Today’s hot ticket was the high noon session on paradigms for the future. Shimon Peres, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Sam Huntingdon, Francis Fukuyama and Hillary Clinton were a panel of real intellectual depth and interest.
Unfortunately, moderator Tim Sebastian showed how the role can be used for ill as well as good. Sebastian runs an interview programme on BBC World which is generally pretty good. But his pugnacious one-on-one style translated badly. Worse, he spent the first 25 minutes of the session pursuing specific questions about the Israel-Palestine problem.
When it got to Sam Huntingdon, he said he thought he’d been asked to speak about new paradigms. Then senator Clinton chipped in to say she’d like to hear what the other speakers had to say about broader trends. Widespread applause from a full house of participants nearing rebellion.
The session got back on the track it should have been on from the beginning, but the sour taste of the first part was never fully erased.
Much of the discussion focused on the growing economic and technological disparities in the world and how to remedy them. “We need a global society, not merely a global economy,” said Soros. I was impressed by Fukuyama and Brzezinski in particular. “If it were poverty that shapes terrorism,” said Fukuyama, “all the terrorists would be coming from sub-Saharan Africa. We need to consider the role religion and culture is playing in shaping the development of the world.”