Creating Freedom

‘Creating Freedom makes me think that we humans are on the cusp of our next big step - and it's this kind of thinking that will carry us over. ‘ Brian Eno

Freedom is at the heart of our political and economic system. It is foundational to our sense of justice, our way of life, our conception of what it is to be human. But are we free in the way that we think we are? Or has the ideal of freedom been lost; moulded to suit the interests of those with the power to shape it?

Writer, artist and award-winning filmmaker Raoul Martinez visits the RSA to reflect on one of the most urgent questions of our time.  With celebrity fans as disparate as Susan Sarandon, Galen Strawson, Noam Chomsky, Helena Kennedy QC and Russell Brand, Martinez’s manifesto Creating Freedom dismantles the sacred myths that are central to our society - myths about free will, free markets, free media and free elections.

Informed by over a decade of research, Martinez will lift the veil on the mechanisms of control that pervade our lives, from the lottery of our birth to the consent-manufacturing influence of concentrated wealth and power. Tackling economics, philosophy, politics, criminology, psychology and environmentalism, it shows that the more we understand how the world shapes us, the more effectively we can shape our world.