Aspen is a place for leaders to lift their sights above the possessions which possess them. To confront their own nature as human beings, to regain control over their own humanity by becoming more self-aware, more self-correcting, and hence more self-fulfilling.
Walter P. Paepcke, Aspen Institute Co-Founder
Aspen Institute
Blog Posts
A Toast to Ideas!
June 29, 2012
On Salience In a provocative op-ed for Al Jazeera, political scientist Tarak Barkawi explains how “9/11 stole my whiteness.” The politics of race in a post-9/11 world is, let’s just say, tricky—and Barkawi underscores the ways in which a singular, tragic moment re-calibrated Western notions of multiculturalism and religious tolerance. In other words, some themes rapidly became more salient. Whether it be 9/11, the Fukushima disaster, or the 2008 financial meltdown, game changing events happen unexpectedly; and for advocates working those issues, being prepared to get in the ring at a moment’s notice matters.
10’s the Magic Number… The cool folks at Spitfire Strategies celebrated their 10th anniversary last week. In honor of this milestone, they just published a blog post on their top 10 lessons learned over the years. We’re particularly fond of lesson three: “Social change happens when you move beyond awareness.” Spitfire’s research on the “Activation Point” of audiences is really cutting edge. Though there’s no recipe for activating people to act on behalf of your issue, Spitfire puts together some useful tips for maximizing the likelihood of action, and ultimately change.
