Conway Hall Ethical Society

In this Ethical Matters talk, Agnes Arnold-Forster blends neuroscience and psychology with the history of medicine and emotions to explore the evolution of nostalgia from its first identification in seventeenth-century Switzerland (when it was held to be an illness that could, quite literally, kill you) to the present day (when it is co-opted by advertising agencies and politicians alike to sell us goods and policies).

Nostalgia is a social and political emotion, vulnerable to misuse, and one that reflects the anxieties of the age. It is one of the many ways we communicate a desire for the past, dissatisfaction with the present and our visions for the future. Arnold-Forster’s history of this complex, slippery emotion is a lens through which to consider the changing pace of society, our collective feelings of regret, dislocation and belonging, the conditions of modern and contemporary work, and the politics of fear and anxiety.

Her book, Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion is a clear-eyed analysis of what we are doing now, how we feel about it and what we might want to change about the world we live in. It will be available on the day.

Age Recommendation
16+

Price
Standard (in person) £9 • Concessions (in person) £6 • Standard (online) £6 • Members FREE

Everything you know about capitalism is wrong. Free markets aren’t really free. Record corporate pro­fits don’t trickle down to everyone else. We aren’t empowered to make our own choices – they’re made for us every day. The story is all too familiar. The global economy generates immense fortunes for a super-rich elite, yet at the same time pay stagnates for ordinary workers, food banks proliferate and public services collapse around us. In this Ethical Matters talk, journalist Grace Blakeley and author Luke Hilyard ask if we have had enough of the super-rich.

Luke Hildyard is the Director of the High Pay Centre, a UK think tank focused on pay, employment rights and responsible business. He has commented on issues including pay and inequality for multiple media outlets including The Guardian, The Times, Financial Times, Daily Mirror, BBC, Sky News, CNN and CNBC. His book Enough: Why it’s Time to Abolish the Super-Rich will be availble at the event.

Grace Blakeley is a staff writer at Tribune Magazine and author of several books, including Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom, The Corona Crash: How the pandemic will change capitalism and Stolen: How to save the world from financialisation. She is the former economics commentator for the New Statesman, and a former Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Policy Research.

Age Recommendation
16+

Price
Standard £9 • Concessions £6 • Online £6

We say that life is priceless. Yet the cost of saving a life, creating a life or compensating for a life taken is routinely calculated and put into practice. In a world in love with data, it is possible to run a cost-benefit analysis on anything – including life itself. For philanthropists, judges, criminals, healthcare providers and government ministers, it’s just part of the job.

In this Ethical Matters talk, journalist, broadcaster and documentary-maker Jenny Kleeman takes us on an adventure to meet some of the people who decide what we’re worth.

In a series of extraordinary encounters – with people who have faked their own death or lost a loved one to terrorism, with hitmen and with modern day slaves – she discovers more questions than answers. What does it mean for our humanity when we crunch the numbers to decide who gets the expensive life-saving drugs, and who misses out? What do we learn about ourselves when philanthropic giving by the effective altruists in Silicon Valley is received by some, while others are left to suffer? Are some lives really worth more than others? And what happens when we take human emotions out of the equation? Does it make for a fairer decision-making process – or for moral bankruptcy?

Exploring the final frontier in monetisation, Kleeman asks what we lose and what we gain by leaving the judgments that really matter up to cold, hard logic. Her book, The Price of Life will be available to purchase on the day.

Misogyny and ‘toxic masculinity’ are increasingly implicated in radicalisation. From the men’s incel (‘involuntary celibate’) movement online, to jihadist groups like Islamic State, to radical right ‘Free Speech’ protests —radicalisation spans ideologies. Though an often-used term, the process of radicalisation is not well understood, and the role of gender and masculinities has often been ignored.

In this Ethical Matters talk, Elizabeth Pearson discusses her research among two of Britain’s key extremist movements: the banned Islamist group al-Muhajiroun, and those networked to it; and the anti-Islam radical right, including the English Defence League and Britain First, to reveal radicalisation as a masculinity project. She situates extreme identities in wider social norms, showing how masculinities are mobilised into action.

Elizabeth Pearson PhD, formerly a BBC radio journalist, is Lecturer in Criminology with the Conflict, Violence and Terrorism Research Centre at Royal Holloway, University of London, and an associate fellow with theRoyal United Services Institute and the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism. She co-authored Countering Violent Extremism: Making Gender Matter. Her latest book, Extreme Britain will be available to purchase at the event.

Age Recommendation
16+

Price
Standard (in person) £9 • Concessions (in person) £6 • Standard (online) £6 • Members FREE