12. Festival of Ideas

Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about the Festival of Talking which was held in Adelaide on the weekend.

University halls were packed with people who clearly didn’t have to work, do the shopping, clean the house, take the kids to sport, or do any of things that people have to do on the weekend. There was discussion of science, of arts, of feminism and of politics, and there were interesting and occasionally provocative ideas being delivered from platforms on high.

But what made me grumble was the lack of analysis of power and material interest in the sessions I went to. For instance, we were told that we are going backwards on climate change because the narrative does not fit with the way our brains are hard-wired. Apparently as a species we have trouble grasping and acting on abstract concepts, so facts about a distant threat posed by an invisible gas just don’t cut it. And so with classical liberalism, we were implored to talk about climate change differently and to build bridges to each person’s individual experience.

Now apart from thinking that abstract concepts like nationalism, god and democracy have historically mobilised masses of people, I wondered where was the analysis of power in society? Where was the discussion of the power of transnational fossil fuel corporations who successfully lobbied to gut climate legislation in face of popular support for action on climate change, where was the querying of an economic model based on particular types of growth or an understanding of the self-interest of living a resource-intensive lifestyle?

Now I am happy to try to adapt messages to maximise their impact, but let’s not kid ourselves that the ultimate issue here is one of discourse – of the way ideas are explained. Liberal ideology might credit ideas with changing history, but feudalism, the divine right of kings and Soviet communism were all defeated not by the idea of democracy but by the wealth created by capitalism and the power of the capitalist class – albeit mitigated (and legitimised) by a social democratic state. And that is the order of magnitude change we may need.

These may be unpopular ideas in a festival based on the idea of ideas, but perhaps if we focussed more on power we would be discussing the organisation of politics rather than its language, equality rather than innovation, and poverty rather than “true crime” (Thanks John Saffron). Why was it that in a festival at the end of anti-poverty week, there was no session on ideas for addressing poverty and sharing wealth?

Don’t get me wrong, ideas are important – and better when entertaining and inspiring, but the key thing about ideas relates to who has power in our society, who benefits from which ideas and how ideas are mobilised in defence of (or in opposition to) that power and privilege.

So, call me an old-fashioned materialist, but I am Greg, I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-12/

First Broadcast: 22 October 2013