Critics dismiss TED as the Starbucks of intellectual life (though YO! Sushi may be a better comparison). Evgeny Morozov, a technology pundit, says it has become “something ludicrous, and a little sinister”. Benjamin Bratton, a sociologist, goes further and suggests that TED is a recipe for “civilisational disaster”. In his view TED really stands for “middlebrow, megachurch infotainment”.
There is certainly some truth in these criticisms: any organisation that invites Sting to its 30th birthday party is in danger of jumping the shark. But criticism must be tempered by admiration for what TED has achieved. It does indeed have a weakness for celebrities. But it has also discovered hundreds of lights hidden under bushels: the most viewed TED video, with 25m downloads, features Ken Robinson, a once-obscure British educationalist. It is true that TED shrinks big ideas into bite-like chunks. But it has also demonstrated that there is a huge market for big ideas.
