Last Saturday afternoon, mid-way through the “Battle of Ideas” event in Westminster, I realised I was incredibly bored. Perhaps this was my own failing. This was after all an array of interesting people speaking about interesting things, from The Critic’s own Lola Salem on classical music to Andrew Orlowski on AI, and Tomiwa Owolade on the importation of American racial politics. Yet sitting through the various panels, on everything from Mizzy’s Tik-Tok antics to the fraying of the social contract, I couldn’t help but think I had heard it all before.
I know I’m not the only one who felt that way. One of the speakers Thomas Prosser has already written a polite and thoughtful questioning of the extent to which ideas did actually clash. I would go further. Substitute for “battle” the word “skirmish”, or even “circle jerk” — given that there was an orgiastic tendency for agreement — and you have a better event descriptor.
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