Academy Of Ideas

Few texts have sustained such extensive reference and quotation in Anglo-American politics as JS Mill’s classic. Mill’s famous ‘Harm Principle’ – that government power may only be justifiably used to prevent harm to others, not to improve one’s own good – still provides the ground on which numerous debates around civil liberties, lifestyle choices, and more recently ‘nudge theory’ are fought. Moreover, Mill’s rousing defence of the liberty of the press never ceases to be relevant. Yet it is imperative to understand the aims and context of On Liberty if Mill’s arguments around press liberty and the Harm Principle are to be properly understood – as the endless argumentation about what ‘harm’ means shows. Attending to the whole of On Liberty, in the spirit of pursuing knowledge for its own sake, shows these familiar ideas in a new light. By tackling this canonical work as a whole we gain valuable insights into Mill’s inspiring defence of personal autonomy, and see quite how at odds Mill would

listen to this week's public event in London. Seventeen million people voted to leave the EU last Thursday, an historically important democratic moment. Yet there are already attempts to thwart or row back from this decision. Many have signed a petition urging a second referendum so that voters can give the ‘right answer’; others threaten the vote with lawyers and bureaucratic challenges. There is contempt for voters who effectively revolted against an establishment that told them they should vote Remain. There seems to be a special brand of bigotry aimed at white working-class voters, with talk of ‘sewers’, and sections of the electorate being castigated for their ignorance and xenophobia. Others seek to stir up a distasteful generational revolt, prompting some younger Remain voters to turn on anyone over 60 with vicious accusations of selfishness and betrayal. This should be a moment that feels pregnant with possibilities, opening up chances for shaping the future. And yet many feel sc

Rob Lyons, Claire Fox and David Bowden discuss the fallout from the Brexit vote. In a historic week where the British public voted to leave the European Union, sparking one of the most tumultuous political upheavals in living memory and causing hysteria across the political establishment and the media, Rob Lyons, Claire Fox and David Bowden offer some much needed sane analysis and give their visions of where we should go from here to ensure we build a more democratic, more prosperous and freer Britain. 

From controversial law cases such as that of the footballer Ched Evans through to intense bursts of outrage at offensive jokes or unpopular opinions, the Twitterstorm seems to have replaced the mob in twenty-first-century imagination. While some defend the use of such tactics as a (mostly) harmless letting off of steam, others have become increasingly uncomfortable about what such tactics mean for the state of public debate more widely. In his much-discussed book, So You’ve Been Publically Shamed, journalist Jon Ronson explored the real-world effects of such vituperative mob justice, from unfairly destroying reputations to ruining lives: last year, an investigation into ‘trolls’ targeting the parents of Madeleine McCann ended in the suicide of one of the accused. From psychologist Gustave le Bon’s 1895 work, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, to Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, and even behavioural economics, there has been no shortage of intellectual inquiry into the nature of mobs, y

Claire Fox, David Bowden and Rob Lyons discuss the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox, its implications for the EU referendum campaign and the parallels with the Orlando night-club massacre.