring the wearing of masks, every political event is compared to the fascism of Nazi Germany. Undoubtedly, and for good reason, the horrors of the early 20th Century loom large over the political imagination of the West. But by comparing every contemporary event to fascism, many are left unable to explain the real causes and conseq...2021-07-1638 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: ‘Critique or conspiracy: what was the Frankfurt School?’From the series ‘The use and abuse of history’, theme of the boi charity’s event The Academy, held online in April 2021.
The term ‘cultural Marxism’ has long proved controversial. Some insist that it helps explain a shift in left-wing thought from a materialist focus on economic transformation to a concern for cultural issues and identity politics. Others dismiss it as an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory with its origins in Nazi attacks on ‘cultural Bolshevism’. Nevertheless, many accept that the Frankfurt School – the term given to the group of mainly German émigré intellectuals including the likes of Theodor Adorno and Herbert...2021-06-1832 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: ‘A War on the Past?’From the series ‘The use and abuse of history’, theme of the boi charity’s event The Academy, held online in April 2021.
From discussions about reparations to the descendants of slaves to the battles over public monuments, the legacy of the past is bitterly contested in today’s culture wars. Many insist that contemporary societies need to do much more to come to terms with, and atone for, the evils committed in the past. If the past actions of a country – such as military victories, the collection of vast treasures or the foundation or independence of a country –...2021-05-2839 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: ‘The use and abuse of history’Introductory podcast to the series ‘The use and abuse of history’, theme of the boi charity’s event The Academy, held online in April 2021.
Our politics is suffused with historical comparisons, and the meaning of key historical events is bitterly contested. How do we relate to history today? How can we learn from the past without reducing it to a series of moral parables? When are historical comparisons useful, and when do they obstruct understanding the present? What stands in the way of us seizing the present and making our own history?
Introduction by Dr James...2021-05-2708 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: ‘The new elite and the institutionalisation of identity’Seventh and final podcast in the series on Race and Racism, theme of BoI charity’s event The Academy, held online in late 2020.
In this episode we feature two talks that reflect on the emergence of a new elite and the institutionalisation of identity.
Lecturers:
Inaya Folarin Iman, founder, Equiano Project and presenter, GB News
Frank Furedi, a sociologist, public intellectual and author including ‘Democracy Under Siege’ and ‘Why Borders Matter’
THE ACADEMY ONLINE II: RACE AND RACISM
The Academy II was a half day online event via zoom that...2021-04-2040 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: ‘The Birth of a Nation’Sixth podcast in the series on Race and Racism, theme of BoI charity’s event The Academy, held online in late 2020.
In this episode we feature the talk ‘The Birth of a Nation’.
‘The Birth of a Nation’, the controversial film by DW Griffith from 1915 is renowned for its racist portrayal of black people and celebration of the Klu Klux Klan. More than a century after its release it continues to excite huge controversy. But how has the interpretation and imputed meaning of the film shifted and changed over that period.
Lecturer: Kunle Olulode, dir...2021-02-2322 min
The Brendan O'Neill ShowBONUS: We must abolish the new colour lineBrendan O’Neill finds an antidote to critical race theory in the robust universalism of WEB Du Bois.
This lecture was one of a series of talks at the boi charity’s Academy Online II: Race and Racism – a day of discussions about the intellectual history of race. The rest of the talks from that event, along with recordings of previous Academy events, are available on the boi charity’s Ideas Matter podcast here: https://theboi.co.uk/podcasts 2021-02-2325 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: The troubled universalism of ‘The Souls of Black Folk’Fifth podcast in the series on Race and Racism, theme of BoI charity’s event The Academy, held online in late 2020.
In this episode we feature the talk: The troubled universalism of ‘The Souls of Black Folk’.
‘The Souls of Black Folk’ was published in 1903 by W.E.B. Du Bois, the American sociologist, historian, author and campaigner. Today, identity politics and campaigns such as decolonising the curriculum emphasise racial difference rather than common humanity. At a time when universalism has fallen distinctly out of fashion, what can we learn from revisiting this seminal work from Du Bo...2021-02-1227 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: The use and abuse of the legacy of the Civil Rights MovementFourth podcast in the series on Race and Racism, theme of BoI charity’s event The Academy, held online in late 2020.
In this episode we feature the lecture ‘The use and abuse of the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement’.
The emergence of Black Lives Matter has been accompanied by renewed interest in the American civil rights movement that made such an impact in the 1960s. But what are the key attributes of that movement, and how should we assess today’s interpretation of its history and legacy?
Lecturer: Nicolas Kinloch, history teacher speciali...2021-02-0523 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Race Riots 1919 – 1992: from the First World War to Culture WarThird podcast in the series on Race and Racism, theme of BoI charity’s event The Academy, held online in late 2020.
In this episode, we feature the lecture ‘Race Riots 1919 – 1992: from the First World War to Culture War’.
The summer of 2020 was marked by Black Lives Matters protests and also by an explosion of violence that spread through American cities such as Minneapolis, Atlanta and many more. This talk explores a century of race riots in America and the shifting political and cultural terrain that shaped them.
Lecturer: Dr Cheryl Hudson, lecturer in US Polit...2021-01-2926 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Historical racism and the new language of racialisationSecond podcast in our series on Race and Racism, the theme of BoI charity’s event The Academy, held online in late 2020.
In this episode, we feature the lecture ‘Historical racism and the new language of racialisation’.
At a time when questions related to race have very much come to the forefront of political discussion, this talk examines what the new antiracism stands for - and argues that it represents a break from the anti-racism of the recent past, and that the time has come to instead adopt a universalist, humanist perspective.
Lecturer: Dr Alka...2021-01-2224 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Race and Racism series introductionThis is the first podcast in our new series on Race and Racism, the theme of BoI charity’s event The Academy held online in late 2020.
In this episode, we feature Jacob Reynolds, who along with Dr James Panton, was the co-convenor of the event.
Jacob reflects briefly on the return of race to the forefront of politics, and sets the scene for the series of podcasted talks that will follow this, each of which will explore an aspect of the intellectual history and latest cultural trends that inform the new discussion on race and ra...2021-01-2011 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Scientism and the Manufacture of Consent - then and nowEighth and final lecture in series Psychology and Democracy from The Academy 2020 organised by Battle of Ideas (boi) charity.
In this episode, the lecture ‘Scientism and the Manufacture of Consent: then and now’ draws together themes explored earlier in the series. It looks at how, in an age without a clear set of authoritative political ideas, an ideology - as yet without a name - has taken root. This ‘invisible’ ideology represents the coalescence of two separate strands of thinking over the past century - on the one hand an orientation towards social engineering and expert led technocr...2020-09-0434 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: The Hidden PersuadersSeventh lecture in series Psychology and Democracy from The Academy 2020 organised by Battle of Ideas (boi) charity.
Our focus in this episode is The Hidden Persuaders, the 1957 study by Vance Packard, American journalist, social critic and best-selling author. The Hidden Persuaders is Packard’s foray into the role of our unconscious desires and how psychological methods are exploited by arenas such as advertising. This talk explores Packard’s background and work, and reflects on what he pioneered and also his legacy.
Lecturer: James Woudhuysen, visiting professor of forecasting and innovation at London South Bank University, a re...2020-08-2824 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: modernisation and nature in Lady Chatterley's LoverSixth lecture in series Psychology and Democracy from The Academy 2020 organised by Battle of Ideas (boi) charity.
Our focus in this podcast is Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence. The novel was published in 1928, the period just after the First World War when anticipation of future possibilities coexisted with feelings of dread over the world to come. Against a backdrop of fears over mass society, and intense interest in conflicting dynamics of modernisation and tradition, industrialisation and nature, we look at what Lawrence tells us about inner turmoil in a shifting world.
Lecturer: El...2020-07-1725 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Walden Two and radical behaviourismOn 20 June 2020, Battle of Ideas Charity hosted The Academy Online, a series of talks and book discussions exploring the theme Psychology and Democracy.
This podcast features the introductory talk to a discussion on the 1948 novel ‘Walden Two’ by BF Skinner, an American psychologist, author, inventor and social philosopher. Skinner liked to describe his own philosophy as 'radical behaviorism' and the novel has gained renewed attention alongside interest in social psychology and behavioural science at a time of a pandemic, when many are keen to understand the factors that shape our decisions and the extent to which we can...2020-07-1128 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: The frightful crowd - the psychology of ‘the masses’On 20 June 2020, Battle of Ideas charity hosted The Academy Online, a series of talks and book discussions exploring the theme Psychology and Democracy.
In this podcast we feature the opening lecture The frightful crowd: the psychology of ‘the masses’.
Today, discussion of crowds, the demos and by implication democracy itself, is pervasive, for example in the debates on how to influence collective actions of the public in the context of coronavirus, or in the Black Lives Matter protests and counter protests and the mobs said to inhabit and fuel the Culture Wars. But the crowd and...2020-07-0333 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Brave New World and the eradication of inner lifeOn 20 June 2020, Battle of Ideas Charity hosts The Academy Online, a series of talks and book discussions exploring the theme Psychology and Democracy.
An important text on the reading list is Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. In this podcast we feature a short talk that reflects on how Huxley’s renowned work encapsulated emerging ideas in the inter war period and proved prescient to future trends.
The talk opened a discussion that was organised by the Living Freedom book club in June 2020. The lecturer is Luke Gittos, a criminal lawyer, legal editor at the maga...2020-06-1613 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Freud - the unconscious and the repressive societyFrom the archives of The Academy, this lecture ‘Freud: The unconscious and the repressive society’ is a taster and some useful context for this year’s Academy Online event ‘Psychology and Democracy’ on 20 June 2020 (details below).
Lecturer, Dr Michael Fitzpatrick reflects on the work of Sigmund Freud, including ‘Civilisation and its Discontents’ which was published in 1929 and signals a shift in Freuds work from a focus on the individual psyche to how some of those ideas could be applied at the wider level of society and culture.
THE ACADEMY 2020: PSYCHOLOGY AND DEMOCRACY
Due to the coronavirus...2020-06-1231 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Man’s inner nature: self reflection and being psychologicalFrom the archives of The Academy, this lecture ‘Man’s inner nature: self reflection and being psychological’ is a taster and some useful context for this year’s Academy Online event ‘Psychology and Democracy’ on 20 June 2020 (details below).
Lecturer, Dr Tim Black, spotlights shifting artistic sensibilities in the early 20th century and explores the journey away from society and material reality towards introspection. As remarked by Virginia Wolf, one of the writers featured here, this was the period when a sense emerged in some parts of society that future concerns lay ‘very likely in the dark places of psychology”...2020-06-0534 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter, Culture Wars: then and now, ep 12, ‘The Cultural Turn’Professor Frank Furedi discusses the cultural turn that emerged in the 1970s and its subsequent development in the decades that followed. The talk explores the reaction to the 60s counterculture, the rise of post-material values and the contemporary politicisation of culture.
LECTURER
Professor Frank Furedi, sociologist and social commentator; author, How Fear Works: culture of fear in the 21st century and Populism and the European Culture Wars.
TALKING POINTS IN THIS PODCAST
• The role of environmental issues in the intellectual elite’s adoption of post-material values in the 1970s
• The erosion of meanin...2019-12-2748 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter, Culture Wars: then and now, episode 11, 'Sixties Counterculture'This talk examines the assumption that today’s ‘progressive left’ is a continuation of the left-wing politics of the 1960s. It's the 11th in our series Culture Wars:then and now, recorded at the Academy 2019 summer school that was organised by the Battle of Ideas (boi) charity.
LECTURER
Dr Greg Scorzo, director and editor, Culture on the Offensive website and host of The Art of Thinking events
TALKING POINTS IN THIS PODCAST
• The Sixties civil-rights movement and Sixties counterculture are broadly at odds with the core political values of today’s progressivism.
• The difference...2019-12-1729 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Culture Wars: then and now, episode 10: ‘The Personalised Century’If the twentieth was the Mass Century, Timandra Harkness argues that the twenty-first is the Personalised Century – a time when mass production, mass media, and mass politics are giving way to customised manufacture, social media and identity politics. But what are the implications? Is the irony of the turn to a personalised world that the person is disappearing?
LECTURER
Timandra Harkness, journalist, writer and broadcaster; presenter of Radio 4’s FutureProofing; author, Big Data: does size matter?
TALKING POINTS IN THIS PODCAST
• Understanding the Mass Century and the Personalised Century
• Unprecedented choice, both material...2019-12-1743 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Culture Wars, then and now, episode 9: 'Tribes'Ben Cobley discusses his book, The Tribe, explaining how the progressive liberal-left and its associated ‘system of diversity’ have come to dominate society. In this lecture, he talks about the intellectual inspirations behind The Tribe, exploring how Chantal Mouffe, Karl Popper and Martin Heidegger helped him to illuminate the fraught world of identity politics today.
LECTURER
Ben Cobley, author, The Tribe: the liberal-left and the system of diversity.
TALKING POINTS ON THIS PODCAST
• The emergence of the ‘tribe’ of the progressive liberal left as an identity group that has overseen a domination of institutio...2019-12-1731 min
Ideas MatterIdeas Matter: Culture Wars: then and now, episode 8: New RadicalsIn 1992, conservative Republican Pat Buchanan declared the launch of a ‘culture war’ for the heart of the US. In the late 2000s, following the rise of the Tea Party movement, Andrew Breitbart suggested that politics is downstream from culture, and his young protégés like Milo Yiannopoulos and Ben Shapiro created turmoil in university campuses. Trump rode the bandwagon of conservative anti-establishment sentiment to the White House, whereas his opponents linked him to the racism of the Alt-Right. Meanwhile, figures like Jordan Peterson made popular and edgy ideas around ‘sorting yourself out’ and traditional masculine values. Are conservative ideas now...2019-12-1332 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Culture Wars: then and now, episode 7: Emotion and ReasonUnder the seemingly all-encompassing umbrella of ‘mental health’, the public sphere appears saturated with claims about emotional damage. This lecture explores such claims of emotional harm and analyses the conversation-stopping effect of dismissing the rational human subject and the degeneration of public debate into never-ending culture wars.
LECTURER
Dr Ashley Frawley – senior lecturer in public health, policy, and social sciences at the University of Swansea; author, Semiotics of Happiness: rhetorical beginnings of a public problem
TALKING POINTS IN THIS PODCAST
• The rise of new emotional problems and emotional solutions to existing problems.
• Underlying...2019-12-1246 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Culture Wars, then and now, episode 6: 'The culture of disenchantment'Adorno and Horkheimer’s critique of the culture industry argued that movies and mass-produced entertainment represented the ‘de-artification’ or commodification of art by capitalism: an inauthentic and formulaic regurgitation of reality that deceived its audiences. The real thing was difficult and hard to understand: modernism separated itself off from mass culture in order to try and save high culture. Heidegger, too, argued that we had become enchanted with technology and needed to find a way back to beauty. Postmodernism took up the debate the other way – looking to debunk the authority of high culture with the irony of kitsch and the...2019-12-0647 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Culture Wars: then and now, episode 5: ‘The crisis of bourgeois ideology’This lecture on the crisis of bourgeois ideology, from Nietzsche to Heidegger, is a pre-history of today’s culture wars. It explores the broad sweep and trajectory of modernist culture, from the mid nineteenth century through to the interwar years of the 20th century.
LECTURER
Dr Tim Black, books and essays editor, Spiked.
TALKING POINTS IN THIS PODCAST
Why growing disillusion of Europe’s bourgeois intellectual elite with the values of progress, liberalism and democracy that had been so important in bringing meaning to society.
The crisis of meaning that fed the Great War...2019-09-1747 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Culture Wars, then and now, episode 4: ‘Family matters'For a long time the family has been viewed as the location of all sorts of social and moral problems and are where many of the key discussions in the culture wars have traditionally been played out. But recently the focus seems to have shifted from traditional issues such as marriage, sexual freedom or abortion to the questions of parenting – resulting in more instrumental, and less moral arguments approaches to family life coming to the fore. This lecture traces these developments and clarifies whether and why the family matters.
Lecturer
Dr Jan Macvarish, visiting research fello...2019-08-2651 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Culture Wars, then and now, episode 3: 'The role of the state in education culture wars'The debate surrounding Parkfield school in Birmingham and wider discussion on the role of sex and relationship classes within educational programmes, are just the latest incidences of schools becoming a battlefield for the culture wars.
Starting with developments in the 1870s when the state intervention in schooling in England & Wales became more pronounced, James Tooley explores the impact of the ethos of state control over education right up to today’s controversies over Relationship and Sex Education
Lecturer
James Tooley, professor of educational entrepreneurship and policy, University of Buckingham; author, The Beautiful Tree
2019-08-2443 min
Ideas MatterIdeas Matter: Culture Wars, then and now, episode 2: ‘The emergence of the culture wars’This is the second podcast to the series Culture Wars: then and now, recorded in 2019 at the summer school The Academy.
The series explores the emergence and evolution of the culture wars, and aims to understand the intellectual, cultural, social and political ideas that shape them.
In this lecture, Frank Furedi introduces the concept of the culture wars, explores its historical context and outlines how changing conceptions of morality and the status of moral authority distinguish today’s culture wars from those that took place in the past.
LECTURER
Professor Frank Furedi, soc...2019-08-0948 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Culture Wars, then and now, episode 1: 'On culture'This is the introductory podcast to the series 'Culture Wars: then and now', recorded in 2019 at the summer school The Academy.
The series explores the emergence and evolution of the culture wars. Lecturers explore the intellectual, cultural, social and political ideas that shape the culture wars.
LECTURER
Angus Kennedy, convenor, The Academy; author, Being Cultured: in defence of discrimination; co-editor, From Self to Selfie: a critique of contemporary alienation
Talking Points in this podcast
• The Academy, and why we should value of scholarship, and the pursuit of truth
• What is mean...2019-08-0912 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: Family MattersThe following conversation between journalist Ella Whelan and the academic and author Dr Jan Macvarish was a taster for Jan’s lecture, ‘Family matters’, at The Academy - our residential summer school which took place on 20-21st July. https://theboi.co.uk/the-academy-2019
2019-08-0909 minIdeas MatterIdeas Matter: The Personalised CenturyThe following conversation between journalist Ella Whelan and the author and broadcaster Timandra Harkness was a taster for Timandra’s lecture, ‘The Personalised Century’, at The Academy - our residential summer school which took place on 20-21st July. https://theboi.co.uk/the-academy-2019
2019-08-0913 min