{"id":143703,"date":"2018-06-20T08:54:59","date_gmt":"2018-06-20T08:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/mary-beard-on-big-thinkers-and-sexist-rants\/"},"modified":"2018-06-20T08:54:59","modified_gmt":"2018-06-20T08:54:59","slug":"mary-beard-on-big-thinkers-and-sexist-rants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/mary-beard-on-big-thinkers-and-sexist-rants\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Beard on big thinkers and ‘sexist rants’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mary
Image caption Dame Mary Beard wants open debate, but without the "sloganising" and "sexist rants" <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Historian Mary Beard moves seamlessly from tackling aggressive dimwits on Twitter to talking about the politics of ancient Rome.<\/p>\n

It's the kind of abrupt gear change we now expect from public intellectuals.<\/p>\n

And Professor Mary Beard - who became Dame Mary in the most recent honours - has been highly successful at mixing the realm of ideas with a popular appeal, embodied in her ratings-friendly TV history shows.<\/p>\n

She's also a Cambridge professor of classics who has the battle scars of the badlands of social media, facing violent threats and relentlessly misogynistic abuse.<\/p>\n

'Curious minds'<\/h2>\n

But how should public thinkers make big ideas open and accessible? How do they avoid being sidelined in an era of fake news and attention-seeking punditry?<\/p>\n

This is the challenge for the British Academy, the national body for the humanities and social sciences, which is throwing open the doors of its London headquarters for a summer showcase, promising "ideas for curious minds".<\/p>\n

Image caption Dame Mary brought the history of ancient Rome to a mainstream television audience <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Getting people across the threshold is the first challenge, she says. The British Academy is based in an elegant building near St James's Park in central London. It's a place dedicated to public culture, but wants to stop looking like a private club.<\/p>\n

"You can see why people might be a bit intimidated," says Dame Mary, a fellow of the academy.<\/p>\n

"But what the television shows you is that ideas are not the preserve of posh white men."<\/p>\n

'No sloganising'<\/h2>\n

She wants to open up academic debates to a wider public, but she says a really important part of the message must be to make people realise that things can be "complicated".<\/p>\n

"You don't need to be an expert to have a view of Roman politics," she says, such as whether it was right to assassinate Julius Caesar. <\/p>\n

Image copyright British Academy
Image caption The academy's summer showcase will present research on music, including South African jazz <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But whatever your view, she says there has to be a recognition of the moral and political complexity of such decisions.<\/p>\n

"Everyone can join in, but it doesn't mean you can shoot your mouth off." Opinions shouldn't be untroubled by thought, she says.<\/p>\n

A by-product of the advance of social media, she says, is the tendency to "sloganise" and to turn every argument into a one-dimensional sound-bite.<\/p>\n

Image caption Dame Mary wants people to look further than their noses <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ideas can be complicated and divisive, she says, and she takes umbrage at the type of people who think everyone should agree about everything.<\/p>\n

Dame Mary says she gets annoyed when people on Twitter say they are "disappointed" in her views. She says they're "patronising" and can't stand people having their own opinions.<\/p>\n

'Death threats'<\/h2>\n

The British Academy's august building was once the home of 19th Century prime minister William Gladstone. It's hard to think what such a high-minded statesman would have made of being shouted at on Twitter.<\/p>\n

Dame Mary has been subject to dreadful online abuse, but she still argues for the benefits of engaging with people and their thoughts on social media.<\/p>\n

Image caption The British Academy wants to open its doors to show big ideas are not a private club <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

"You don't think - great, death threats," she says. <\/p>\n

But she's still ready to get into arguments, even though there is a likely risk of it all descending into "lots of sexist rants".<\/p>\n

"It's a combination of anger, outrage and appalling self-righteousness," she says of too many social media exchanges.<\/p>\n

It's not the rudeness that really rankles, she says, because "being rude is part of the human condition".<\/p>\n

What really annoys her is the over-simplification and the refusal to recognise that some problems can be complicated and nuanced and not sorted out by a shouting match.<\/p>\n

Such public thinkers might feel that they're not running with the grain of the times.<\/p>\n

Fake news<\/h2>\n

The academy's president, historian Professor Sir David Cannadine, warns against a populist mood in which decisions are made on "gut instincts" rather than evidence.<\/p>\n

"In the world of fake news there is a distrust of experts which is wholly regrettable," says Sir David.<\/p>\n

Institutions such as the British Academy might be engaged in advancing knowledge, but he says they might not be "very good at explaining themselves".<\/p>\n

Image copyright Benedict John
Image caption "Ideas change society," says Sir David Cannadine, president of the British Academy <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sir David wants the open days to persuade people of the relevance of the humanities - to show that they are at the heart of "private recreations and public culture".<\/p>\n

The summer showcase will have talks and presentations and displays on history, music, art, literature and the future of work.<\/p>\n

It's also making a case for internationalism - as he says ideas and knowledge and expertise "know no international boundaries".<\/p>\n

"Ideas change society," he says.<\/p>\n

British Academy Summer Showcase is on 22 and 23 June, 10-11, Carlton House Terrace, St. James's, London SW1Y 5AH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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