The Aspen Institute

A weekly series reimagining a better society post COVID-19. Over the last three months we have looked broadly at the social contract, narrowly at the changes we’d like to make within ourselves, and consistently at the changes we’d like to see in society. Among other things, we’ve surfaced the tension between the values we’d like to think are timeless, and the fact that moral frameworks change over time. How do we think about which values are subjective in time and place, and which are universal? And in particular, even as we look back and judge the individuals and cultural norms that came before us, what judgment will future generations make of us?