What should we do about democracy?
CENTRE FOR IDEAS: PAST EVENT
It feels like democracy is under siege, even in rich, peaceful countries like Australia that have escaped financial shocks and civil strife. Populist impulses have been unleashed in the UK and USA. There is a record lack of trust in the institutions of politics and government, exacerbated by the ways in which social media and digital technology can spread ‘fake news’ and are being harnessed by foreign powers to meddle in politics. Important issues that citizens care about, like climate change, are sidelined by professional politicians, enhancing the appeal of outsider figures. Do these problems add up to the failure of democracy? Are Brexit and Trump outliers, or the new normal? Join a lively panel of experts and commentators explore some big questions about the future of democracy, and think more clearly about what we ought to do.
Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger — the co-editor of Boing Boing (boingboing.net) and the author of WALKAWAY, a novel for adults, a YA graphic novel called IN REAL LIFE, the nonfiction business book INFORMATION DOESN’T WANT TO BE FREE, and young adult novels like HOMELAND, PIRATE CINEMA and LITTLE BROTHER and novels for adults like RAPTURE OF THE NERDS and MAKERS. He works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, is a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles.
A. C. Grayling
A. C. Grayling CBE MA DPhil (Oxon) FRSA FRSL is the Master of the New College of the Humanities, London, and its Professor of Philosophy. He is also a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford. He is the author of over thirty books of philosophy, biography, history of ideas, and essays. He was for a number of years a columnist on the Guardian, the Times, and Prospect magazine. He has contributed to many leading newspapers in the UK, US and Australia, and to BBC radios 4, 3 and the World Service, for which he did the annual ‘Exchanges at the Frontier’ series; and he has often appeared on television. He has twice been a judge on the Booker Prize, in 2014 serving as the Chair of the judging panel. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Vice President of Humanists UK, Patron of the Defence Humanists, Honorary Associate of the Secular Society, and a Patron of Dignity in Dying.
