David Brooks

In our discussions about people’s and society’s most desirable attributes, we use all these vague abstract words, like morality, virtue, and justice. But what does it actually...

Language — the words we use — plays a vital role in framing and shaping public discourse, influencing our social and cultural perceptions and interactions. A linguist and cult...

America has a crisis of trust, but we are not hopelessly divided. David Brooks, founder of the Aspen Institute’s Weave: The Social Fabric Project, and Frederick Riley, its exe...

In America, interpersonal trust is in decline. Less than one-third of Americans agree that most people can be trusted. Events that might have brought people together, like the...

Join New York Times columnist and conservative political and cultural commentator David Brooks as he reflects on our deeply divided times. To build trusting relationships you...

Our country is in the midst of a heated debate about the limits of free speech — and it manifests in a number of contexts. How should the problem of hate speech be resolved, e...

Kate Bowler, a young scholar of Christianity, had just written a book called Blessed, about the Christian idea that good things happen to good people, when she was diagnosed w...

Not only is the way we work rapidly changing, the atlas of where we work — from coasts, to states, to counties — is increasingly studied and interpreted. Sixty percent of net...

Our country’s social fabric is badly frayed by distrust, division and exclusion. But across America, people are quietly working to end loneliness and isolation and weave toget...

During a personal low point of loneliness and pain, David Brooks wanted to write his way to a better life. For five years, he did just that, researching and writing about peop...

Complex social problems require solutions that brings together key actors from different sectors working on a common agenda. Collective impact provides an approach for tacklin...

“Weavers” are a diverse group of Americans who are making quiet yet extraordinary efforts to strengthen the communities in which they live. Each of these leaders is taking on...

What does it mean to be American, and how is that story best told and understood? New York Times columnist David Brooks sits down with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and un...

America is at a critical and potentially existential moment. Tribal polarization is at an all-time high. Yet veteran representation in Congress is at an all-time low. Veterans...

For our annual signature event in the Benedict Music Tent, the 2018 Aspen Ideas Festival hosts former secretary of state John Kerry in a candid conversation about geopolitics...

How do the arts of poetry, painting, journalism, fashion, architecture, television foster social justice?

The forces of division have been tearing America's social fabric for decades. But a new coalition of community builders with a new set of beliefs is rising to turn things arou...

Beneath the tumble of day-to-day politics — the anger and crude attacks, the polarization and zero-sum thinking — vital democratic legacies are being squandered. To rebuild th...

After you've achieved success, what comes next?

Ideas about living a moral life can be found in all cultures across time. In previous eras, education was meant to inculcate personal virtue and shape character. In centuries...

The Rev. Adam Hamilton, who ministers to nearly 20,000 Methodists in and around Kansas City, is determined to mollify the deep divisions that he observes in his congregation a...

A successful life usually depends on making four major commitments: to a spouse or family, a faith or philosophy, a community, and a vocation. But how do we choose what we wil...

The average American will spend a third of his or her life working. What is the secret to achieving happiness because of our work and not in spite of it? How can we make a job...

Those who study human behavior have learned that simply by encouraging—or “nudging”—individuals toward the right decisions for themselves, dramatic improvements can be made. C...

Culture is to a company as community is to a city: it's about values, innovation, serendipity, participation, upward mobility, and attraction of smart startups and the creativ...