Writer Susan Wise recently attended ‘The Festival of Dangerous Ideas’ at the Sydney Opera house.

From Germaine Greer to Judith Lucy, it was an eclectic mix of imaginings, left-of-centre concepts and entertainment.

Susan ponders over the disparate cultures of creative thought and football being celebrated on the same cold, rainy Sunday.

It’s a cold, wet wintry Rugby League grand final day in Sydney, but not all Sydneysiders are snuggling up in front of the television for the big event.

At the Sydney Opera House crowds are amassing, and the same electric atmosphere that is present in the football stadium also fills this iconic Sydney venue as hundreds of people gather at Sydney’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas to champion their intellectual heroes rather than their sporting ones.

Germaine Greer calls for freedom

As the rugby league players flex their brawn for today’s final battle, Germaine Greer flexes her grey matter for her continual battle for freedom; for her the most dangerous idea of all.

The large Concert Hall is filled to capacity and there is a tangible feeling of excitement in the air as we anticipate witnessing this self-confessed ‘living legend’.

I was not disappointed. We consider our fundamental rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and what this means in reality.

As Greer points out, romanticised ideas of the noble savage untainted by modernity are not something that ever existed in reality, but something that should be aspired to in the future.

Being an idealist more than a realist I reassure myself that just because we live in a world with many problems doesn’t mean that we must ‘get real’ and accept the way it is; we are free to change the way we think, the way we act, and what we aspire to.

I enjoyed every controversial minute of Greer’s hardcore but humorous presentation. Highly opinionated yet very personable, Germaine Greer packs a powerful punch.

Capitalism versus Socialism

The next dangerous idea was a critique of our capitalist society as we were asked whether people with flat screen TVs should be complaining about capitalism.

I knew this one would get me going, and it did. The two panel speakers were both pro-capitalism so I enjoyed myself find holes and counter arguments to their defence.

There was heavy use of the failed socialist system to make capitalism look good by comparison, and a lot of talk about the superior standards of living in a capitalist society.

This may be true if you equate luxury materialism and advanced technology with ‘better’ lives. We are certainly becoming more affluent, but are we any happier?

Or does the pressure to keep up on the treadmill of ever increasing production and consumption take over our lives, leaving little time for the things that are really important to us – relationships, personal goals, and our health?

It seems as though the structure which can make us rich enough to buy books doesn’t leave us any time to read them!

Taking the criminal side out of drug addiction

The ideas got more dangerous as the concept of legalising drugs was floated.

This is where I found the festival would do more than just ignite my passions and ideals, as I actually started to change some of my previously held beliefs, seeing things from a different perspective.

Tending toward a ‘no tolerance’ approach to the war on drugs, I was surprised to find my attitude changing as I learned more about the failure of this approach and the significant negative side effects that come with prohibition.

The idea to view the problem as a social/health issue rather than a criminal one seemed sensible to me, with education being the cornerstone of future strategies.

I would hope that by identifying why people take drugs and addressing this initially, a prevention rather than cure outcome would ensue, resulting in a better society all round.

 Utopian lives spent in a ‘soma-tose’ state

I’m now reminded that my ideas are often more utopian than dangerous, but found myself being just a little scared at the dangerous utopian ideas put forward by an Oxford University professor of ethics.

Apparently scientists have estimated that humanity has a 50% probability of extinction within the next century.

The failings of human nature such as un-cooperativeness and greedy self-interest have set us on a path towards our own self-destruction.

Our biological hard-wiring is still in the dark ages, whilst our intellectual capacity for technology has advanced with leaps and bounds, meaning we don’t always have the moral standards to reign in the potentialities, good and bad, that our new technologies present.

The case was put forward to change human behaviour by artificially manipulating our biology. Higher levels of surveillance and scientific intervention of individuals was promoted so we could ‘breed out’ undesirable genes.

It started to smell like 1984 to me, and I decided I would rather take my chances with the good, the bad, and the ugly that is our world, than live in a Brave New World where our utopian lives are spent in a ‘Soma-tose’ state.

Genetic modification of human beings and a Nazi-like desire to create a perfect race felt like a bad, and dangerous, idea to me.

Nude Jude bounded onstage

As you can imagine, a day filled with intense, radical, stimulating, and yes, even dangerous ideas needed to be finished on a lighter, less serious note.

And who could you take less seriously than our lovely comedian Judith Lucy, who gleefully bounded onto stage dressed in a flesh coloured bodysuit, her breasts accentuated with black outline and a bold triangle of pubic hair proudly textered onto the appropriate spot.

Hardly appropriate attire for one’s gig at the Opera House one might think, but oh so amusing. ‘Nude Jude’ and a line up of other entertainers brought some light relief to a crowd of thinkers happy to get out of their heads and enjoy a belly laugh instead.

Ideas and aspirations 

A Festival of Ideas – who would have thought we’d get such a huge, enthusiastic turnout? Particularly with the exorbitant ticket prices the Opera House was charging, and a rainy day to boot!

So there are people who cherish ideas and creativity, who are not prepared to accept the status quo, and who are committed to their ideals and values. I was encouraged.

As I departed Sydney Harbour after the event, I noticed rows of blue and yellow streamers, remnants of somebody’s different reality of this wet, wintry Sunday, and I made the comparison of the day’s two very different, yet very similar events.

Whilst I don’t think there’s anything wrong with enjoying sport as a leisure pastime, I wonder if some of the significant time and energy that our culture invests in this might be well spent engaged in thinking. About our lives, our values, and what type of society we aspire to be in the future.

 I can safely guess which event will get the most media coverage and general public discussion. At work this week will we all be talking about Sunday’s celebration of ‘brains’ or its celebration of ‘brawn’?