From Financial Times: We think, therefore we are

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5ed048f6-c0fc-11e1-8179-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1zSlUcD8V

We think, therefore we are

By Jules Evans

Public forums for the discussion of ideas are flourishing everywhere, from festivals to pubs. But will the popularity of philosophy groups have any lasting impact?

"Yet today’s movement is arguably happening on a far larger scale. Melvyn Bragg, the novelist and broadcaster who presents In Our Time, a radio programme devoted to the history of ideas, puts this down to the rise of a “mass intelligentsia”. “It used to be a very small minority that got together to discuss ideas,” he says. “Now it’s a very large minority. And that’s mainly a result of the colossal increase in university graduates, from 5 per cent in 1960 to 40 per cent today. There’s now a huge section of the population willing and able to take on challenging ideas.”
Bragg also points to an ageing but mentally active population: “The trend for using your leisure for intellectual activity started with older people, who decided that, rather than sweltering on a beach in Spain, they’d prefer to go to a book festival or to courses provided by the University of the Third Age. They like the ideas, and they like the social aspect too,” he says."

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