Is Free Speech Allowed? In a society where political discourse is often acrimonious, we can find it very difficult to have civil conversations about things that matter. Westminster’s ‘The Battle of Ideas Festival’ has, since 2005, been allowing the public to come to their own conclusions about contentious subjects through animated and inclusive discussion, in order to disseminate ideas and promote conversation about free speech, non-conformism and dissent.
On the 29th of October, 2023, I had the pleasure of attending the ‘Battle of Ideas Festival’ in London for the fifth time. With the intention of ‘shaping the future through public debate’ and the slogan ‘Free Speech Allowed’, this weekend experience annually hosted at Church House was full of thought-provoking discussion, involving both panels and audience, about a wide range of topical ideas, like ‘Are the Culture Wars a Distraction?’. The focal point of my day was ‘I DISSENT! Challenging the culture of conformism’, a panel discussion which aimed to answer ‘What is dissent, why is it so important and why has it become devalued today?’.
The panel consisted of Lord Moylan, Helen Joyce, Abbot Christopher Jamison who advocated “Careful Listening, language, love”, Jennie Bristow and Dr Peter Boghossian. What was particularly noteworthy was the degree of audience participation during the 90-minute session - ideas shared included whether an objective perspective exists and questions about the distinction between thought and identity.
This led me to question the difficulties of freedom of speech nowadays, despite its incredible significance as a fundamental principle of democratic society. How can we exercise our human right - the freedom of thought and expression - in order to dissent, but without causing conflict?
To answer this, I turned to Ella Whelan, co-convenor of the Battle of Ideas festival and Chair of the ‘I DISSENT!’ panel. Whelan’s advice, especially to Generation Z, was “to not be afraid of conflict, because conflict (can be but) doesn’t have to be world ending. In fact, you have to get comfortable with conflict because when you open up a space for free speech like we do at the Battle of Ideas Festival, in a situation and a climate in which people are unused to disagreeing, it’s natural for you to…get quite emotional - that’s a completely natural thing that happens. We care deeply about things, we don’t like it when someone challenges that view. So you’ve got to get comfortable with conflict.
“And the thing is to always have…the sword of your ideas and your opinions in one hand, and an olive branch of your humanity and friendship and civility in the other hand… I think it’s being able to marry being a nice person, being an empathetic person and an open person, with also being uncompromising about your views. That will lead you in the right direction.
“And I think solidarity is a word we talk about a lot, but finding solidarity with people and building solidarity is as important as disagreeing with people. If you just go around disagreeing with people, you will end up with no friends, and no one wants that. So I think the crucial thing is to get comfortable with conflict and find a way of doing it that doesn’t constantly make your skin crawl.”
To conclude, as Dr Peter Boghossian said: “Dissent will lose you friends, it is not easy” but total conformity inhibits progress and intellectual discussion, highlighting the importance of spaces like ‘The Battle of Ideas Festival’. If you want to get involved in making political intercourse less toxic, sign up for the Academy of Ideas’ newsletters at https://www.battleofideas.org.uk to find your next opportunity to speak freely.
