Aspen Ideas to Go

In tax law, most people think the only color that matters is green. But, after more than two decades of research, tax scholar Dorothy A. Brown discovered that America's tax system is not color-blind. In fact, societal racism is deeply embedded in it. "Regardless of what white and Black Americans do, tax policy subsidizes white Americans and disadvantages Black Americans," she says. From attending...

When she met him, Tanya Selvaratnam thought New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was her perfect match. But as time went on, Schneiderman became controlling, mean, and manipulative. In her new book, Assume Nothing , Selvaratnam chronicles how domestic violence took away her voice, how she managed to get it back, and her decision to use it to help other women find their way to freedom....

Biographer Walter Isaacson's latest book tells the story of biochemist Jennifer Doudna. She helped develop a controversial tool that has the power to transform the human race. CRISPR can edit genes to cure diseases but can also be used to create designer babies. Doudna's involvement in pioneering the technology won her the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Before CRISPR, Doudna was known as the scien...

In the United States, the odds are stacked against women and people of color who want to start a business. As a Black entrepreneur, Danielle Kristine Toussaint understood this first-hand. Before opening her creative agency She Thinks Purple, she dealt with barriers only a community of women could help her overcome. In her book, Dare to Think Purple: A Survival Guide for Women in Social Entrepreneu...

The sobering impacts of the pandemic, and the need for a rapid transition to a clean energy economy compel us to consider opportunities that lie at the intersection of the two. President Biden wants to invest $1.7 trillion toward the mid-century goal of a net-zero America, creating ten million new, high-quality jobs, his administration predicts. Recent announcements from major auto companies coupl...

Grappling with the challenges and problems life throws at us is difficult, especially during a pandemic. Psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb says the stories we tell about ourselves and others can make it even harder to cope. She says we must look closely at the running commentary in our own minds to see if we are being too self-critical, or if we are not taking responsibility for our situation. Making...

In this pandemic recession, millions of Americans are going hungry, and Black and Hispanic households are hit harder than white ones. Throughout US history, hunger and health have been tied to race. Slave owners gave slaves just enough food to survive. “To be enslaved was to experience hunger,” says food historian Fred Opie. Now, Covid-19 is affecting low-income, communities of color disproportion...

President Trump’s second impeachment trial is beginning. In his first days in office, President Biden is navigating a pandemic and an economic crisis. With presidential leadership once again at the forefront and President’s Day just around the corner, we’re revisiting an episode featuring presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin . In her book, Leadership in Turbulent Times , Kearns Goodwin exam...

America’s Founders didn’t envision activist groups mobilizing on social media and disinformation spreading across the internet. Thanks to the web, new threats to democracy — like the January 6th attack on the US Capitol — have emerged. Following a similar deadly march in 1787, the Founders questioned the strength of the democracy they built. Shays’s Rebellion led to more support among the Founders...

Most Americans see religious freedom as an important right. Yet how that freedom is defined and applied isn’t consistent, and efforts to safeguard the religious freedom of some may be discriminatory for others. Experts say it is critical to address this issue politically, socially, and culturally or risk alienating people from all backgrounds. Religious liberty lawyer Asma Uddin works for the prot...

Joe Biden is a centrist who believes in the power of bipartisanship. To get both sides to listen to each other, he’ll have to break down the barriers created by today’s polarized politics, says New Yorker magazine staff writer Evan Osnos whose latest book is “About Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now.” Osnos speaks with Margaret Brennan of Face the Nation on CBS News. They discuss h...

Last year Russia infiltrated the digital networks of federal agencies and many of America’s largest corporations, and last week’s armed insurrection on the US Capitol was fomented through disinformation campaigns on social media. Cyberattacks and manipulation of elections and domestic affairs threaten national security and global relations. John Carlin of the Aspen Institute’s Cybersecurity &...

Even though women are likely to live longer than men, their hormonal changes make them far more susceptible to age-related memory loss like Alzhemier’s disease and other conditions. Yet gender is often not a primary consideration by the medical community  — but more and more research shows that it should be. Professor of neuroscience, neurology, and radiology Lisa Mosconi directs the Women’s Brain...

Today’s women are warriors and peacemakers, athletes and artists. Women in leadership roles can play a crucial role in leading us toward a better and more equitable future, and women must be part of the solution to the current global crises. Former US secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright and former prime minister of New Zealand the Honorable Helen Clark are trailbreaking leaders and powerful a...

Psychologist Angela Duckworth explains how to raise a child with strong character. Duckworth, who's the author of Grit and a MacArthur "Genius," talks with Jackie Bezos about how young people learn to be grateful, vulnerable, and fearless by modeling the adults in their lives. (This conversation is from the 2018 Aspen Ideas Festival.) aspenideas.org

Corporations can play a critical role in closing the wealth gap and confronting systemic racism in America. Taking a hard look at diversity in their workforces, supply chains, and customer bases will pay off — not just in a better corporate image but in an improved economy that benefits everyone, including the corporations. “We as leaders, those of us in positions of power, have an obligation to s...

With millions of Americans already infected with COVID-19, public health officials are working to ensure that a safe and effective vaccine is available for every American who wants one. They also want to be sure people aren’t afraid of getting those shots. Nancy Messonnier, M.D., is director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. She leads the Center for Disease Control’...

The American Dream says hard work will lead to a better life. But Harvard professor Micheal Sandel says climbing the ladder of success is getting harder in the United States, because the rungs on the ladder are growing further apart. He says inequality is deeper and upward mobility has stalled — and that’s a failure of the meritocracy, the governing elites, a group desperate to hold on to status a...

Current political fault lines are fracturing American society as people grow further apart from one another due to differing beliefs and opinions. We often see people we disagree with as caricatures, and think we can never reconcile our differences. Yet despite that sense of contradiction we are much closer to each other than we think. To bridge the divide, we have to strengthen the bonds that mak...

It’s time to slow down and start again to remake American culture and undo systemic racism, says author and Yale professor Claudia Rankine. White Americans must wade into the waters of whiteness, and interrogate their own responses to Blackness. They need to see how policies and institutions continue the patterns of segregation and legacies of white supremacy. Eric Liu of the Aspen Institute’s Cit...

The civil rights movement has affected all Americans, whether they realize it or not. The opportunity for everyone to vote represents a major shift, but changes in education, housing and even sports reflect the strategic leadership of activists throughout American history. Civil rights experts and Stanford University professors Pamela Karlan and James Steyer discuss the history of civil rights mov...

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks says liberal democracy has become about “me” instead of “us.” In his new book, Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times, Sacks says we are losing our strong, shared moral code and that’s challenging our sense of community and common good. Growth comes from an openness to others who may not be like us and, he says, developing a moral bond based on mutual accept...

As scientists work to develop a vaccine to battle the coronavirus pandemic, many people question whether the process has been rushed and if the results will be effective and safe. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is responsible for approving new vaccines in this country. FDA commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn and former FDA commissioner Dr. Peggy Hamburg say the agency uses data driven techniques...

From domestic election security and counterterrorism, to U.S. interests around the globe, the National Security Advisor provides solutions to the most critical challenges of our time. President Trump’s National Security Advisor, Ambassador Robert O’Brien, joins former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. Theydiscuss critical issues including Washington’s response to China and Russia’s rising...

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to molecular microbiologists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier for their work on CRISPR, the revolutionary technology that gives scientists a way to accurately cut DNA and transform the genetic code of life. Likened to a pair of “genetic scissors,” CRISPR could open the door to cures for some cancers, sickle cell anemia, and other diseases. Bu...