Battle Of Ideas: Shaping The Future Through Debate

The Battle of Ideas seeks to identify a new generation of public intellectuals and create a space where they can meet and have their ideas held to account.

The Battle of Ideas seeks to gather those who want to look behind the headlines and who are not prepared to be patronised with simplistic soundbites.

The Battle of Ideas seeks to attract attendees who are willing to challenge and to be challenged, and makes no apologies for putting ideas and argument centre stage.Since its launch in 2005, the Battle has built a reputation as an essential feature of London’s intellectual life: offering a space for the audience & leading thinkers to come together to engage in lively, no-holds-barred public debate on the key issues of our time. As one speaker described her experience, ‘With packed-out audiences and all the buzz, the events feel less like debates and more like rock concerts.’

A particular theme of the 2014 festival will be judgement. On what basis do we make judgements, and who has the authority to exercise them? Does every judgement we make open the way for charges of ‘elitism’ or ‘discrimination’ – and is that necessarily a problem? Can individuals be trusted to make judgements over their lifestyle choices or is their ability to do so clouded by biology, the market and society? Over the course of the weekend the festival will attempt to unpick this issue in fields as diverse as law and politics, parenting and sport, while also debating many of the other key contemporary issues facing society today.

The festival’s flexible format with over 70 sessions allows attendees either to follow particular strands through one day, or mix and match discussions. The wide variety of partners from the arts, academia, business, science and media both new and old, and the 350 speakers from a wide range of disciplines and viewpoints, results in a potent mix of perspectives, and should produce debates that give us all plenty to think and talk about.

The festival’s motto is FREE SPEECH ALLOWED. You are all invited.

Let battle commence!