Utopia and freedom
2024-03-20 18:30 - 20:00 (Europe/London) | Bateman Lecture Theatre, University of Exeter, Building One, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4PU, United Kingdom
Bateman Lecture Theatre, University of Exeter Building One, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4PU
THIS EVENT IS FREE TO ATTEND BUT PLEASE REGISTER VIA EVENTBRITE.
Living Freedom ‘University Salons’ are for all students (and academics) keen to explore and debate ideas. A short talk is followed by plenty of time for questions and discussion.
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TOPIC
Utopia and Freedom
Since the publication of Thomas More’s Utopia at the dawn of modernity, utopian thinking has helped us imagine how society might be radically, wholly different. Transformative historical events such as the English Civil War and the Industrial Revolution often inspired imagined worlds to come.
The issue of freedom in utopias is far from straight-forward. More’s Utopia imagined religious toleration but also slavery as punishment for law breakers. Later utopians anticipated transformations in work, leisure or mobility but also rule by master elites and elimination of weak and feeble folk. By the twentieth century, utopia found itself tarnished by association with totalitarian ideologies. In the time since, dystopias have come to the fore, anticipating environmental emergencies, AI apocalypses or a tyrannical patriarchy.
Oscar Wilde argued that ‘a map of the world that does not include utopia is not worth even glancing at’. ‘Progress’, he declared, ‘is the realisation of utopias’. Today, some disparage the technocratic and technological utopianism of the likes of ‘progressives’ or ‘transhumanists’. Others argue that utopian dreaming is required as a stimulus to any worthwhile practical reforms. In our times of political malaise and disenchantment with the future, could a revival of utopian imagination help us out the doldrums? To what extent are utopias – or dystopias – a useful means to think about and shape the future?
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SPEAKER
Alastair Donald; convenor of Living Freedom; co-editor, The Lure of the City: from slums to suburbs
Alastair organises the Ideas Matter initiative Living Freedom and is associate director of the Academy of Ideas where he co-convenes the Battle of Ideas Festival. He is author of The Scottish Question, and co-editor of The Lure of the City: from slums to suburbs (2011) and The Future of Community: reports of a death greatly exaggerated (2008). He co-founded mantownhuman which published Manifesto: towards a new humanism in architecture (2008), as featured in Penguin Classics 100 Artists’ Manifestos.
CHAIR
Felice Basbøll project assistant, Ideas Matter
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BACKGROUND READING
Utopias: news from nowhere can help us here and now, The Guardian, 30 November 2023
Coronavirus lockdown: Dystopian and horror virus book sales spike, from The Handmaid’s Tale to Brave New World, Rhiannon Williams, iNews, 31 March 2020
Free love or genocide? The trouble with Utopias, Tobias Jones, The Guardian, 24 January 2016
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ORGANISED BY
Living Freedom, Exeter Speak Easy and Committee for Academic Freedom.

SUPPORTED BY
Living Freedom University Salons are supported by the Ian Mactaggart Programme, established to foster a culture of open debate, independent thinking and free expression among young people in the UK, especially students. It is administered by the Free Speech Union.

Religious freedom: toleration or discrimination?
2024-03-25 18:00 - 19:30 | Violet Laidlaw Room, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh
Violet Laidlaw Room, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, Chrystal Macmillan Building, 15a George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9LD
Living Freedom ‘University Salons’ are for all students (and academics) keen to explore and debate ideas. A short talk is followed by plenty of time for questions and discussion.
THIS EVENT IS FREE OF CHARGE BUT PLEASE REGISTER VIA EVENTBRITE.
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TOPIC
Religious Freedom: Toleration or Discrimination?
Questions related to expression of religious beliefs are throwing up many tricky questions related to freedom and equality. In the UK, Christian street preachers have been arrested, a Muslim pupil is taking a school to court over a prayer ban and there are worries that protection zones around abortion clinics turn silent prayer into a thought crime. In Finland, a prominent MP who publicly quoted biblical scripture is being prosecuted for hate speech and there are concerns that Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act will also threaten freedom of conscience and religious expression.
However, many worry that it is religious practice that impinges on our freedoms and rights. Religious conservatives in America have made it easier for hospitals and medics to object to providing birth control and abortions on the grounds of conscience. A Supreme Court ruling in Alabama that embryos used for IVF are legally children may create restrictions on fertility treatment. After outrage over Qur’an burnings in European countries such as Denmark, bans on desecration of religious texts create worries about the return of blasphemy laws.
In pluralistic societies, how do we reconcile the right of faith communities to exercise their beliefs with our established wider freedoms? Are street preaching or prayers in school rights we should all enjoy? Should holy books be protected by law? Is firing a midwife who refuses to perform abortions an act of justice or discrimination? Or both? Where practical conflicts arise, for example, with anti-discrimination equality laws or medical service provision, how should we respond?
Ultimately, have we gone too far in protecting the faithful or too far in neglecting them?
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SPEAKER
Dolan Cummings novelist and essayist; author, Taking Conscience Seriously and The Pictish Princess: ..and other stories from before there was a Scotland; substack, L’esprit de l’escalier
CHAIR
Alastair Donald convenor, Living Freedom
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BACKGROUND READING

End The Use Of Religion To Discriminate, ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)
Scotland’s new ‘hate speech’ rules are a modern blasphemy law, Melanie McDonagh, The Spectator, 2 May 2020
Why Sweden tolerates Quran burning, Lars Tragardh, UnHerd, 1 September 2023
This ban on Muslims praying in school is a dystopian, sinister vision of Britishness, Nadeine Asbali, The Guardian, 19 January 2024
Is free speech under threat? Heather Tomlinson, Premier Christianity, 31 January 2024
Politicians have the right to strong religious views. But not to be shielded from scrutiny, Kenan Malik, The Observer, 26 February 2023

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ORGANISED BY
Living Freedom and Edinburgh Academics for Academic Freedom

SUPPORTED BY
Living Freedom University Salons are supported by the Ian Mactaggart Programme, established to foster a culture of open debate, independent thinking and free expression among young people in the UK, especially students. It is administered by the Free Speech Union.

Image: adapted from Michael Coglan, Creative Commons

Crumbling of the ivory towers: what is the purpose of a university?
2025-05-07 18:00 - 19:30 | Gillis Lecture Theatre, Balliol College, University of Oxford, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BJ, United Kingdom
This event is free, but please register using the form below.
‘When you’re in a hole, stop digging.’ Sadly, this ‘first law of holes’, often attributed to former politician and once Balliol scholar, Denis Healey, seems to have bypassed many universities. Despite warnings in recent years about the perils of over-expansion, marketisation and anti-intellectualism, reports point to courses closing, redundancies rising, bureaucracy increasing, students becoming dissatisfied, staff demoralised and standards falling. Notably, fewer 18-year-olds now elect to go to university and 40 per cent of universities and other higher-education institutions expect to run a loss in this financial year. What are the underlying problems? And what should universities be? What will it take to get out of the hole?
Some blame the culture wars and the wider politicisation of education. In the US, a Trump-driven ‘vibe shift’ has caused a reassessment of social-justice priorities and funding for DEI, but UK universities seem to be doubling down. For example, newly proposed guidelines aim to make adherence to diversity guidelines a condition of research funding, raising questions as to how academics assert independence to determine research priorities. ‘Decolonising’ reading lists or eliminating gendered language – even from graduation ceremonies – are said by some to be prioritised over defending knowledge and excellence, which are now said to be elitist. Do such shifts help explain, for example, the devaluation of the arts and humanities, which are under siege and facing drastic cuts?
Elsewhere, paternalism can often dominate student life. Some worry that the very notion of the risk-taking, intellectually autonomous student is drowning under directives on wellbeing and mental health. The chancellor of Oxford University, Lord Hague, said universities must not be ‘comfort blankets of cancellation’. But the University of Sussex may be more representative of the new norm with its recent decision to challenge a fine for failing to uphold free speech and insisting on setting guidelines on lawful speech.
However, some students do seem keen to fight back against a censorious culture on campus – and in some instances, even sex and gender debates now go ahead largely free of a ‘heckler’s veto’. Are these signs of hope, or more false promises?
How do students and academics who wish to change campus culture navigate questions about critical inquiry, intellectual independence and academic freedom? Has managerialism destroyed the university for good, or can it be reformed – and if so, how? How can – and should – we best harness the spirit of true intellectual endeavour, inside and outside of universities?
SPEAKERS
Felice Basboll
student, Trinity College Dublin; project assistant, Living Freedom
Dr Edward Howell
Lecturer in International Relations, University of Oxford,
John Maier
PhD student, University of Oxford; UnHerd columnist
CHAIR
Alastair Donald
convenor, Living Freedom
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