Aspen Ideas to Go

As our lives become increasingly tech driven, we’re more vulnerable to cyberattacks, and our workplaces and government are too. William Evanina , director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC), says it takes a whole-of-nation counterintelligence and security effort to keep our data safe. His organization is helping lead the charge. In this episode, he talks with NPR counte...

Big philanthropy can contribute to a democratic society by addressing problems that neither government nor the private sector will take on. Yet philanthropic institutions and foundations are institutional oddities within a democracy: exercises of power by the wealthy with little accountability, donor-directed preferences in perpetuity, and generous tax subsidies. What, if anything, confers democra...

Author Luis Alberto Urrea 's latest novel, The House of Broken Angels , is inspired by his own Mexican-American family. Set in a San Diego neighborhood, the book's characters celebrate a final birthday for a beloved brother dying of cancer, and a funeral for his elderly mother. The farewell doubleheader may sound depressing, but the book buzzes with joy. And so does this talk from Urrea, held on s...

In rallies from coast to coast, students across the United States are calling for tighter gun control. The deadly Parkland, Florida shooting resurfaced the conversation but the issue of gun violence is all too familiar for people in Chicago. For residents in certain neighborhoods, shootings are frustratingly frequent. In 2016, a particularly deadly year, there were nearly 800 murders, and about ha...

A young, courageous African American woman risked it all to gain freedom from America’s First Family in the late 18th century. Ona, or “Oney,” Judge escaped George Washington’s Philadelphia mansion after years of serving as a seamstress for the famous founding father. There’s little written about Judge. Historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar stumbled on Judge’s story by chance when she discovered a runa...

For centuries the human race has been grappling with how to live a moral life. In this conversation we hear from scholars who think deeply about moral philosophy and helping others. David Brooks suggests that, “We have words and emotional instincts about what feels right and wrong,” yet questions the criteria we use to “help us think, argue, and decide.” New Yorker author Larissa MacFarquhar profi...

Throughout history, young people have been at the center of activism: the Civil Rights movement, Black Lives Matter, the labor movement, and now gun violence. What barriers do young people have to overcome to get adults to listen? What tactics must they employ to get people in power to take them seriously? We hear from young student activists working on issues of racism, inequity, and transgender...

Why do people do evil things? We hear from Yale psychologist Paul Bloom and journalist Graeme Wood about the nature of evil. Bloom studies morality in babies, children, and adults. Wood immersed himself in ISIS, readings the terror group’s propaganda and conversing with its members, in order to write the book The Way of Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State . Graeme explains that ISIS membe...

The debate around gun laws is resurfacing in the wake of the deadly high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Can America’s shared sorrow inspire a consensus that gun violence should be tackled as a public health issue? For years former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has labeled gun deaths this way. “Whenever you have large numbers of people who are dying for preventable reasons,” he says, “that...

Historian Jon Meacham has written extensively about the presidency, with acclaimed books on Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt, and most recently, George H. W. Bush. What does his research into these presidents suggest about the nature of the office? What might we learn from the past about the current state of politics, the White House, and perhaps more broadly, democracy in Amer...

US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith says her true self comes out in her work. Poetry, she says, helps her wrestle with dark, sometimes unresolvable questions. In this episode she reads new and old work that examines subjects like death, the afterlife, nature, and African American history. Smith is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Ordinary Light , and three books of poetry, including the P...

If you’re white and middle class, you were probably raised thinking that discussing race was impolite. Color blindness was seen as a virtue. But in truth, color blindness is an insidious form of racial oppression, says Ford Foundation President Darren Walker . In this episode, Walker and Jeff Raikes , former CEO of the Gates Foundation, speak with Michele Norris , director of The Bridge at the Asp...

Norman Lear is the prolific television writer and producer of stories about diverse American life—among them “All in the Family,” “Sanford and Son,” “The Jeffersons,” “Good Times,” and “Maude”—as well as a lifelong political and social activist. Khizr Khan is a Pakistani American lawyer, speaker at the 2016 Democratic Convention, and parent of US Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in 2004 d...

Trust in civic, religious, and academic institutions is at an all-time low in America. But this phenomenon did not, as some Americans might believe, begin when President Trump was elected. It has been on the decline for decades, and while it has been falling, individualism and tribalism have been on the rise. And these tribes — tied to each other with ever fewer common threads — are moving farther...

New York Times best-selling author Susan Orlean says ignorance about a subject is a powerful ignitor of curiosity. As someone who has written about bullfighters, orchid fanatics, and an African king who drives a taxi in New York City, she knows a thing or two about delving into far-flung topics. How can we learn to take in the world as an enthusiast and as a curious person? It’s especially importa...

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is January 15. If Dr. King was still alive today, what would he think of the progress of the black community? How far have we come toward racial equality since the civil rights era? Henry Louis Gates, Jr. , Harvard professor and filmmaker, says there have been both steps forward, and steps backward. While America elected its first African American president, the number o...

What if you examined your life in the context of all of its stages? The annunciation and initiation phases in your youth and young adulthood are full of discovery and learning. Then, the odyssey years in your twenties bring wandering and loneliness and lead to a commitment-making phase in your thirties. David Brooks , author and New York Times op-ed columnist, says life’s mountains and valleys sha...

How is creativity cultivated in childhood? And, does a creative culture at home result in a creative career later on? Authors Jess Walter , Dani Shapiro , and Jericho Brown explain how their early years contributed to a life of writing. Such a life isn’t easy, with rejection, confusion, and disappointment making the pursuit an uphill battle. The writers describe how they find time to put pen to pa...

Though his grandparents were his primary caretakers, Eric Motley was raised by a community. The author, former White House staffer, and Aspen Institute vice president says the townspeople of Madison Park, Alabama, taught him everything he needed to know about love and faith. Madison Park was founded by freed slaves in 1880, and Motley learned early about his heritage and legacy. While he cleaned g...

Theo Padnos is an American journalist held captive by al-Qaeda for nearly two years. He was physically and psychologically tortured, but emerged with grace, forgiveness, and generosity. David Bradley , owner of Atlantic Media, was instrumental in freeing Padnos. He says Padnos is an example of someone who handles life’s greatest lows well. Though we likely won’t end up imprisoned by extremists, ma...

For 60 years, the US government has been laying secret doomsday plans to save itself in the event of nuclear war — even while the rest of us die. Today, a third generation of doomsday planners are settling into life inside a network of bunkers that are staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, ready to house top government officials in the event of catastrophe. How did these Cold War-era plans come...

America has always meant business. We’re a nation of self-starters, strivers, and entrepreneurs — with the courage to take big risks and the confidence to determine our own destiny. But, are courage and confidence alone enough for success? Kevin O’Leary , star of ABC’s Shark Tank and chairman of O’Shares Investments, explains what makes a good entrepreneur. How important are start-up’s to the Amer...

Is the internet loosening our collective grasp on the truth? Pioneers of digital news once argued that new online sources would bring us new perspectives about the world. They did not anticipate the internet would destroy traditional media gatekeepers and give everyone a chance to indulge in news that confirms their preexisting ideas. How does the mass media fit into this landscape? Does the role...

A crisis is emerging that could pose as grave a threat to public health as obesity or substance abuse: social isolation. Neuroscientists have identified regions of the brain that respond to loneliness, and a powerful body of research shows that lonely people are more likely to become ill, experience cognitive decline, and die early. Across the industrialized world, millions of people live with spa...

Muslim Americans — especially those who work in government or in other ways to counter radicalism and terrorism — feel caught in the middle. Much of American society questions their patriotism, while their own communities question their loyalty. The Department of Homeland Security’s Haris Tarin joins Rabia Chaudry, author, attorney, and activist, for a discussion about being Muslim and American in...