Intelligence Squared

We all know that the Chinese are the neo-colonialists of Africa. They've plundered the continent of its natural resources, tossing aside any concern for human rights and doing deals with some of the world's most unsavoury regimes. The relentless pursuit of growth is China's only spur. But is this picture really fair? In Angola, for example, China's low-interest loans have been tied to a scheme that has ensured that roads, schools and other infrastructure has been built. China has an impressive track record of lifting its own millions out of poverty and can do the same for Africa. And is the West's record in Africa as glowing as we like to think? After decades of pouring aid into Africa, how much have we actually achieved in terms of reducing poverty, corruption and war? So which way should Africa look for salvation - to the West, to China, or perhaps to its own people? Defending the motion in our debate from 28th November 2011 were Ghanaian economist and author George Ayittey and Portuguese MEP Ana Maria...

The persistence of conspiracies. Grasping the infinity of lists. Writing fiction about the real. The future of books. These are some of the topics Umberto Eco discussed with Paul Holdengräber, Director of LIVE at the New York Public Library, when he came to the Intelligence Squared stage in November 2011. Their wide-ranging conversation focused in part on Eco's book 'The Prague Cemetery', an historical pseudo-reconstruction set in a 19th-century Europe teeming with secret service forgeries, Jesuit plots, murders and conspiracies, and covering everything from the unification of Italy, the Paris Commune, the Dreyfus Affair to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It has been criticised by both the Vatican-backed newspaper the Osservatore Romano and the Chief Rabbi of Rome. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who are we? Why are we here? Are we alone in the universe? How did we become the creatures that we are? How might we further evolve? These are some of the big questions that Brian Cox and Alice Roberts tackled when they came to the Intelligence Squared stage on 2nd December 2014. Brian Cox is the rockstar who became a scientist, and is now a rockstar scientist. He is known to millions as the presenter of the BBC Wonders series in which he unravels the complexities of the universe with calm clarity and an infectious sense of wonder. Alice Roberts is a no less talented science story-teller. A doctor, anatomist, osteoarchaeologist and writer, she has enthralled television audiences with BBC series such as The Incredible Human Journey. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

P.J. O'Rourke is America's premier political satirist and has more citations in The Penguin Dictionary of Humorous Quotations than any other living writer. In this live appearance for Intelligence Squared in 2010, he discussed his new book, "Don't Vote - It Just Encourages the Bastards", a brilliant, hilarious and ultimately sobering look at why politics and politicians are a necessary evil — but only just barely necessary. Moving from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman to a late-night girls' boarding school game called Kill-F*@k-Marry, O'Rourke explored the nature of the social contract. For him the essential elements are power, freedom and responsibility: the people like the freedom part, politicians like the power part, and hardly anyone wants to hear the responsibility part. This leads him to postulate the "Death, Sex and Boredom Theory of Politics." Thanks to Audible for supporting the Intelligence Squared podcast. Get a free audiobook of your choice at audiblepodcast.com/debate. Support this show http://sup

In the 1640s England was devastated by a civil war that divided the nation into two tribes – Roundheads and Cavaliers. Counties, towns, even families and friends were rent apart as the nation pledged its allegiance either to King Charles I (supported by the Cavaliers) or to Parliament (backed by the Roundheads). Some 200,000 lives were lost in the desperate conflict which eventually led to the victory of the Roundheads under Oliver Cromwell and the execution of the king in 1649. The ideas that circulated in that febrile climate 350 years ago have shaped our democracy and also created a cultural divide that still resonates today. The Cavaliers represent pleasure, exuberance and individuality. Countering them are the Roundheads who stand for modesty, discipline and equality. To debate both the historical and present-day significance of this divide, Intelligence Squared brought together two acclaimed historians: Charles Spencer to defend the Roundhead cause (in spite of the fact that his forebear the Ist... Su

One of Israel’s most acclaimed writers, David Grossman is the author of numerous pieces of fiction, nonfiction and children's literature. His work has dealt with Jewish history, the occupation of the West Bank, the cost of war and the dramas of family life, and has been translated into 25 languages around the world. He has been a vocal critic of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians and has been one of the most prominent cultural advocates of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He came to the Intelligence Squared stage on October 4th 2011 to discuss his life and work with novelist and journalist Linda Grant. Thanks to Audible for supporting the Intelligence Squared podcast. Get a free audiobook of your choice at audiblepodcast.com/debate. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Drug pushers. We tend to associate them with the bleak underworld of criminality. But some would argue that there’s another class of drug pushers, just as unscrupulous, who work in the highly respectable fields of psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry. And they deserve the same moral scrutiny that we apply to the drug pedlar on the street corner. Within the medical profession labels are increasingly being attached to everyday conditions previously thought to be beyond the remit of medical help. So sadness is rebranded as depression, shyness as social phobia, childhood naughtiness as hyperactivity or ADHD. And Big Pharma is only too happy to come up with profitable new drugs to treat these ‘disorders’, drugs which the psychiatrists and GPs then willingly prescribe, richly rewarded by the pharma companies for doing so. That’s the view of those who object to the widespread use of the ‘chemical cosh’ to treat people with mental difficulties. But many psychiatrists, while acknowledging that... Support this

On 5th October 2010, Intelligence Squared paired author William Gibson with popular blogger and science fiction writer Cory Doctorow in a wide-ranging conversation that gives a fascinating insight into the mind of the man heralded as the "architect of cool". Thanks to Audible for supporting the Intelligence Squared podcast. Get a free audiobook of your choice at audiblepodcast.com/debate. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are Christians victims of a hateful animus, or are they demanding special treatment in a secular state which in fact applies the law equally to all? Peter Hitchens fears that without Christianity, we might end up undermining the whole foundation of law in this country. But agony aunt Claire Rayner thinks that we shouldn’t need God in order to be good. Journalist Matthew Parris wonders how intelligent people can still believe in God. They were joined by former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, leading human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC and Benedictine monk and former school headmaster Dom Antony Sutch to debate the motion "Stop Bashing Christians! Britain has become an anti-Christian country" at the Royal Geographical Society on 3rd November 2010. The debate was chaired by Executive editor and columnist at the Guardian, Jonathan Freedland. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choice

It used to be so easy. You left university, came to London and got yourself a flatshare in one of the cheaper areas: Notting Hill, Maida Vale or Highgate. Living was cheap and if it took you a while to find out what you really wanted to do with your life you could drift about a bit and get by. But now thanks to vast City bonuses and the influx of foreign billionaires, London house prices have soared beyond the reach of all but the seriously rich. Parts of Notting Hill and Kensington have become ‘buy to leave’ ghost towns, the houses boarded up and showing no signs of life. Shoreditch and Hackney, not long ago the hip new outposts for musicians and artists, are now home to well-paid professionals. And London is the worse for it. That’s the argument of those who worry that London is becoming too rich to be interesting. But is there any evidence that the city is growing bland? Quite the reverse. On any evening almost wherever you go London’s streets are abuzz with life. People here crave a communal... Support

Karen Armstrong has written over 16 books on faith and the major religions, studying what Islam, Judaism and Christianity have in common, and how our faiths have shaped world history and drive current events. She came to the Intelligence Squared stage to talk about her forthcoming book 'Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence'. Journeying from prehistoric times to the present, she contrasted medieval crusaders and modern-day jihadists with the pacifism of the Buddha and Jesus’ vision of a just and peaceful society. And she demonstrated that the underlying reasons – social, economic, political – for war and violence in our history have often had very little to do with religion. Instead, Armstrong celebrates the religious ideas and movements that have opposed war and aggression and promoted peace and reconciliation. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/ad

How should we remember Napoleon, the man of obscure Corsican birth who rose to become emperor of the French and briefly master of Europe? As the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo approaches in 2015, Intelligence Squared brought together two of Britain’s finest historians to debate how we should assess Napoleon’s life and legacy. Was he a military genius and father of the French state, or a blundering nonentity who created his own enduring myth? Was his goal of uniting the European continent under a common political system the forerunner of the modern ‘European dream’? Or was he an incompetent despot, a warning from history of the dangers of overarching grand plans? Championing Napoleon was historian Andrew Roberts, author of, among other books, 'Napoleon the Great', 'Napoleon and Wellington', and 'Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble'. Opposing him was fellow historian Adam Zamoyski, author of, among other books, '1812. Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow' and 'Rites of Peace. The Fall of Napoleon... Su

Steven Pinker is one of the world’s leading authorities on language, mind and human nature. A professor of psychology at Harvard, he is the bestselling author of eight books and regularly appears in lists of the world’s top 100 thinkers. In 2014 he returned to the Intelligence Squared stage to discuss his latest publication 'The Sense of Style', a short and entertaining writing guide for the 21st century. Pinker argued that bad writing can’t be blamed on the internet, or on “the kids today”. Good writing has always been hard: a performance requiring pretence, empathy, and a drive for coherence. He answered questions such as: how can we overcome the “curse of knowledge”, the difficulty in imagining what it’s like not to know something we do? And how can we distinguish the myths and superstitions about language from helpful rules that enhance clarity and grace? Pinker showed how everyone can improve their mastery of writing and their appreciation of the art. Professor Pinker was in conversation with Ian McEwan,

Professor Francis Fukuyama came to the Intelligence Squared stage in September, to square up with one of Britain’s most brilliant political thinkers, David Runciman, to assess how democracy is faring in 2014. We certainly haven’t attained the rosy future that some thought Fukuyama was predicting in his book 'The End of History and The Last Man' in 1992: authoritarianism is entrenched in Russia and China, in the last decade the developed democracies have experienced severe financial crises and rising inequality, and Islamic State militants are wreaking havoc in Iraq and Syria. Is religion becoming the new politics? How will the technological revolution continue to impact our politics? And in the West are we in danger of becoming complacent about the challenges to democracy that we face? Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marina Abramović is one of the most celebrated performance artists in the world. Over a career spanning four decades she has pioneered performance as an art form and accumulated a devoted following. Using her body as both subject and object, Abramović explores notions of nothingness and time, and draws in the audience as part of her performance. At her 2010 exhibition, ‘The Artist is Present’, at New York’s MOMA visitors were invited to sit silently opposite her and gaze into her eyes for an unspecified amount of time. Every day people broke down in tears. In conversation with the Artistic Director at the Barbican Centre, Will Gompertz, Marina Abramović tells us what she has learnt about process and people from a world in which she is interested in everything. With her characteristic strong character, intelligent wit, and radiating warmth, Abramović discusses her role as healer, art as meditation, and how her challenging childhood has given her much material to work with.  This event was recorded in September

This event was recorded at the Chalke Valley History Festival in July 2014. The future of the Union will be voted for in a referendum soon, and this debate explored the historical relationship between Scotland and England, and the direct bearing that has on the vote facing the Scots in a few days' time. The United Kingdom faces one of the biggest constitutional issues in its history, and our panel debated this most important of decisions. Proposing the motion were journalist and historian Simon Jenkins and Lecturer at the Department of History, Texas State University Bryan Glass. Opposing it were Liberal Democrat politician Sir Menzies Campbell and Secretatry of State for Education the Rt Hon Michael Gove. The debate was chaired by Editor of Prospect Magazine Bronwen Maddox. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do the British have a death wish? You’d be forgiven for thinking so the way so many of them seem to want to cripple the most dynamic part of their own economy. What is the world’s largest market for dollars? London. Where does the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange go when it wants to buy or sell billions of US Treasury bonds? London. Which sector of the economy delivers £12 out of every £100 in tax to the Chancellor of the Exchequer? London’s financial centre. Its accumulated skills, its light touch regulation, its openness to competition – these have made London the envy of the world, the magnet for all the smartest financiers: they have turned London into the most exciting city to live in on the planet. Of course there have been scandals – what do you expect in the world’s most competitive market place? Yet instead of lauding London’s banks for their achievement in outclassing all their rivals, we seem interested only in penalising them and letting New York or Frankfurt steal the show.... Su

This event was on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. On 28 August 1963, civil rights campaigners marched on Washington to secure equality before the law. Today, America’s first black president sits in the White House, yet more African-Americans are on probation, parole or in prison than there were slaves in 1850. In the UK, 45% of young black people are unemployed as opposed to 20% of young whites. Meanwhile support for European far right organisations like Golden Dawn is growing. On the anniversary of his seminal speech, Versus brought together five global voices to discuss Dr. King’s legacy. To what extent has his dream been realised? Are Muslims now the new targets of racism post-9/11? And will racism still be blighting us in 50 years’ time? Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Leading voices from the fields of science, philosophy came to the Intelligence Squared Asia stage for this thought-provoking debate about the pursuit of wealth and its relationship to happiness. Among other topics, this debate raised questions about the link between being rich and being happy, what constitutes happiness, whether economic prosperity is key to personal satisfaction - or to political stability, and if so, what the policy implications should be. Speaking for the motion in this debate in Hong Kong in September 2011 were philosopher and author A C Grayling and best-selling author of "The Science of Happiness" Dr Stefan Klein. Opposing it were prominent Taiwan diplomat, novelist and commentator Ping Lu and former President of the Oxford Student Union Lewis Iwu. The debate was chaired by Douglas Young, Founder of the leading Hong Kong lifestyle brand Goods of Desire (G.O.D.). Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out informa

For many Western teenagers university has long been considered a passport to the good life: a rite of passage consisting of mind-expanding reading and writing or the acquisition of a professional qualification, and meeting like-minded people often over a drink or three – all ending up in a well paid, interesting job and a network of useful contacts. But in these straitened times is the traditional university education really worth the time and money – and the hangovers? More and more young people are attending university in Britain and the US, and ever fewer graduates are finding jobs. Costs are soaring too: fees at American universities have increased by over 1000% in the last 30 years and British institutions have nearly tripled their annual fees to £9000 in the last year. The result? A new type of high-school leaver is emerging who combines formal learning with on-the-job experience. Businesses are increasingly interested in employing young people with a sense of determination, grit and a strong work... S