What a long year it’s been. Twelve months ago, just as the Aspen Ideas Festival was kicking off, the economy was still souring and the country was responding to an oil spill of almost-biblical proportions (and very real complications). The world’s great thinkers gathered in Aspen and discussed immediate solutions to pressing problems.
Sobering questions like “Will the financial crisis spell America’s decline?” and “Is America still the land of opportunity?” occupied much of the panel discussions. And the answers were sometimes sobering. Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post, explained, “This is not a cyclical problem…. We have socialized losses and privatized gains.”
In another 2010 panel on the BP oil spill, oceanographers and deep-sea explorers Sylvia Earle and Edith Widder plunged into a larger discussion of preserving the world’s oceans. Widder outlined steps toward regulating the oil industry in the same way as the nuclear industry: “It’s critical that you have back-ups upon back-ups upon back-ups and not lay all your hopes on one blow-out protector that’s supposed to work at 5,000 feet deep in the ocean.”
This year’s speakers at the Aspen Ideas Festival, however, are turning away from past and present turmoil to look more clearly toward the future, insisting that we can and will shape it and showing us how.
CNN host Wolf Blitzer appears at this year's festival
Four program tracks will be offered to attendees, and each will give different perspectives on a similar story: the world and the way we experience it is rapidly changing. Among the luminaries scheduled to attend: Wolf Blitzer, lead CNN political anchor and host of “The Situation Room”; William Powers, author of the New York Times best seller Hamlet’s BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age; David Brooks, long-time op-ed columnist for The New York Times; and California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom.
These thought leaders will address a number of key themes:
- What Is Happiness?: A hard look at historical and current scientific insights on this abstract notion. The focus will be on analysis, not self-help.
- The Learning Landscape: What’s gone wrong with the American education system and what can we do to fix it? Technology could be the key.
- Global Economics: How will the emerging economies and burgeoning middle classes of Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Africa affect America’s financial status?
- Food Fights: From basic necessity to cultural phenomenon, food shapes how the world thinks and acts. Phenomena like Slow Food, organic farming and rising obesity rates will likely generate intense debate.
- Our Digital Universe: Many of us are already using digital devices to access social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter. Speakers take a look at how this will affect politics, advertising and the dissemination of information.
- Music on the Edge: Music has always mirrored society at large. The songs of Bob Dillon and the Beatles, for example, are key components to understanding the social revolution of the 1960s. Musicians and other experts ask, What do today’s edgiest songs say about the US and the world in 2011?
- Growing the US Economy: Unemployment rates, deficits and a soaring national debt aren’t the whole story. Technological advances and a growing “on-shoring” trend may provide hope.
- Frontiers of Medicine: A look into the state of medical technology today, and where it’s taking us. New applications for genomic discoveries, and recent findings in brain function and longevity should provide plenty of fascinating fodder.
Whether you’re attending the entire event in Aspen, or just watching programs LIVE and on demand at FORA.tv, the Aspen Ideas Festival will answer some tough questions, engender productive debate, and almost definitely get you thinking.