Ideas 2018
Dispatches from the Aspen Ideas Festival/Spotlight Health
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Carlos Osorio / Toronto Star via Getty Images Jordan Peterson Comes to Aspen
In a wide-ranging conversation moderated by Bari Weiss, the controversial psychology professor was pressed for answers by a group quite different than his usual audiences.
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Mana Mohpayak / Shutterstock To Be a Good Citizen, First Pay Attention
Yes, voting; yes, speaking; yes, showing up; full participation in the American democracy of the moment, however, demands an even more basic activity.
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Charles Platiau / Reuters The Fragile Future of Reform in Saudi Arabia
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is working to change many faces of his kingdom’s society, but some experts wonder whether he can keep a grip on power.
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Jonathan Ernst / Reuters It’s (Mostly) Not FEMA’s Fault
The problems blamed on emergency managers are often caused by the shortcomings of other governmental bodies, both before and after disasters.
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Zoran Milich / Reuters The Many Possible Meanings of the ‘Masculinity Crisis’
A lot of people contend that American men are in crisis. But which men? And what is the nature of that crisis?
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Jonathan Ernst / Reuters The Age of Reverse Censorship
The First Amendment was drafted when speech was expensive and attention was abundant. Can it adapt to an era of too much speech and too little attention?
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Sait Serkan Gurbuz / Reuters Charlottesville’s Divides Are America’s Divides
The city still has not healed from the events of last August.
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Wikimedia Commons What High Heels Can Teach About Gendered ‘Truths’
A reminder that the quintessential piece of women’s footwear—a symbol of delicacy, of danger, of beauty—used to be worn by men
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Damir Sagolj / Reuters Five Features of Better Arguments
A former Clinton administration official studied how to facilitate more constructive arguments among Americans. These are his conclusions.
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Tim Wimborne / Reuters The Futility of Standing Athwart Language Yelling ‘Stop!’
John McWhorter expects linguistic norms to change even faster in coming years—and he argues that we can be less bothered by attendant demands than we are today.
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Ted Horowitz / Corbis / Getty Are Male and Female Brains Biologically Different?
The scientific debate around this question keeps raging, but one neuroscientist says we’re more alike than we think.
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mpi04 / MediaPunch / IPX / AP How Post-Millennial Voters Could Change America
The newest voters in the 2018 midterm elections are less cynical about politics and more progressive than the young adults who came before them.
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Ian Wagreich/Aspen Institute Civic Tech in a Time of Technopessimism
Since 2016, the technology industry has been looking for answers. Code for America might have one.
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Carolyn Kaster / AP James Madison Would Be Horrified by a Tweeting President
The head of the National Constitution Center speaks out on how social media has eroded the founding father's vision for democracy.
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Michelle R. Smith / AP The Unpredictable Political Effects of 2020 Census Tinkering
Critics say the administration is targeting Hispanics ahead of the population tally—but Trump-backing red states could stand to suffer as much as blue ones.
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Kevin Lamarque / Reuters Can Anyone Fill the U.S. Leadership Vacuum on Climate Change?
American withdrawal from the Paris agreement is a test for the future of the globe, but also for the international order.
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Omar Sobhani / Reuters How ‘Sesame Street’ Helps Traumatized Children
Resources are also geared toward migrant children at the U.S. border with Mexico.
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Joshua Lott / Reuters The Normalization of Gun Violence in Poor Communities
A company that uses sensors to recognize the sound of gunshots could help solve the epidemic.
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Carlo Allegri / Reuters Want Health Care in Arkansas? Find a Job
A conversation with the head of the department of human services in the first state to force a group of people to work in exchange for medical care
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Brian Snyder / Reuters An ‘Overprescription of Opioids’ That Led to a Crisis
The director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse pointed to economic factors as a cause of the epidemic.
