{"id":2445644,"date":"2019-06-23T23:20:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T05:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/past-and-present-take-center-stage-at-aspen-ideas\/"},"modified":"2019-06-23T23:20:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T05:20:00","slug":"past-and-present-take-center-stage-at-aspen-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/past-and-present-take-center-stage-at-aspen-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"Past and present take center stage at Aspen Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One only needs to see the differing public reactions to President Donald Trump\u2019s abrupt decision Thursday to not strike Iran as an indicator of how quickly Americans are to make up their minds, Walter Isaacson told a near full house at Paepcke Auditorium on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this age of Trump, we automatically go to our corners when something happens,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll give an example that won\u2019t maybe be popular, but Trump a few days ago decides not to strike in Iran. \u2026 Instantly, though, every Democrat is saying that Trump is this (inaudible) and I\u2019m saying, \u2018Wait a minute, I actually think he\u2019s actually right here. But we instantly go to our corner and say \u2018that was horrible, what he just did,\u2019 or \u2018that was wonderful, what he just did,\u2019 as opposed to thinking it through and saying \u2018let me judge it as if we\u2019re having a good argument and not just a bitter argument.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That was one instance of many that Isaacson and Aspen Institute President and CEO Dan Porterfield batted around during their sit-down about the erosion of trust and faith in such American institutions as the government, media and higher education, or, more globally, the Catholic Church. The talk was a kickoff to the Aspen Ideas Festival, which runs through Sunday and will have programming at the Aspen Meadows campus as well as in-town establishments.<\/p>\n

Porterfield, who just entered his second year as the Institute\u2019s leader, has a background in higher education, most recently as president of Franklin & Marshall College for seven years. Porterfield was heralded for his work on the Next Generation Initiative that made the Pennsylvania school more inclusive toward low-income and minority students.<\/p>\n

Isaacson, before heading the Institute from 2003 to 2018, was editor of Time magazine and chairman and CEO of CNN. He also is a biographer and currently a history professor at Tulane University, as well as a Distinguished Fellow with the Aspen Institute.<\/p>\n

The two had plenty of talk about concerning their respective institutions as well as others, which, they said, are showing vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat institutions carry on traditions, great institutions provide a structure through which we can do our best work,\u201d Porterfield said. \u201cSome institutions feel as if they\u2019re cracking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Catholic Church, for example, did it to itself, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry to say it, but they\u2019ve lost the standing that gave them so much authority as an institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Catholic Church, like the mainstream media, Isaacson said, needs to \u201cbe more honest. We have to be more transparent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The promise of social media also has fallen short, he said. \u201cWe thought it was going to connect the world, but it hasn\u2019t done it in a way to find common ground,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, as the shouting on the airwaves and the online rhetoric continue, the Institute has embarked on Weave: The Social Fabric Project, led by New York Times columnist David Brooks.<\/p>\n

In a nutshell, the program is aimed at connecting communities through inclusion rather than exclusion, and finding common ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s part of the weaving and Weavers\u2019 mission of our Institute, to say we can disagree but don\u2019t we don\u2019t have to be disagreeable,\u201d Isaacson said.<\/p>\n

America has had its bouts of incivility, he noted, citing the Alien and Sedition Acts of the 18th century, the Civil War, the McCarthy period and the Civil Rights movement. Tensions were high as well as violent at times, but those were pivotal moments in the nation\u2019s history, Isaacson said.<\/p>\n

The current rhetorical warfare, he theorized, is more due to the media\u2019s quest for attention through cable-news arguments or click-bait articles. Also fueling the fire are those people emboldened by the ability to comment anonymously online, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have often demonized people we disagree with, so I don\u2019t think it helps to necessarily sugarcoat it, but we have to figure out why in this day and age \u2026 why are we demonizing each other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

rcarroll@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One only needs to see the differing public reactions to President Donald Trump\u2019s abrupt decision Thursday to not strike Iran as an indicator of how quickly Americans are to make up their minds, Walter Isaacson told a near full house at Paepcke Auditorium on Sunday. \u201cIn this age of Trump, we automatically go to our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2445644","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 05:57:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}