Saturday 5 & Sunday 6 July 2025
Wyboston Lakes, Great North Road, Wyboston
Bedfordshire, MK44 3AL
Ticket information here
Introduction
Our time is one of tremendous change, with regular outbreaks of the unexpected and unthinkable. Yet somehow, old ideas and old approaches stumble on like zombies.
Our language seems to be full of words that belong to a different era. People talk of conservatism, socialism and liberalism as if their meanings haven’t been hollowed out. Cultural debates turn on ideas of race or gender that seem to describe a distant past when colonialism still existed or women were confined to the home. Freedom and self-expression are claimed by all sides, exactly as conformity creeps into daily life. The metaphors of the tech industry – innovation, disruption, connection – are invoked tirelessly, when so much feels disjointed and staid.
The new language that we do have – such as ‘woke’ or ‘trans’ is often jarring. Attempts to describe our new reality seem unsatisfactory – but terms like ‘cancel culture’ or ‘two-tier society’ are often more useful than the old ideological terms.
But if we need a new language to make sense of the changed world we find ourselves in, language today is more tightly policed than many can remember. Attempts to think or do differently are quickly shouted down. Our politics and ideology seem to demand conformity precisely when we need to try something bold.
How did we arrive in this situation? Part of the problem is that the big ideas of the past no longer seem to have any answers for today. It can feel like the big political philosophies belong to a different era entirely. Can socialism make sense without a mass working-class movement? Does conservatism have anything to say when tradition has melted into air? When liberals cheer the expansion of state power, does liberalism have anything left to say? All this suggests that we need to first have some clarity about what these ideologies were – the thinkers associated with them, the context in which they arose, how they responded to the challenges of their time – in order to understand what is different about movements bearing the same name today.
At the margins, there are some trying to navigate a new era. Alternate ideas – from post-liberals to neo-reactionaries – are attempting to offer new responses. But the host of prefixes – ‘post’, ‘neo’, ‘hyper’ – suggest that we have less gone beyond the categories of the past than are still transfixed by them.
Join us for a weekend of thought, debate and reflection about why politics and language seems so stuck, and how we can think beyond the confines of our era.
Initial reading
- Politics, Aristotle
- The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World, James Burnham
- The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties, Daniel Bell
- Political Liberalism, John Rawls
- Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition, Roger Scruton
- Why Liberalism Failed, Patrick J Deneen
- The Total State: How Liberal Democracies Became Tyrannies, Auron MacIntyre
Tickets
You can choose to buy day tickets without accommodation, or tickets that include accommodation at Wyboston Lakes Resort. Tickets are subsidised to make the event available to as many people as possible.
Day tickets only include lunch
Tickets with accommodation include:
• Brilliant food: a quality breakfast (including continental and cooked options), an extensive lunch, and a three-course dinner
• Excellent facilities: access to the Wyboston Lakes gym, swimming pool and other amenities during your stay
• Social opportunities: staying the night means you’ll experience the full, collegiate atmosphere of the event and get the chance to carry on discussions over dinner and in the bar.
Have a friend who is also interested? You can save up to £65 each by doubling up with a friend. Select ‘double occupancy’ and let us know you’d like a twin room.
Weekend Tickets with Accommodation
• One night, single occupancy £255. Buy here.
• One night, double occupancy £430. Buy here.
• Two nights, single occupancy £355. Buy here.
• Two nights, double occupancy £580. Buy here.
Day rate (charge per day, no accommodation)
• Saturday and Sunday £140. Buy here.
• Saturday only, £75. Buy here.
• Sunday only, £75. Buy here.
If you would like to pay a concession rate (for full time students, senior citizens and unwaged), or pay in instalments, email geoff@ideasmatter.org.uk