In 2009, philanthropist Simon Longstaff established the Festival of Dangerous Ideas – a series of lectures that set out to do exactly what say they will: talk about some nasty, dangerous ideas.
Its maiden year had some pretty controversial talks – you know how religion is controversial – based around George Pell talking about why everyone in the world needs religion, countered by Christopher Hitchens talking about how the same thing poisons everything. It’s dangerous.
But in the mothership of all ironies, the Festival of Dangerous Ideas keeps coming under fire for doing some kinda dubious (or dangerous) things and perhaps for not even being dangerous enough. In fact, in 2014, though it was fraught with issues surrounding it, a chunk of the talks weren’t terribly dangerous.
Although the Festival of Dangerous Ideas seems like its danger should translate into its location (like in a shark cage? Or near a cliff?), it’s held at the ever majestic, wind-in-the-sails Sydney Opera House. The program colour is orange (the OSHA Orange Coding designates Orange as a symbol of danger), and there are a lot of stairs that run the risk of you running out of breath and potentially collapsing. Dangerous.
The stairs to the middle of the right hand side illustrate the element of danger at the Sydney Opera House
Though the festival this year featured cool talks such as “Cat Videos Will Save Journalism” (spoiler: they will) and something about the co-founder of Skype, Jaan Tallinn, saying that he is secretly scared of technology, it also included talks that simply perpetuated things that are kind of common knowledge. “Climate change is real” (Tim Flannery) was one idea. “Technology is changing the world guys” (Tallinn) was another.
This is the face of the future.
The idea of the festival, according to Longstaff, seeks out things that are “offensive, obnoxious, fearsome, [or] dangerously stupid.”
Of course, it’s always good to talk about climate change and The World Wide Web, but it almost seems like it’s there for an ABC-viewing crowd to go to and be justified in their opinions. Almost.
The festival itself was fraught with issues and knots that never quite untangled. Let me explain the ways:
1. Though Cat Videos Will Save Journalism was a very fun and exciting talk (the Australian editor of BuzzFeed was there, along with ABC’s Mark Scott and the deputy editor of the Australian. Whaaat.), it was a panel made up entirely of men. Which perhaps doesn’t give a very exciting outlook into the future of journalism. Particularly because there is that “crazy cat ladies” epidemic where there are ladies who have a lot of cats. Did you know that it’s actually a parasite thing?
2. A talk that discussed sex workers and how they’re actually empowered didn’t invite sex workers to talk about their own profession. Instead it was just writers and academics that were pretty sure that they knew what they were talking about, but how would they know if they have never been involved in the industry? So, some sex workers from the Scarlett Alliance applied to be involved with the talk through the festival organisers to be on the panel. Then, to make it even more awkward, they got rejected (maybe they thought it would be to dangerous, offensive, obnoxious?). It was only until the actual talk occurred that one Elizabeth Pisani allowed Jules Kim of the Scarlett Alliance to take her place.
Even better, Simon Longstaff, curator of the festival, said this in defence of the decision:
In my opinion what needed to be represented was a broad spectrum of opinion, which included the opinions of sex workers in Elizabeth Pisani, who was able to articulate the opinions that sex workers hold.
But you know, sex workers are also able to convey an opinion. Cos they work in the industry. And have industry experience. So thanks but no thanks, Longstaff.
3. Hey, there was also that talk you may have heard of that was cancelled called “Honour Killings are Morally Justified”. It was cancelled because it was too dangerous, even for something called the Festival of Dangerous Ideas (Even though speaker Uthman Badar came out saying that his talk was going to be examining honour killings from a non-West perspective so that us drongo-chuck-a-shrimp-on-the-barbie Aussies were able to more comprehensively understand cultures that aren’t ours even though they are probably barbaric). The moral here seems to be that, much like in Q&A, it is difficult to actually have a guest who goes very against the grain of public opinion. Unless it’s Clive.
4. Then there was that time that the St James Ethics Centre, who runs the Festival of Dangerous Ideas had ties with the group that run detention centres in Australia. Because ethics.
“Haha! Ethics!” she said.
This is not to say by any means that the Festival of Dangerous Ideas doesn’t have its worth (let’s not forget that Mark Latham was there and he was genuinely great). Of course, it is a beautiful gesture to how we are evolving and accepting ideas with open arms (again, Mark Latham). Perhaps it is concerning, though, that the festival is allowing itself to fall into ideas that are accepted by certain groups. Slight islamophobia, for example. Or agreeing with the government. Not thinking twice about an entirely male panel on the future of journalism.
And finally, just in case you weren’t convinced enough by this top-notch piece of journalism, this cat video will change your mind:
