How The Light Gets In Festival

The ‘How The Light Gets In’ Festival is the largest philosophy and music festival in the world. Its’ thought-provoking debates, talks and courses are spread over 10 days and feature 180 speakers and 150 bands performing across 6 stages; a staggering total of 520 events in all. That’s enough to open anyone’s mind! 

The ‘How The Light Gets In’ Festival is the largest philosophy and music festival in the world. Its’ thought-provoking debates, talks and courses are spread over 10 days and feature 180 speakers and 150 bands performing across 6 stages; a staggering total of 520 events in all. That’s enough to open anyone’s mind! 

The event ran from 22nd May to 1st June in the tranquil setting of Hay-on-Wye. This year’s theme was Heresy, Truth and the Future and the full programme featured world-leading experts in neuroscience, psychology and pharmacology, including David Nutt, Anders Sandberg and Richard Bentall, together with figures from the worlds of politics, philosophy and culture to debate everything from psychiatry to the future of drug policy. All set against a backdrop of live music and DJ sets from some of the UK’s most exciting talent. This event promised festival-goers the opportunity to discover which of today’s heresies will become the truths of tomorrow. 

Scrolling through the programme our attention was drawn to plenty of the debates and discussions, but a couple really spiked our attention;

Rationality and Drugs
Fired by the Home Secretary for comparing the harms of ecstasy and horse-riding, hear David Nutt makes his case for a rational, evidence-based approach to drug policy. 

Morality, Hypocrisy and Health 

Alcohol and tobacco, largely made in the West and exported to the rest of the world, kill 25 times as many people worldwide as all illegal drugs put together. Could it be that illegal drugs are not banned to protect our health but to protect the West’s deadly exports? Under the guise of morality is the West pursuing an economic goal, or is the war on drugs a genuine attempt to improve our wellbeing?  

Senior Drug Policy Advisor to the Obama Administration Kevin Sabet, live from Boston, award-winning columnist and broadcaster Mary Ann Sieghart, and drug tsar to Tony Blair Mike Trace confront the west’s relationship with drugs. 

With our interest well and truly tickled, we contacted Tom Phillips from the organising body, The Institute of Art and Ideas, and asked her for his low-down.

SSUK: Tom, thanks for talking to us. How did this year’s event go?
By all accounts it was a huge success. We had more events than ever before (over 500 across 10 days), bigger audiences and, we hope, some very satisfied festival-goers. I think we took the event to a new level this year, in terms of the scale of the project – we even hosted our own university on site, the iai Academy! 

The discussions surrounding pharmacology and drug policy are of particular interest to our readers. David Nutt is held in high regard round these parts, was his talk well attended? 
TP: It was indeed. He’s a Bristolian - we’re just over the border in Wales, so that might have helped! But really he’s respected by our audience because of his conviction. He stood up to the establishment in the pursuit of what he believes to be right. You don’t see that very often, and I think it gives the public real hope. So he was exactly the sort of modern-day ‘heretic’ we were after.

And how about the talk featuring Obama’s Drug Advisor, Kevin Sabet?
It was fascinating.  Unsurprisingly, Sabet took a strong prohibition stance. But Mike Trace, who wrote the UK’s first comprehensive anti-drugs policies under New Labour, is now very sceptical of that approach. He argued that the West has created a system to control the drugs that it’s worried about, whilst keeping its own drugs of choice free for trade and consumption. So his position has changed markedly over the past decade! The West clearly has to ask some deep questions about its own history and morality on this topic. On the question of legalisation though, Sabet and Trace found an area of agreement. They were both sceptical about floating new drugs on the market. They both asked the same question: would the drugs trade really be any better in the hands of capitalists than it is in the hands of cartels?

Tell us a little bit about the festival, how long has it been operating and when did it all begin?
2014 was the sixth year of the festival. It was begun by our Director Hilary Lawson because he wanted to help put big philosophical conversation back into public life. We bring together speakers of all hues - academics and non-academics, policymakers and commentators, establishment figures and outsiders, celebrities and unknowns. No single speaker is pandered-to or wrapped in cotton wool - no theory or world view is safe. Challenging received wisdom and practice is key for us, and I think that’s what draws the audiences in.

And how many visitors have you had over previous years?
The festival now has a footfall of around 30,000, whereas in the first year we had only a few thousand. The response has been incredible really. 

Tell us about the past themes and guests that you’ve had.
In 2013 our theme was Error, Lies and Adventure. The idea there was that we usually think of errors as things to be avoided, covered up or papered over. But it’s through error that we find new ways to act and imagine. So we were looking for the errors in our thinking across philosophy, politics, science and technology that might lead us on a new path – on a new adventure.

We’ve noticed that there are some great accommodation options for the festival… you can put us down for a super luxury yurt next year! How can our readers find out about future festivals and events? 

You can learn more about the festival – accommodation, programming etc –  at www.howthelightgetsin.org. All our events are filmed and released on our video platform, www.iai.tv, which has 100s of debates and talks on everything from human cloning to multiverse theory.

Are there any upcoming events that you believe the Soft Secrets readers would be interested in?
Certainly! We’ve just released debates on dark energy, the limits of logic, the science of sex, and the relationship between fantasy and truth. We’ll be releasing information about the 2015 festival soon. So watch this space!