Talking liberty - The seductive power of literature
Saturday 25th March, 1.00 pm - 3.00 pm
Map Room, Cherry Reds, 88-92 John Bright Street, B1 1BN
Free entry but donations welcome. Donations help us to meet speaker travel costs for our two debate Salon events.
Please book via EventBrite
Talking Liberty - In defence of teaching history
Saturday 25th February
1.00 pm - 3.00 pm
Map Room, Cherry Reds, 88-92 John Bright Street, B1 1BN
Free entry but donations welcome. Donations help us to meet speaker travel costs for our two debate Salon events.
Please book via EventBrite
Aspects of the Omnicrisis
Saturday 28th January, 1.00 pm - 5.00 pm
The Arthur Sullivan Room, Birmingham Midland Institute, 9 Margaret Street, Birmingham B3 3BU
Tickets £15 available at the event (cash only) or via EventBrite
National interest and global order - which comes first?
1.15 pm - 2.45 pm
The war in Ukraine has not undermined supranational institutions which still have the support of the most powerful world leaders. Going it alone doesn’t look like an attractive option. NATO seems to be stronger than ever in most of Europe where many feel threatened by Russia. When British Prime Minister Truss tried to follow a new economic policy, she was soon forced to resign after the IMF commented negatively. When her successor Sunak suggested that he had better things to do than attend the COP27 climate conference such was the criticism, he quickly changed his mind.
Dr Philip Cunliffe, Associate Professor in International Relations, University College London; author, The New Twenty Years’ Crisis 1999-2019: A critique of international relations; co-host, @Bungacast podcast
Dave Aveston
Break: tea/coffee (included in ticket price) 2.45 - 3.15 pm
Reparations, industrial revolution: how should poor nations develop in the 21st century?
3.15 pm - 4.45 pm
Clearly this dream has not been realised; if anything the trend has been in the opposite direction. The Covid pandemic and responses to it is part of the reason for this. Previous explanations for uneven development have ranged from crudely racist ones, cultural and geographical factors, naked exploitation and the exigencies of cold war politics. Behind even the most despicable of these explanations, however, there always lay an understanding that, at least in principle, the poor world ought to be allowed to catch up and that worldwide industrial development of the kind seen in the West would be in the interests of humanity as a whole. But this thinking has changed. At COP27 it was clear that the industrial revolution is now viewed as the first step on the path to the climate emergency.
Do climate change and other environmental impacts of industrial development mean we have come up against a natural barrier beyond which it is no longer possible to go? Is it now necessary to restrain growth in order to avoid destroying the planet, and what will that mean for billions of people in conditions of extreme poverty? Should they not enjoy the high standards of living modern society has shown are possible? Are Western environmentalist ideals just another form of colonialism or do they offer a different pathway, learning from previous mistakes and sparing people from catastrophe? Could loss and damage payments from the rich countries be part of a better route to development or are they tokenistic in the bigger scheme of changes that poor countries need?
Speakers:
Austin Williams, Senior Lecturer in Architecture, Kingston School of Art; author China's Urban Revolution:Understanding Chinese Eco-cities
John Vogler, Professorial Research Fellow in International Relations, University of Keele; author Climate Change in World Politics
Chair:
Chrissie Daz
The global south has the power to force radical climate action, Jason Hickel, Al Jazeera
Coming up in 2023
Coming up in 2023...
Aspects of the Omnicrisis
Saturday 28th January, Birmingham & Midland Institute
Talking liberty - In defence of teaching history
Saturday 25th February, Map Room at Cherry Reds
Talking liberty - The seductive power of literature
Saturday 25th March, Map Room at Cherry Reds
United? Kingdom?
Saturday 22nd April, Birmingham & Midland Institute
Talking Liberty - The Future of Free Speech
Talking Liberty - the future of free speech
Saturday 12th November
1.00 pm - 3.30 pm
Map Room, Cherry Reds, 88-92 John Bright Street, B1 1BN
Free entry but donations welcome
Please book via EventBrite
Please join us from 1.00 pm for social time and informal discussion. From 1.45 pm we will introduce and discuss the essay The Future of Free Speech by Jacob Mchangama. You can purchase the essay in booklet format or download a PDF version. You are strongly encouraged to read it to contribute more fully to the discussion, but if you don't we will give a short summary to introduce the key arguments.
Mchangama is the author of Free Speech:a history from Socrates to Social Media, and he argues in this essay that we are in a free speech recession.
"Free speech is one of the most powerful and transformative ideas ever conceived. It is held as the 'first freedom, the bedrock of democracy, the enemy of tyranny, the midwife of enlightenment and the source of truth...But free speech is far from assured; it has not been the default position in the long arc of history. Thus, after decades of global gains, it has now suffered more than a decade of setbacks."
How far do you agree with these assertions? Does Mchangama set out a convincing case for the importance of free speech? Is it helpful to those who want to defend free speech, or are there significant omissions?
Following our discussion, we will agree which of the Letters on Liberty to discuss in 2023.
Free speech in the news:
National Secular Society defends free speech at 'Stand with Salman' event
Arrest of protestors prompts free speech concerns
Joanne Harris faces member vote on Society of Authors role amid call for free speech review
John Cleese set to join GB News in a push for 'free speech'
Most students think UK universities protect free speech, survey finds
Aspects of the "omnicrisis"
Aspects of the omnicrisis
Saturday 8th October
Law and Justice
Saturday 7th May, 1.00 pm - 5.00 pm
The Arthur Sullivan Room, Birmingham Midland Institute, 9 Margaret Street, Birmingham B3 3BU
Law-making and Freedom with Claire Fox (Baroness Fox of Buckley)
1.15 pm - 2.45 pm
Refreshment break: 2.45 pm - 3.15 pm
What Are Prisons For?
3.15 pm - 4.45 pm
Unbearable Lightness of Citizenship
Return of Birmingham Salon Saturdays
The Unbearable Lightness of Citizenship
Tickets £15 (includes tea/coffee) from EventBrite
Citizenship, identity, and belonging
1.15 pm - 2.45 pm
tea and coffee break - 2.45 - 3.15 pm
The emergency state citizen
3.15 pm - 4.45 pm
Our next event will be on Saturday 7th May on the theme of law and justice.
Inside the ‘’incelosphere’’
THURSDAY 7TH OCTOBER
7.00 PM - 9.00 PM
UPSTAIRS AT THE WOODMAN, NEW CANAL STREET, BIRMINGHAM. B5 5LG
Welcome back!
This is a free event for Birmingham Salon regulars to catch up after the pandemic paused our live debates, and for anyone new to Birmingham Salon to come and experience and contribute to a Salon discussion.
Inside the incelosphere
Incels, or involuntary celibates, are an online subculture community of mostly men, who forge their sense of identity around a perceived inability to form sexual or romantic relationships. The incel community operates almost exclusively online, providing an outlet for a significant minority of incels to express misogynistic-hostility, frustration and blame toward society for a perceived failure to include them.
Rare individual cases have seen incels lash out in violent murderous rage. Most notable is the notorious case of Elliot Rodger, who in 2014 killed six people and injured 14 others before killing himself, referring in his manifesto to a “day of retribution” when he would kill those he was envious of – Chads (men who sleep with lots of women) and Stacey’s (the attractive women who reject him).
Is the incelosphere a phenomena triggered by or reflecting other trends in society? Recent reports suggest that in the US, the number of men going to universities is falling significantly. Morgan Stanley forecast that 45 percent of working women between the ages of 25 and 44 will be single and childless by 2030 in what they call the rise of the SHEconomy. The rise of identity politics has encouraged a pattern of group formation around grievance and oppression. Is this at all justified in the case of the incel?
Speaker: William Costello
William is a Birmingham Salon regular with an MSc in Psychology: Evolution & Culture from Brunel University London. His Masters dissertation is on the psychology of incels. William also writes about cultural issues such as polyamory, sexual violence, identity politics, Birthstrike and racism through an evolutionary psychology lens and has contributed opinion pieces to outlets such as Quillette and Areo.
Twitter: @WilliamCostello
Chair: Rosie Cuckston
Recommended reading
Step your dick up - why incels deserve better advice William Costello, Medium, 2020
What the media gets wrong about incels Naama Kates, Unherd 2021
Why incels are the losers in the age of Tinder James Bloodworth, Unherd 2020
THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF CITIZENSHIP
Saturday 28 March 2020, 11.00am to 5.00pm
Tickets £10 available in advance via Eventbrite
With the weakening of national solidarities, is citizenship being replaced by individuated, consumerist and cultural identities? Or does it continue to be built through political solidarities and struggle? What is the relationship between citizenship and language, culture, place and participation in common goals and ideals? If citizenship is more than visas, passports, pledges of allegiance, and other trappings of state organised process, what is it?
Mladen Pupavac, associate researcher, Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice, University of Nottingham. Co-author of the forthcoming book Changing European Visions of Disaster and Development.
Christine Huebner, researcher of citizenship, Research Fellow of the Citizenship, Democracy and Transformation Research Group, Nottingham Trent University. Christine's research focuses on changing conceptions of citizenship.
The electoral franchise has, in different ways, become increasingly contentious in recent years. Some argue, for example, that the voting age should be lowered to allow more progressive youthful voices to decide the future. There have been denunciations of ‘low-information’ voters, who are allegedly manipulated by lies and algorithms. Should the franchise be extended to 16-year olds? And what about EU citizens and prisoners?
Fraser Myers, staff writer for spiked and producer of the spiked podcast
What are prisons for?
Prisoners are denied many of the rights of citizenship, including being able to vote. But what are prisons for? And do prisons work? Denying their liberty serves an important function in punishing those who have broken the law. But is it not also humane to give prisoners the chance to turn their lives around?
Does the current prison system downplay people’s inherent capacity for change? Should there be more emphasis on people having the power to redeem themselves? If so, what changes need to be made to the UK prison system?
Recommended reading