Review: DEBORAH FRANCES-WHITE, Edinburgh International Book Festival

Comedian, activist, and podcaster Deborah Frances-White appeared as part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival to speak about her new book “Six Conversations We’re Scared to Have”. The event featured live captions and was chaired by AC Grayling.

The premise of the book is to examine how we interact with people who hold different beliefs and values from our own. In the age of social media and disinformation, it is all too easy for people to shut down conversations, block others, and attack rather than consider alternative views. 

A confident speaker, Frances-White uses humour and warmth to articulate her points and she comes across really well. She argues that there is a time and a place to tell people to just shut up when spouting their views (e.g. Christmas dinner) and times to listen and engage. Nobody is changing their mind when they get shut down and as someone who was previously in a cult, she’s wary of the tactic of shunning people. As with her podcast, she is an expert at drawing people in with humour in order to tackle tough topics.

AC Grayling is a brilliant chair for the event as he has a similar book out just now but he is happy to let Deborah do all the talking and get her points across. A lot of time on the internet and in political discussions is spent policing language and telling people to “educate themselves,” and she explains why that is at best unhelpful and at worst, damaging.

The event did run slightly over time and we didn’t have much space for audience questions but I think this just goes to prove its a subject that requires far more time than an hour to really get into.

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