AIF Blog - Society
January 22, 2013
Leading up to the Festival track What We Believe and Why: An Exploration of Values, we asked 2012 Aspen Ideas speakers the following question: Where do your values come from?Following are their answers—some surprising, some insightful, and some that will make you question where your own values come from. Explore sessions from the Values track here. (Learn more about each speaker via links at the bottom of this page...
January 10, 2013
"So there is a view out there that, often called the Easterlin paradox, and the Easterlin paradox claims that raising levels of economic development does nothing for well-being whatsoever and therefore we shouldn't bother doing it," said Justin Wolfers during the Economics of Happiness discussion at the 2011 Aspen Ideas Festival. "I'm going to show that claim is straight out false." His assertion is presented in a...
November 20, 2012
Tonight’s episode of The Aspen Institute Presents concludes the 10-part series from the stages of the Aspen Ideas Festival. It delves into the state of sports in modern society.So much is at stake for athletes. In fact, many young athletes are groomed to use sports as a ticket out of poverty; but in this process, some would argue, they are not properly mentored in sportsmanship thus changing the game and the very...
November 06, 2012
Is voting an outright expression of personal values? As Americans head to the polls today, our latest episode of The Aspen Institute Presents explores our beliefs.What do we really mean when we talk about values? Do we agree on what it means to have a good character? How is our integrity as a society impacted by the free market?In this episode, Michael Sandel asks, "Do we want a society where everything is for sale...
November 01, 2012
Passes for the upcoming Aspen Ideas Festival are on sale now. The Festival will take place June 26 – July 2.Spanning topics from the economy to television to the outer reaches of space (and many more), the Festival gathers some of the most interesting thinkers and leaders from around the United States and abroad to discuss their work, the issues that inspire them, and their ideas.As with every year, we will begin to...
September 17, 2012
The Aspen Institute Presents series premiere opens with Anne-Marie Slaughter sitting down with Katie Couric. The two women, both hugely successful within their fields, discuss Slaughter’s extremely popular, and wildly controversial, essay in The Atlantic, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” (We covered the session here on the blog – scroll down to check out all of the news coverage that spawned out of Slaughter’s...
September 13, 2012
Just prior to the National Football League season kick off last weekend, the NFL pledged $30 million to the National Institutes of Health to support research on brain injuries and other serious medical conditions prominent in athletes. (Read various news reports.)New York Times Op-Ed contributor Kevin Cook asserts that while Americans are ready for football, the human brain isn't. His piece, Dying to Play, cites...
July 12, 2012
Guest Blogger: Lawrence J. Cohen, psychologist and author of Playful Parenting reflects on what he gained from his peers at Aspen Ideas.I joined the panel on the goal of parenting thinking it might be a knock-down drag-out fight between advocates of play and connection (like me) and advocates of hard-core achievement and academic preparation (like Amy Chua, the Tiger Mother). I think we were all pleasantly surprised...
July 03, 2012
"We don’t want to as a federal government tell cities how to solve problems, but we should be a resource and not stand in their way." —Lisa Jackson"What’s really fascinating is how much quality improvement there is to be had in this health care system." —David Leonhardt"The reason we didn’t get stronger cost controls (in the Affordable Care Act) is it was only Democrats who voted on it, and Republicans walked away...
July 02, 2012
"Overparenting is gross!" —Katie Couric"You give me better parents, better neighbors, better leaders, and better students, and I’ll make every teacher better and every great teacher outstanding." —Tom Friedman"It sounds harsh but it’s empowering, this idea that hard work can fix just about anything." —Amy Chua"There’s very little support for innovation. Innovation is not done by committee." —Ann Higdon"Everyone has...