The Sixties Weren't the Beginning of Sex but the End of Civilisation: An Intelligence Squared Debate

The Sixties Weren't the Beginning of Sex but the End of Civilisation:
Laurie Taylor, Professor of Sociology at the University of York, author, and broadcaster; Howard Jacobson, novelist and critic; and Leonie Frieda, translator, historian, and biographer, spoke for the motion.

Christopher Booker, author and weekly columnist for the Sunday Telegraph; Rosie Boycott, a regular radio and TV co-host and the first woman editor of a national daily newspaper; and Claire Fox, the Director of the Institute of Ideas, spoke against the motion.

The debate, held on June 21, 2005, was chaired by Joan Bakewell, whose broadcasting career spans 35 years.

Intelligence Squared is London's leading forum for live debate, holding regular debates on the crucial issues of the day and inviting the leading intellectual and political lights on the given subject to participate in them. The format of the debates is modeled on the one employed at the Oxford and Cambridge university Unions: a challenging, sharply defined motion; a team of speakers to propose the motion and a like number to oppose it; and a moderator to keep the speakers and the audience in order and force everyone to stick to the issues. After the main speeches and before summation, contributions are asked from the floor: audience participation is a key feature of the occasion, providing a rare opportunity for the public to voice their opinions and to challenge those of the speakers. A vote is taken before the debate begins and then again at the end so as to give a measure, often a very dramatic one, of the extent to which the audience has been swayed by the oratory and arguments of the speakers in the course of the evening.