The World's Top Public Intellectuals (Trees And Things)

postillion: Re: Divergence/Obsolescence

Wed, 7 May 2008 23:25:00 EST

It's putting public together with intellectual that's causing this weirdness. It's as though we expect our intellectuals to entertain us and inform us. And there are plenty of intellectuals who are willing to do that for fame and the grant mone

uncarved block: Divergence/Obsolescence

Wed, 7 May 2008 22:18:10 EST

Reading through that list again, after a couple days of thought, enforces even more the notion that the role of "public intellectual" is becoming less and less tenable as science and technology (and even the "soft" sciences) get more and more

Dyolf Knip: Re: The World's Top Public Intellectuals

Tue, 6 May 2008 01:01:43 EST

The fucking pope is on there? Ok, that inclusion alone simply renders the entire list 100% stupid, I don't care who else they put on it.

Anyone that would actually call a guy whose last job was the head of the Inquisition an intellectual is simply

port1080: Re: Dubious Selections:

Mon, 5 May 2008 14:29:56 EST

Your mentioning Nixon made me think of another omission to the list - no Henry Kissinger? Arguably he has had far more influence on the state of world affairs than almost anyone mentioned, and he is certainly more qualified as an intellectual than mo

PenitenziAgite: Re: Dubious Selections:

Mon, 5 May 2008 14:14:15 EST

Petraeus is not even a "four-star" military strategist. I am almost finished with Rick Atkinson's "In the Company of Soldiers", which documents the 101st Airborne, then commanded by Gen. Petraeus, in its role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Petra

thefadd: Re: Dubious Selections:

Mon, 5 May 2008 13:22:06 EST

It's the reason why I don't agree with their criterion that the intellectual for selection should be alive.

Well, I think that's the challenge--and the controversy that will sell magazines. Even the debate about Nixon has subsided in the decad

profwhat: Tim Berners-Lee

Mon, 5 May 2008 12:06:38 EST

T B-L gets too much credit. People credit him with inventing the web, but he didn't invent the web any more than Bill Gates invented the operating system. He came up with a client-server protocol and a hypertext system, although both those exis

postillion: Re: Dubious Selections:

Sun, 4 May 2008 12:44:26 EST

I am not doubt Habermas' influence, at least not the one on the contemporary generation.

I am doubting a list of top intellectuals based on living ones. Generally, I think that many of the fields that Foreign Policy is pulling from, except for pol

SS2: Re: Dubious Selections:

Sun, 4 May 2008 11:16:23 EST

Habermas had a huge influence on Eastern European intellectuals like Adam Michinik, and the EU project is pretty clearly influenced by his work (IMO).

For my part, my top selections aren't really notable except for my inclusion of Charles Taylor (the p

Lou: Where's Ron?

Sun, 4 May 2008 10:42:23 EST

And why isn't Ron Paul on the list? He has a new book. It's number three on the Amazon l

secretpath: I read this book once. The author was super-smart.

Sun, 4 May 2008 02:06:48 EST

Clearly an internet vote is the best way of measuring real-world impact, as evidenced by the deep and pervasive influence of Ron Paul on the American political landscape.

JimmyHavok: Re: Dubious comments

Sun, 4 May 2008 01:33:54 EST

how Gore's Powerpoint show wasn't shot through with inaccuracies.

Sorry, I've fought that battle so many times that I didn't have the energy to go through it again this morning. Read one article that details those "inaccuracies" and you'll

postillion: Re: Dubious Selections:

Sun, 4 May 2008 00:51:43 EST

It's the reason why I don't agree with their criterion that the intellectual for selection should be alive. After all, intellectual history, in any category except perhaps performance art, shows us that the impact of an intellectual generally can't b

MayorBob: Re: Dubious comments

Sat, 3 May 2008 16:52:06 EST

Wonderful how the not so big lie is, isn't it? Remind me to put my sarcasm tags up around appropriate parts of what I'm posting. Oh, and be so kind to point to where I claimed he said he invented the internet. Perhaps you might want to ad

JimmyHavok: Dubious comments

Sat, 3 May 2008 16:41:08 EST

(except it's shot through with inaccuracies as others have pointed out)

Wonderful how effective the Big Lie is, isn't it? You even included the one about how he claimed to have invented the Internet.

MayorBob: Dubious Selections:

Sat, 3 May 2008 16:02:12 EST

Umberto Eco -- I know, I know, the prize-winning author of In The Name Of The Rose and Foucault's Pendulum and an expert in semiotics. Except, who has read Eco recently and what sort of impact, other than defea

postillion: Re: The World's Top Public Intellectuals

Sat, 3 May 2008 15:32:08 EST

I think Al Gore should be a separate category, not public intellectuals. Maybe Good Humanitarian. It could be for him, Jimmy Carter, Doctors Without Borders.

port1080: Re: The World's Top Public Intellectuals

Sat, 3 May 2008 14:43:56 EST

I don't really disagree with you about Gore, but I do think it's fair to say that he's managed to change a lot of minds about global warming. I agree with you that a lot of what he's putting out there is flawed and/or wrong, but nonetheless, he's had

zyxwvutsr: Re: The World's Top Public Intellectuals

Sat, 3 May 2008 13:41:24 EST

The problem with putting people like Al Gore on that list is that he isn't much of an intellectual. He's being recognized primarily because of a crappy film he helped make that was chock-full of inaccuracies and quasi-scientific half-truths.

postillion: Re: The World's Top Public Intellectuals

Sat, 3 May 2008 13:15:54 EST

It's a pretty interesting list. The two names that stood out as lightweights were Malcolm Gladwell and Thomas Friedman. Gladwell is entertaining and changing the way that marketing works...but is that intellectual work? And Friedman is as

port1080: Re: The World's Top Public Intellectuals

Sat, 3 May 2008 12:41:45 EST

Lists like this are difficult - do you pick people who have actually had influence on the world (in that case, people like Al Gore, David Petraeus, the Pope, etc. should top your list), do you pick the people who have spurred debates (in that case, probabl

MayorBob: The list was definitely missing one name.

Sat, 3 May 2008 11:38:34 EST

So I wrote in a vote for Tim Berners-Lee.