Three years ago, you may recall, we teamed up with Foreign Policy magazine to produce a list of the world’s top 100 public intellectuals and to ask our readers to vote for their top five. This year we’re repeating the exercise, with a new list that we believe better reflects the current trends in global thought. We’ve tried to spruce up the list this time around by clearing away some of the dead wood from 2005’s list and adding new and exciting younger thinkers, particularly from outside the anglosphere. We reckon the new list feels much fresher as a result.
You can see our new list and vote here. Please take the time to vote, for your top five as well as an extra name you believe has been unjustly excluded from the list of 100. And spread the word—we’re keen to get as many people voting as possible. We’re especially interested in attracting voters from outside the English-speaking west.
And finally, please don’t be shy about letting us know how absurd/barbaric/sexist/anglocentric you find our selection, in the comments below. But be warned! The wittiest and/or most caustic responses may well find their way on to our letters page.
NB Prospect readers please note that the closing date given in the May 2008 issue of Prospect is wrong—voting closes on Thursday 15th May, not Monday 19th May.
Share
Comments
Print
Add Comment
After reviewing the list, I had to go check if Eric Hobsbwam was already dead…Surprise! He´s not. One of the most brilliant and influential historians of the 20th century has been excluded. A Marxist, incidentally.
This list is definitely more realistic and comprehensive than the previous one with the inclusion of people like Lee Kuan Yew, Nandi, Roy etc. and the exclusion of the likes of BHL. But I am afraid that in Nassim Taleb you missed one of the smartest current original thinkers.
I was surprised to see Gianni Riotta in your list, he is not an intellectual. I am Italian and Riotta is just journalist and not even a good one. He is directory of news on RAI 1 TV channel that does not resemble at all any ethical conduct of anglosazon journalism.
I agree about Eric Hobsbawm, but venture that he’ll live a little longer as a result of exclusion from a list that includes Riotta.
“This year we’re repeating the exercise, with a new list that we believe better reflects the current trends in global thought.”
Trends in global thought? It is true that all people (who have and are allowed to have internet access) can access this website freely and vote. But when you are living in a world – when, if condensed to a village of 100 people, only one would own a computer and this person would not necessarily have internet access – can you reasonably conclude from this forthcoming new list that it “reflects the current trends in global thought”? To me, it would only reflect the current trends for people who may have access to a computer and are able to access the internet freely and who can read English.
Many other public intellectuals spring to mind who are not included in this year’s list. Robert Fisk, unarguably the leading Middle East Corrpespondent with decades of experience (if writing is one of your selection criteria, his is ample). Norman Finkelstein’s absence from the list cannot be excused for his lack of fame or eminence in the US. Mahoud Darwish, the leading, towering Palestinian poet, with an international reputation for poetry and writing prose, having authored over thirty books of poety and eight books of prose, of which many have been translated into a total of twenty-two languages and a majority of his work translated into English, with numerous awards, most recently the Prince Claus Award in 2004. Azmi Bishara, the charismatic Palestinian leader of the Balad Party in Israel representing the large Arab minority whose campaign for equal rights for Palestinians has spanned since his student years and whose deep analytical articles and essays appear in newspapers and internet websites on a frequent basis.
But I have a large suspicion that many voters do not span the globe or represent the changing trends in global thought which this new list claims these intellectuals represnent.
The list is representative, of the people who live mostly in the developed world ofcourse.
There are so many others, and I hope the mentioning of these few will open the flood gates for the appearance of many other leading intellectuals on this list.
I can’t believe John Gray isn’t on here. There is no doubt that he is one of the most famous, influential and provocative intellectuals in the world today.
No room for intellectuals like Ann Coulter, Victor Davis Hansen, Thomas Sowell or charles Krauthammer, but somehow room was made for Al Gore.
Yeesh.
If your tentative list had been published by USA TODAY I would have found it praiseworthy.
Appearing on Prospect Magazine I am afraid it puts your magazine in a category you do not want to belong…
I have lived for the past few years in Italy and to see its intellectual ferment represented by UMBERTO ECO and GIANNI RIOTTA evokes only a chuckle and a tear at the same time.
I’m sorry. Your list is not subject to improvement.
Ulrich Beck is another critical lapse
And Edmund Phelps?
Scientists may be thinkers, but that in itself doesn’t qualify them to be regarded as intellectuals : they are, generally, disqualified by their (professional and arrogantly professed) reductionism and ignorance of ethical, historical, psychological, etc, dimensions (the English biologist Steven Rose, being an exception, would qualify; he is absent from the list). The problems start when, like Dawkins, Dennett, Pinker (sic!) et al, they start behaving as though they had public entitlements : handed to them on a plate by the British media. The fact that the absurd number of scentists on your list are all Anglo-American says something about the state of intellectual debate in those countries : the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity, as an Irish public intellectual once said.
…and Anies Baswedan? Indonesian people want to know what books he’s already written?
Al Gore debases the list. He does nothing more than espouse a politically correct cause on false and exaggerated grounds. He should not be on it.
My definition of a public intellectual is someone who influences the way the rest of us see the world of events not just by argument – logical or any other — or the honesty with which such a view is expressed but by re-shaping our concepts. (John Maynard Keynes even years before he wrote the General Theory would be the model.) By this measure very few on your list deserve to be there. Such a list would also necessarily be smaller than the one you have posted.
So, Chomsky who was at one time a highly innovative linguistic theorist is actually quite an unoriginal commentator on our age and culture. One admires his forthrightness but that is hardly enough.
Journalists, of course, should not be included. Columnists like Paul Krugman, Tom Friedman and Martin Wolf have their weekly or twice-a-week soapbox and it is this (combined with their hectoring tone) that gives them any influence.
George Monbiot has been making Al Gore’s case better than him for some years now. He has also written in depth books and articles on the subject of climate change (and many other subjects), the likes of which Gore doesn’t come close to. He also knows the science a good deal better than Bjorn Lomborg, who is an economist not an ‘environmental statistician’.
I found surprisingly that Kishore Mahbubani is not on the poll. (He used to be on the list in 2005 poll!). His essays are amazingly thoughtful. However, I think those essays seem to be excessively challenging for western minds.
And I hardly believe that Joseph E. Stiglitz, one of most prominent economist is excluded from the list. Probably, his outspoken argue on the very dark side of globalization have diminished him.
I would say that this list misses out a lot of critical thinkers. Monbiot is one example, Stiglitz another, if writers make the list why not Arundhati Roi, if public communicators get in there, why not Morgan Spurlock.
Zizeck makes the list, but not his old buddy Ernesto Laclau, who is a giant within academia. This suggests that the public aspect is paramount in this list.
Again the list is fairly arbitrary, and English Speaking. What about Chinese intellectuals, what about Japanese ones for that matter? Not that many French or Italian ones here. Not much from South America of Africa.
Paolo Friere has been seriously influential, liberation theology was a big deal in South America. There are so many not included here. Perhaps their should be a ” the world’s top 20 intellectuals from each continent” list. Arbitrary, yes, but no more so than the current list.
super
thank you Prospect.number one FETHULLAH GÃœLEN and ORHAN PAMUK.
my favorite number one FETHULLAH GULEN.
Thanks all..
A list like this is to be expected in …a tabloid paper. So it makes me somewhat curious… On which grounds are we to compare and choose our favourites? Nationality, number of published books, links with Prospect? Are you sure this is not a Celebrity contest?
Al Gore?
Anyone who makes it a condition of his speech-making that no he takes no questions from the floor is hardly an intellectual.
Ones I miss –
Freeman Dyson.
Colin James
and surely Hernando de Soto is worth ten of most of the other development economists.
I suppose Theodore Dalrymple is just too tough.
my favorite is FETHULLAH GÃœLEN too
One: you really need to read carefully the comments of Nabil Muhareb and Peter Labanyi etc; it really is not clear that you fully understand what the term “intellectual” means and their comments should nudge you in the right direction.
Two: many of those in your list (and I am acquainted with the overwhelming majority of them) are simply people doing a job with limited (if any) influence outwith their own circle.
Three: just because an “intellectual” has reached the third age is no reason to refuse to consider them; George Steiner and Mary Midgley are still intellectual giants whereas many of your list are dwarves running around patting themselves and each other on the back whilst appearing to be unaware of the giants around them.
Four: don’t tell me who I can vote for!
I couldn’t see fethullah gülen in the list what happened?Please say something
FETHULLAH GÃœLEN
thank you Prospect.my favorite is FETHULLAH GÃœLEN too
You have made a grave omission.
We will soon rectify this situation.
Yes, why isn’t Rain included in your top 100? He’s a very infuential person – more so that that guy who used to work on the Daily show and now has a show of his own (I think his name is Stephen Colgate or some such)
I couldn’t see fethullah gülen in the list
best of world FETHULLAH GULEN. HE Ä°S MY FAVORÄ°TE.
I agre with who say FETHULLAH GULEN
The poll was very impressive. My favourites were Fethullah Gulen, Thomas Friedman, Noam Chomsky, Habermas…
Ann Coulter an “intellectual” !!!!!
ma preference est fethullah gulen on l’aime
FETHULLAH GULEN
I strongly feel that RICHARD SENNETT should be on the list. We live in a material world built, or at least invented by craftsmen. Sennett’s book “The Craftsman” (2008 Allen Lane) brings them out from under the parapet. It’s a bible.
i voted for fethullah gulen. where is my vote? is it stolen by another one? or are some votes void?
Too bad the voting closed a day earlier than announced (Sunday 18 May, instead of Monday 19 May). Some notable omissions:
Richard Sennett
Helmut Schmidt
Günter Grass
Peter Sloterdijk
(close runner-up: Hans Magnus Enzensberger)
To all those who have left comments here and emailed us complaining that the voting closed earlier than advertised in the magazine – mea culpa, the date in the magazine was an error and voting closed last Thursday. In our defence, this is clearly stated in the post to which this is a comment.
If you’d like to vote but missed the closing date, please send your names to intellectuals@prospect-magazine.co.uk by the end of TODAY (Monday) and I’ll do what I can.
Tom Nuttall
Prospect
Definitely Peter Sloterdijk, what about George Steiner? And if Daniel Barenboim is on the list why not Alfred Brendel?
MY VOTE IS FOR:
MARIO VARGAS LLOSA
AN INTELLECTUAL PERUVIAN !!!!!!!
Where are any intellectuals ? Is the human/hybrid embryo debate too hot to blog ? It appears the most important law of the millennium
is being left entirely to vested interest parties ( mainstream
press / politicians / scientists / medical research fund managers )
Obviously a self-serving press ( including an unusually bovine newsnight ) will focus on sensationalist moral/religious issues,
but what of our darling Prospect ?
Can we really afford to ignore the heterozygous v homozygous gene patterns ( recorded by Dr Bill Amos, Reader in Evolutionary Genetics, Cambridge, UK ) of treating disease without eradication ?
Debate so far resembles a motorway multiple-pile up caught on CCTV, where the unsuspecting but reckless perpetrators roar off at 170mph, without a backward glance, and thus, remain oblivious to the carnage caused. We harrowed – or rubber-necked – drivers on the opposite side of the motorway slow down to a respectful 50mph or so to pass, before zooming off at our own recklessly high speeds again
Perhaps new laws would make more moral sense if also formed part of a pincer movement to prevent heterozygous genes spreading like an Australian bush fire – unpopular to say , but not least among the benefits dependency culture ? The long-term implication of climate-change related disease finding easy targets amongst those with weak genes could pose a danger equal to the population explosion itself ?
In the short term, David Goodhart’s Solidarity v Diversity debate
( http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=5835 )
about the welfare state could ignite. If taxpayers already object to contributing to a welfare system that includes people with diametrically opposed cultures to their own , what consensus toward folk not only being paid to be poor, but also to blindly breed disease-friendly genes ‘on the state’ ?
Today , UK local authorities announced a 26% increase in fraud and over-payment among benefits claimants over the past 2 years. Add this
to existing levels which we know until now ( the press are baying for Brown’s blood ) have been kept insufferably high because the left use taxation as a form of ‘re-distribution of wealth’, rather than the re-distribution of ill-health and misery it so often can be.
Can I make a rather late plea for Stephen Fry, listen to his podcasts particularly episode 3: Wallpaper
The “10 Top Intellectuals of the world are Muslims†and Islamic reformation
The recent 2008 survey for the 100 world’s public intellectuals came up for the first time with the top 10 being Muslims-very strange for a group of people who for the ordinary every day people (in contrast to their elites) on a world basis are not noted for their general level of formal education, scientific understanding and rational thinking. As well the comments of the sponsors of the international quest suggested that this result has more to do with Muslim tribal instincts, their hero worshipping of their particular Ulama and their ability to use the western internet rather than any original intellectual genius amongst most (not all- I’ll come back to this latter) of the ten as understood by rationalist. However having said this, there has been a lot of pride amongst Muslim Bogglers ( who unfortunately to a T lack any intellectual ingenuity to explore their religion compared to their respective Ulama hero-a tendency of the Muslim community in general: leader followers/adorites) who continue with the Muslim tendency to have tremendous pride in seeing great things said about Islam in western press in contrast what is said about the same thing in the Islamic press as only this infidel confirmation can confirm their own thoughts.
This identification of Muslims that are honored by western media as being the worlds intellectual leaders may have some benefits in loosening the hold fascist islamic ideologue Ulamas over the last 100 years have had on the Muslim community collective intellect
Un like western society the Muslim civilization has a great respect for their intellectual Islamic superiors. This I hypothesis is that because of the lack of general education amongst most Muslims, the near in intelligibility of the Islamic holy book (Koran) and the general desire to follow the commands of Allah in their daily lives, there developed within the Muslim community total adoration and extreme respect for their specific Ulama and Islamic learning/science ( which is distinctive from real science as western rationalist see science) in general to help them understand their holy books (Koran and Sunna) and to live their lives as they believed Allah wanted them to.
This reliance on the Ulama to guide their total lives did the Moslem community well especially in its golden years but has caused them mayhem and their current problems over the last 250 years. This from my readings mostlikely was due to the non advancement of the Islamic sciences during the later period of the golden age and the resultant stagnation of tradition Ulama training. The resultant frustrations of the Moslem with their lot has lead some of them to loose their faith in their traditional trained Ulama. This in turn has lead some of these to become the Ulama themselves or to follow these nontraditional Ulama.
These new Ulama, though ignorant of the traditional ways of the official Ulama, tended to be trained in the sciences (technology and engineering) and humanities (liberal arts, philosophy) of the of the west and so were frustrated with the state of the Moslem and the lack of the fruits of these studies to Islamic civilization but had inklings of the grandeur and glory of Islam in their childhood days as young children playing in the house and at the feet of their farther. Deluded by these childhood images of Islam and their frustrations as religious very western educated adults, these men sought simplistic ways to re create the glory days of the ways of the original calphate as seen with the first four companions. Lacking the traditions, training and history of the original Ulama they bastardized the holy books to their own thinking and acting as little gods created mayhem and death for their Muslim brothers (eg in the form of Banna and Qutb etc) and their fellow men in the world. These people tended to ignore the traditional Islamic intellect of nearly 15 centuries of Muslim civilization and go straight to the holy texts to interpretate them in their own puny way and drag other less educated religious Muslims with them
There has been a number of Muslims who have attempted to use the Islamic sciences to revise or reform Islam. However, as shown below, these have not been to the benefit of the ordinary Muslim and in most cases been condemned by their Moslem brothers and posterity as being un Islamic Some of these Johnny come lately new Ulama and the type of havoc they placed on their Muslim brothers in particular and the world in general includes
• Wahhab: Return of a brutal form of the Islamic trilogy -ruler, Ulama and poor ruled -of the Umayyad caliph to the 20th Century areas of Saudi and the Taliban
• Banna: Development of Islamic politicalisation of the Muslim laity mainly in Egypt
• Qutb: Development of Islamic Terrorism of the Moslem laity in Arab countries
• Khomeini: Development of the politicalisation of the Ulama to Islamic Rule in Iran
• Mawdudi: Failed to do a Banna in India/Pakistan though the current political elite could help to achieve his dream if they do not restore order in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan
As the world’s Muslims have a real problem with Western rationalism, secularism and modernity, individualism and lack of any state regulated religious facade to the public sphere and morality and totally reject any hint of these elements in any way in assisting them to adapt to the real world of human rights (includes woman rights) and human legislative activity and sovereign states and become part of it so that the rest of mankind can benefit from their involvement. This means that Muslims are more in tune to change if it is within an Islamic frame work.
Of all the traditional ways by which the Ulama interpretated the holy books. Ijtihad has the most potential to bring out the true meaning of Islam but unfortunately it is the most neglected and unused of the Islamic sciences in modern times and is sometimes thought not to be even available less operational into days times. From the literature this seems to be due to the fact that there are no highly intellectual Ulama amongst the 1.3 billion Muslims of the world (these people are called mujtahid (of the al mutlaq kind)or mujaddid depending on how much they change/renovate Islam and the mujtahid of the century is called a Tajdid and there has not been any of these since al Maraghi al Jurjawi.
Now the sixty four dollar question is that given that these ten religious Muslims have been given the seal of approval from the world as being the top 10 intellectuals of man kind surely some of them are Mujtahid if not the, Allah be praised, the Tajdid of the 21st Century!!!.
I have looked at the 10 and read some of their books and come up with the following initial thoughts (which could change with further reading , study and discussion)
Gulen: Yes especially as he has an organization already- in fact he could be the new eponym of a new Islamic School. I have not read much of his work. Seems to be very quiet. His followers made him number 1 on the intellectual hit parade so has a good following. Be interested to know why people (both Islamists and secularists).don’t like him
Yunus: No. Seems to be more of an economist of the poor. Though may have corrected the Islamic confusion of equating riba with modern day interest rates. Not thought to have a real understanding of Islamic sciences. May have got to the top spot by the gratitude of the 6 million odd woman he helped to get out of the poverty women suffer in patriarchal Islamic and other religious societies.
Al Qaradawi No Is a modern official Ulama but of limited intelligence and follows the Islamic line that has caused the modern day Moslem current predicaments. Muslims need a mujtahid not more of the same. Not too sure where he would have got his votes. I suspect the Moslem Brothers and Al Jazeera viewers may have got together and got him a few votes but cannot think of any other group who would vote for him.
Pamuk No. His vote seems to be the results of the competition between the Gulens and Non Gulen followers in Turkey
Ahsan. No just a lawyer and a politian. Like all Pakistani political elite may regret leaving the North West provinces un controlled and left in the hands of Islamically ignorant tribal leaders.
Khaled No. Knows where the money is but does not in any way is he an intellectual. Seems to know what the young Muslim wants. Be interested to compare him with Al Qaradawi.
Soroush Definitley. Read a few of his books in English and has a web page which I am going through.
Ramadan Definitely. Read most of his books. Is a soppy person. Women love him. Is intelligent and mostlikely knows more about Islamic sciences that the average Saudi Ulama and is intelligent at the same time. His intellect is inhibited by his Banna links so not as intellectually independent as Soroush.
Mamdani No seems to be a recent arrival to Moslems problems
Ebadi No A disillusioned female Islamic lawyer. Got booted out of the legal club by the menstrual fearing men. Mostlikely got the feminist vote.
Ali No A disillusioned female social worker. like Ebadi got the pointed end of the large male Islamic boot and like her sister in Iran told the pricks to get fucked and got fame because of it. Well deserved fame I might add as these Islamic men tend to kill people who cross them especially up start women who think they are equal to men. Ditto for her vote
There is one other Moslem that I have read and should be on the list and that is An Naim a follower of Mohamed Taha the real Luther of Islamic reformation in my mind before the Islamist in Sudan killed him. An Naim has gone out in the field to fight the good fight for true Islam.
So it looks as if we have 3-4 potential Mujtahids who have been recognized as such by the world which is more than what can be claimed by the current Ulama at the Islamic universities in Saudi, Iran, Egypt. India and Pakistan and even by historical accepted Mujtahids. Will they be up to the task to save the Muslim from him/her self and integrate the Islamic civilization into the rest of man kind during the 21st century so that both may benefit.
Due to the lack of names that deserve to be on your list, I must say that you have already chosen who is to be the Top 100 Global Public Intellectuals and only want voters to rate your selections. There are those on your “Bonus Ball List” that received more votes that those on the list. I suggest that you extend your voting list, though time consuming, to atleast 150 or 200 to give the voters a choice on who will or will not be in the Top 100.