Ideas Matter 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 info@ideasmatter.org.uk

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 info@ideasmatter.org.uk  

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 info@ideasmatter.org.uk  
 
 

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?
LECTURERSNina Power writer and philosopher; senior editor, Compact Ralph Schoellhammer political theorist, Webster Vienna Private University
READ ONSocialism or Barbie-ism, Nina Power, Compact, 24 July 2023Degrowth is a suicidal ideology, Ralph Schoellhammer, 30 May 2023
LIVING FREEDOMLiving 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 PODCASTIdeas 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 info@ideasmatter.org.uk

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?
LECTURERJosie Appleton director, Manifesto Club; author, Officious: Rise of the Busybody state.
READ ONThe emergency addiction Josie Appleton, Notes on Freedom, 21 May 2023Officious: Rise of the busybody state, Zer0 Books, 2016
LIVING FREEDOMLiving 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 PODCASTIdeas 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 info@ideasmatter.org.uk

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?
LECTURERDr Joanna Williams, director, Cieo, columnist, spiked, and author of How Woke Won: The Elitist Movement That Threatens Democracy, Tolerance and Reason
READ ONFreedom in the age of identity politics, Joanna Williams, CIEO, 2023How identity politics destroys freedom, Roger Scruton, Acton Institute, September 2021
LIVING FREEDOMLiving 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 PODCASTIdeas 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 info@ideasmatter.org.uk