There are many lessons to be learnt from the disastrous attempt by the Greater Bendigo City Council and La Trobe University to impose a restrictive Code of Conduct on Bendigo Writers Festival participants. On the whole, arts events are curated, moderated and characterised by protocols of turn-taking, active listening and mutual respect. Arts events invite responses from their participants that are connected and accountable in the fullest sense. This may even give arts events a therapeutic function, helping us to constructively manage difficult emotions that might otherwise prompt undesirable social conflict. The Bendigo Writers Festival mess is an opportunity to consider what this is, for some of the reasons I’ve laid out.