Freedom and fun: how 'including' the public leads to their exclusion Monday 17 May 2010Dan Travis and Brendan O'Neill will look at how contemporary forms of state regulation and 'self-regulation' of our behaviour express a destructive distrust of adults, and impact profoundly on the democratic process.  Dan Travis will use examples from Brighton that has been a test ground for 'Lifestyle Bans' - restriction zones that formally attempt to improve social cohesion, but inherently increase mistrust and alienation. Whitehall seem to be trying them out in Brighton, and then rolling them out nationally. Having campaigned against the Bans with the Manifesto Club, then co-founding the 'Free Brighton' group, Dan will show how initial bans on rap music escalated into bans on Flyering, then photography and then most dramatically, on booze.
Dan will then argue that these new forms of bans rely on excluding the public in any discussion of them, are difficult to challenge legally and most worryingly rely on the subjective interpretation of wrongdoing by the police and their proxy PCSO's. Ironically, the ban culture could be sowing the seeds of its own destruction though by creating opportunities to challenge them through poorly attended council meetings. Dan warns "The peculiarities, contradictions and often absurdity of the knee-jerk banning culture in Brighton need to be examined as it's coming to a City near you". Brendan O'Neill will look at the problematic role played by 'self-regulation', a theme he's working on developing more extensively in his writing so will be looking to test out some of his ideas with his introduction and in the Salon discussion. Whilst there may be attempts by the state to introduce profoundly authoritarian approaches to controlling behaviour, there is an increasing mood to ask for regulation of our lives by people who may otherwise have opposed such intrusion in their lives. Brendan will explore the context of a culture of fear and diminished subjectivity, focussing on initiatives like the bar in Oldham using old fashioned Post Office style queues managed by bouncers, for drink purchases with maximum sales of two drinks per person. These have been welcomed by significant numbers of people, though seem astonishing impositions to many older generations, though by no means across the board. There appears to be a trend away from demands for the police to stay out of people's social life like the ad hoc raves in empty warehouses of the 90's, toward demanding 'safe' venues in which young people can socialise. This discussion will try and explore in character and context what adult autonomy means today.
Background readings
Brighton becomes first city to ban rap music that offends gays, by Gweneth Rees, Mail Online 04 December 2007 Policing the Brighton public, by Sean Bell, Culture Wars 29 June 2009 Ban-happy Brighton, by Anna Travis, spiked-online 29 June 2009 Minimum alcohol prices for Oldham, by Richard Bilton for BBC Panorama 10 August 2009 Turning parents into 'partners of the state', by Jennie Bristow, spiked-online 28 April 2010 An initiation into the culture of unfreedom, by Neil Davenport, spiked-online 08 April 2010 Unfettered freedom: the basis of the Good Society, Essay by Brendan O'Neill, spiked-online 03 May 2010 Bid to impose asbo for wearing low-slung trousers dropped, by Helen Pidd, Guardian 04 May 2010
Venue and Time The Shakespeare Pub, 16 Fountain Street, Manchester, M2 2AA at 7:20pm for a 7:30pm start. Please get yourself a drink at the bar downstairs and make your way to the restaurant room upstairs for the discussion. A charge of £5 per person will be made to cover costs incurred, bookable in advance by Emailing events@manchestersalon.org.uk This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . |