Feeling Down? An exploration of the therapeutic turn in society.

Posted by Dennis Hayes -

The NHS recently suggested that nine million people should seek therapy for anxiety, or other mental health conditions, so they can get back to work.

Do such suggestions mean we are just more sensitive to psychological issues or is there something darker behind the therapeutic turn in society? A cynic might suggest that more useful, well-paid, and attractive jobs would encourage people to return to work.

Over the last two decades there have been major concerns with self-esteem, resilience, emotional intelligence, emotional literacy, happiness, wellbeing, mental health, and compassion. Many of these focussed on children and young people. They spawned a therapeutic industrial complex made up of professional, and amateur, therapists who promote a myriad of inventions in education and the workplace.

The effect of these interventions is that many people now feel they can’t cope and need therapeutic help, for example, between 2022 and 2025 over seven million people sought help from NHS talking therapies alone.

Are we pathologising normal emotional responses to growing up and everyday life, or is it harder than ever for people to survive in the modern world?

Speaker: Professor Dennis Hayes, co-author of the best-selling and controversial book The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education, will discuss the origins of what is often called ‘therapy culture’ or ‘victimhood culture’ and its consequences for all of us.

Date Time and Venue: Thursday 19 March at 19.00 in the Brunswick Inn, Derby.

Tickets £3 (plus fee) on Eventbrite.

God

Posted by Dennis Hayes -

At our February East Midlands Salon, Dr Nicholas Joseph will open a discussion about why God won’t go away, and whether we really want Him to. Along with religion, Nicholas will talk about politics, and bring in animals and children.*

Nicholas is an historian. He is a senior lecturer in Initial Teacher Education at the University of Derby.

*Please note the coded admission that he lacks any relevant expertise

Date, Time and Venue. Thursday 19 February at 19.00 in the Brunswick Inn, Derby.

Tickets £3 (plus fee) on Eventbrite.

Homosexuality, Politics and Identity

Posted by Dennis Hayes -

Our speaker at the first East Midlands Salon of 2026 is Don Milligan.

Don will argue that although the idea of ‘Identity Politics’ has attracted a great deal of criticism in recent years, the struggle for gay rights is inconceivable without an assertion of homosexual ‘identity’.

Abour Don:

Dr Don Milligan has been a gay activist, trade unionist, and a member of the communist movement for many decades. He is the author of The Embrace of
Capital (Zero Books, 2022), The Politics of Homosexuality (Pluto Press, 1973), Sex Life (Pluto Press, 1993), and co-author of The Truth About the Aids Panic (Junius, 1987).

Don writes OffTheCuff columns at www.donmilligan.net

Date, Time, Venue: Thursday 29 January at 19.00 in the Brunswick Inn, Derby.

Tickets £3 (plus fee) from Eventbrite.

Image: Painting by Jacques-Louis David, Patroclus. Public Domain.

Why Read Plato’s Republic Today?

Posted by Dennis Hayes -

Plato wrote The Republic around 375 BC, making it 2,400 years old. Yet it has continued to reverberate throughout the entire subsequent history of Western philosophy. Any serious philosopher since has had to reference their ideas to the framework Plato originally set down in ancient Greece.

The Republic is the best known of Plato’s Socratic dialogues. In one sense, it can be thought of as a diatribe against Athenian democracy. It was this democracy that Plato blamed for the death of his friend and mentor Socrates. But it was also this same city, Athens, that allowed Plato to prosper.

What does Plato’s philosophy still have to say to us about the questions we face today? Have we yet managed to find our way out of Plato’s ‘cave’ or are we still flailing about in ignorance in the dark?

About Our Speaker

David Perks was the founder of the East London Science School (ELSS), which opened in 2013. ELSS was a unique free school in Bromley-by-Bow. He was the principal until his retirement in 2021. ELSS provided an unashamedly academic curriculum for pupils and it remains the only state school in the UK to have offered all its pupils separate science GCSEs. David taught physics, philosophy, mathematics and astronomy until he retired.

David is an enthusiast for teaching philosophy in schools. Therefore, he made ethics a compulsory part of the curriculum from Year 7. This meant every child was given a taste of philosophy from implausibility of Superman to the ideas of the Ancient Greeks. One of David’s favourite lessons was introducing Year 7 to Spartan education. Debate was a key part of the ongoing education provided throughout the school, which centred on J.S. Mill’s conception of tolerance – you can say what you believe as long as you are prepared to defend your ideas to your peers. Even Ofsted inspectors were impressed with the school’s approach to ethics!

He is now running the Classical Philosophy Reading Group, which is encouraging people to read and discuss Plato’s Socratic dialogues. The group has been running for a year discussing ideas from Plato’s theory of knowledge to Socrates quest to understand the nature of virtue. The group is currently tackling Plato’s Republic, his most famous dialogue. Previous discussions are available on Classical Philosophy YouTube

David can be found on X: @dmperks1

Chair: Dennis Hayes, a philosopher manqué.

Date, Time, and Venue: Thursday 11 December 2025 at 19.00 in the Brunswick Inn, Derby.

Tickets are £3, plus fee, on Eventbrite.

What is a citizen?

Posted by Dennis Hayes -

In the age of open borders and supranational governance, citizenship is either a transactional status or a taboo subject. But who belongs where – and why – remains a live question.

In this Battle of Ideas satellite event, novelist and writer Dolan Cummings examines the meaning of citizenship: is it a legal label, a shared fate, or a political responsibility?

In a piece on his Substack L’esprit de l’escalier Dolan challenged contemporary ideas of citizenship:

‘Our citizenship is comprised of interweaving strands: common heritage, common rights and responsibilities and common beliefs. The weight given to each varies over time and between places. But if there is such a thing as universal humanity – and I think there is – it emerges not from biology or from abstract ideas, but from participation in civilised life, which means being a citizen of a particular polis.’

At a time when some are seeking to reassert British citizenship by waving the flag and protesting against open borders, while others prefer Palestinian flags and cosmopolitan identities, does anything unite us as citizens?

Speaker: Dolan Cummings

Dolan is an Associate of the Academy of Ideas, a novelist and writer. His latest novel is The Pictish Princess…and other stories from before there was a Scotland.

Chair: Ruth Mieschbuehler

Ruth Mieschbuehler is programme leader for Education Studies at the University of Derby. She is Swiss citizen and a new British subject. Ruth convenes the Derby AFAF Branch.

Date, Time and Venue: Thursday 13 November at 19.00 in the Brunswick Inn, Derby

Tickets £3 plus fee on Eventbrite.

Against Decolonisation: in defence of classical music

Posted by Dennis Hayes -

The movement to “decolonise the curriculum” has recently been prominent in music, in particular music education in the Western classical tradition. Documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests revealed proposals by a small number of academics at Oxford University to present “white European music from the slave period” as a “colonialist representational system”. Some have also questioned the teaching of Western notation.

It is already the case that Western classical music has an ever-decreasing role in British degree courses. Fewer than 20 per cent of music students are enrolled on degree courses in which academic study of the classical tradition plays a significant role — the majority of whom now take more vocationally-oriented courses, such as music technology, musical theatre or popular music, equally important but of a different nature.

The virulence of the decolonisers’ rhetoric demonstrates that some in universities still think this is too much and will be satisfied only when such a huge and heterogeneous tradition becomes a wholly marginal force.

Even in conservatoires this has helped create many unhappy and unfriendly environments for those still drawn to the study of classical music, music in history, or other approaches associated with the humanities.

Furthermore, the centres of colonisation and of classical music production have historically been far from synonymous, demonstrating that this movement has little to do with colonialism and much to do with kneejerk anti-Western hatred.

To defend classical music, it is essential to understand it is of universal value rather than an imposition by white supremacists. If we do not make that case against the decolonisers classical music may have no future.

Speaker: Professor Ian Pace

Ian Pace is a distinguished pianist, and professor of music culture and society, at City St George’s University. He is a convenor the City and St George’s AFAF Branch and is the Secretary of the London Universities’ Council for Academic Freedom.

Chair: Dr Vanessa Pupavac

Vanessa Pupavac has begun a new career as a translator. She was previously an Associate Professor in International Relations at the University of Nottingham. She is a convenor of the Nottingham Universities AFAF Branch.

Date, Time and Venue: Thursday 25 September at 19.00, in the Brunswick Inn, Derby.

Tickets: £3, plus fee, on Eventbrite.

This Salon is a Battle of Ideas Satellite.

Sponsored by AFAF:

(Photo Credit: Julia Vash, of Ian Pace, Kiev, 2015)

The fear of over tourism

Posted by Dennis Hayes -

In recent years our holidays have been blamed as contributing to a range of social problems. Tourists, apparently, push up rents, diminish culture and behave badly – so much so that protests in popular destinations such as Barcelona, Tenerife and Majorca seem set to become an annual occurrence. Air travel – the principle means of global tourism – is viewed as immoral by ‘No Fly’ campaigns and Just Stop Oil activists. Meanwhile the new middles classes of economically growing countries such as China and India are increasingly doing what wealthy people have always done – spending their disposable income on holidays. What’s the truth about so called ‘over tourism’, and what does the future hold for our holidays?

Speaker: Jim Butcher is a lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University. He edits the Tourism’s Horizon: Travel for the Millions blog, blogs at Politics of Tourism, and is currently writing his fourth book on the politics of holidays.

Date Time and Venue: Thursday 26 June, 19.00, in the Brunswick Inn, Derby.

Tickets available now on Eventbrite (£3 + fee)

Photo Credit: Billy Grace Ward (2019) used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 licence.

Why debating matters…more than ever

Posted by Dennis Hayes -

In another of our Letters on Liberty series, Dr Mo Lovatt will argue that, ‘debating matters because ideas matter’.

‘We need to reject the idea that any moral and political question has become a settled fact,’ she says. ‘In fact, it’s important that successive generations have the opportunity engage in the process of democratic persuasion, discussion as well as the chance to consider and freely debate ideas for themselves.’

Using formats like Debating Matters, we must defend the idea that ‘young people should cultivate the cognitive muscles required for dealing with the complex challenges of the adult world. The freedom to debate is the freedom to develop your own moral conscience… Rather than shying away from controversial or difficult topics, we should embrace them and encourage young people to do the same.’

Buy or download her Letter on Liberty on the Academy of Ideas website: Why Debating Matters

About Mo

Mo is also national coordinator for Debating Matters, a debating competition for sixth-form students run by the Ideas Matter charity. She is also the co-convenor of the Buxton Battle of Ideas Festival.

Mo read PPE at the University of Oxford and has a doctorate from Northumbria. She is a lecturer, public speaker and a commentator on TV and radio where she regularly reviews the newspapers or comments on topical issues for GB News, Sky News, Times Radio, Talk TV and BBC Five Live.

Date, Time and Venue: Thursday 22 May at 19.00 in the Brunswick Inn, Derby.

Tickets £3 (plus fee) on Eventbrite.

Why are parents looking for Catholic education for their children?

Posted by Dennis Hayes -

In a recent column for the Telegraph Ella Whelan discussed why parents will lie and pray to get into church schools. She believed it was because these schools maintained a tradition of knowledge, values and behaviour and that it wasn’t all about God. There is nothing new about parents looking for the best for their children, but something has changed. There is an international revival going on. New Catholic Schools are being established at primary and secondary level. There are even new Catholic universities level.

It is often parents who are the driving force behind these schools. They feel that secular schools no longer value the best that has been known and thought and that they uphold no worthwhile values, if any values at all. They also believe true values must be based-in religious belief.

The secular tradition that sticks to the view that the position of religion in education should be the same as that of snakes in Ireland remains strong. But is it increasing challenged. Are we seeing the beginning of an educational and religious revival?

‘Say what you like about faith schools but there was no way I was going to shout back at my teachers in my Catholic primary, least of all out terrifying nun headmistress. The structure of Angelus prayers, weekly Mass and assemblies with moral tales and hard line Irish dinner ladies whipped us all into shape. As a result, the school took inner-city London children from all kinds of tough backgrounds and turned us into a decent bunch of kids.’ (Ella Whelan, Telegraph 23/1/25)

Speaker (s) TBC

Date, Time and Venue: Thursday 20 February at 19.00 in the Brunswick Inn, Derby.

Tickets (£3 plus fee) on Eventbrite.

Photo Credit: Dennis Hayes (Statue of Our Lady of Walsingham) December 2023

Defending Christ and the Prophet: Free Speech versus Blasphemy

Posted by Dennis Hayes -

January 2025 sees the tenth anniversary of the massacre at the Paris Headquarters of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. The Islamist attackers wanted bloody revenge for alleged blasphemy against Islam. Twelve people died but the world rallied in support of freedom of expression around the hashtag #JesuisCharlie. Others said that Charlie Hebdo went too far, and they rallied around the hashtag #JenesuispasCharlie. Charlie Hebdo satirises Christianly as well as Islam and nothing is safe from their biting criticism and cartoons.

Blasphemy laws were abolished in the UK in 2008 and in Scotland in 2021. The UK government promised no return to a blasphemy law after a Labour MP called for the reintroduction such a law. Can we be sure that there will there be no return to blasphemy laws?

In our first East Midlands Salon of 2025, Dr Don Milligan will open a timely discussion of ‘blasphemy versus free speech’.

About Don

Dr Don Milligan has been a gay activist, trade unionist, and a member of the communist movement for many decades. He is the author of The Embrace of Capital (Zero Books, 2022), The Politics of Homosexuality (Pluto Press, 1973), Sex Life (Pluto Press, 1993), and co-author of The Truth About the Aids Panic (Junius, 1987).

He writes Off The Cuff columns at www.donmilligan.net

Date, Time and Venue: Thursday 30 January at 19.00 in the parlour of the Brunswick Inn, Derby.

Tickets (£3 plus Fee) on Eventbrite.

Photo Credit: Toulouse rally in support of the victims of the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting. Pierre-Selim (2015) under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0.