Upcoming Socrates Seminars
DC Salon
May 7-8, 2010
Washington, DC
Topic and Moderator TBD
Socrates Summer Seminars
July 2-5, 2010
Aspen, Colorado
China and America: The Case for Partnership and Competition
The relationship between the United States of America and the people’s Republic of China has been of growing importance, both strategically and economically, since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s famous “opening” to China in 1972. In the past decade, China plus America – “Chimerica”, as Niall Ferguson named it for short – was the engine of growth for the world economy as whole. Accounting for 12 per cent of the world’s land surface, a quarter of its population and a third of its gross domestic product, Chimerica accounted for more than two fifths of all global growth between 1998 and 2007. It seemed like a marriage made in heaven: The Chinese saved, Americans consumed. The Chinese exported, Americans imported. The Chinese invested, Americans shopped. Yet this unusual symbiotic relationship is anything but a stable one. Arguably, the channeling of Chinese savings into the U.S. as a result of Beijing’s policy of currency intervention was one of the key drivers of the U.S. real estate bubble that finally burst in 2007, with such devastating consequences not just for America but for the world economy as whole. And in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, there are signs that the Chimerican marriage is headed for the rocks. Disputes are becoming more numerous over currency “manipulation”, trade protectionism, human rights, Internet censorship and cyber warfare – not to mention Tibet. And other sources of conflict are looming, not least over China’s ambitious naval program and her increasingly “colonial” approach to the acquisition of commodity producing assets in Africa. Is the end nigh for Chimerica? Are we approaching a time of escalating Sino-American antagonism? Or will the world’s most important relationship remain cordial? These are just a few of the questions Niall Ferguson will address in his second Socrates Seminar.
Moderator: Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor at Harvard Business School
Soft Power: US Leadership in a Hardball World
Conventional wisdom says that the global balance of power is shifting. US power is declining and Asia is rising. Europe, Japan and Russia are on the way down. How would we know? What do we mean by “Power” ? We will explore various dimensions of power – military, economic, soft, cyber – and how they are changing under the impact of the information revolution and globalization. Then we will look at how various countries fare on these different dimensions. Finally, we will discuss a grand strategy for American power and how the Obama Administration measures up against it.
Moderator: Joseph Nye, University Distinguished Service Professor, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Between Islam and Politics
Islam has at least two faces: A religious face and a political one. The first is a source of spirituality for over a billion and a half people worldwide. The latter is Islam as an ideology as it relates to power and governance; the relationship between the individual and the collective; the Islamic polity; family life and particularly the position of women; the position of minorities; the concept of war (domestic and foreign affairs); the economy and culture.
Students of Islam treat it too often as a religion, isolated from other political theories. But, to understand the importance of Islam as a political force, it should be compared with other political systems such as a democracy. Is Islam compatible with Western ideas about individual freedom and democracy? Is it possible simultaneously to be a good Muslim and a good American? Is Islam as a political ideology a threat to democracy, or might democracy actually promote Islam? And what are the best remedies we can offer to check the spread of Islam as a political theory?
Moderator: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
The Great Conversation in a Global Society
Three modules comprise this seminar: Human Nature, the Burden of Power and Leadership Strategies. In the tradition of the Aspen Institute's Great Converstation, we will move from views of humanity held by the Ancient Greeks to modern work in genetics: from the Rwandan Genocide to Virginia Woolf on women and war; from the Italian Renaissance to the American Civil Rights movement of the 1960's. The readings and discussion aim to elicit participant views on 1) what it means to be human; 2) how human nature and historical circumstance shape our behavior in a global society; and 3) the forms leadership may take.
Moderator: Leigh Hafrey, Senior Lecturer, Communication and Ethics, MIT Sloan School of Management
The Impact of Technology on Democracy around the World
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, breathtaking changes in technology are posing stark challenges to our constitutional values in democracies around the world. From free speech to privacy, from liberty and personal autonomy to the right against self-incrimination, basic constitutional principles are under stress from technological advances unimaginable even a few decades ago, let alone in the founding era. The seminar on Technology and the Constitution will ask questions such as the following:
• Is privacy obsolete in an age of ubiquitous cameras and unlimited data storage and processing, or can the law somehow restrict surveillance without crushing innovation and hobbling government?
• How vigorously should society respect the autonomy of individuals to manipulate their genes and design their own babies?
• Does the Constitution restrict the government’s ability to look within our brains, and should it?
• Should it place restrictions on governmental power to investigate people’s DNA?
• How can we protect free speech in a world in which most speech is online and suddenly subject to regulation by governments and companies, worldwide?
• Is online privacy hopeless or is some protection possible?
• Is the Internet solely responsible for an explosion of democratic participation, or is it also undermining checks on democracy that are
necessary for individual rights to flourish?
There is no question that democracies around the world will change in response to developing technology, as they have always changed in the past. But it is far from clear how that change will take place, what form it will take, and how effective it will be. In the seminar, we will identify the range of options that judges, technologists, and legislators have as they struggle to respond to technological shifts and to offer an analytical blueprint for translating democratic values into the twenty-first century.
Moderator: Jeff Rosen, Professor of Law, The George Washington University Law School and legal affairs editor, The New Republic
Teen Socrates Seminars
July 2-5, 2010
Aspen, Colorado
Click here to register for Teen Socrates
What Next? The Teenager's Guide to Repairing the Economy
Baby Boomers and Gen X-ers almost broke the global economy during the financial crisis of 2008. And the truth is that nobody really knows exactly how to put it back together again. How will today's teenagers be affected by the recession and the financial crisis? Our shared economic future rests in no small part on the lessons we all learn about the Great Recession and the global financial crisis of the past couple of years. Teenagers will have to live, learn and, if possible, thrive in a global economy that is being shaped. There are many important questions to be asked about today's decisions that will have an impact on their future. In this seminar we will discuss the proper role of government in a market economy, American competitiveness with newly rising economic powers, and if it will be possible for today's teens to find ways to be personally and economically fulfilled.
Moderator: Kai Ryssdal, host, Marketplace
For more information about Socrates, please contact:
Melissa Ingber
Director, Socrates Society
