

The World’s Top 20 Public Intellectuals (2008 edition) - nickb
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4349&print=1

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akd
This list has been completely skewed by Turkey; it should be "Turkey's Top 10
Public Intellectuals."

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gamerates
Yep, if you do some background it got a lot of coverage in the Turkish media,
so the entire list vote wise got really skewed as far as ranking (the FP team
chose who you could vote for, but then it was done the will of the people, or
at least the will of the turkish people).

The 2005 list is a lot more balanced: <http://www.prospect-
magazine.co.uk/intellectuals/results.htm>

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pmorici
Perhaps this list should just be called "Top 20 public figures" Most of these
people couldn't qualify as an intellectual in even the broadest sense of the
term, they would be more concisely described as politicians.

AlGore is NOT an intellectual he goes around talking about the work of
intellectuals. That makes in a public speaker, aka a politician.

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dhs
Hilarious. "The Hack of The Faithful". Muslims vote up their co-believers for
"Best Intellectual" on the Foreign Policy list, until the The Top 10 is made
up solely by - Muslims. Hey, they do care, while others don't! Noam Chomsky
makes "Best Non-Muslim" at rank 11 (for old time's sake, perhaps). Al Gore,
representing Christianity, follows on 12. Bernard Lewis - a historian and
Islam specialist - is at 13. Ayaan Hirsi Ali - an Islam critic - is at 15.
Fareed Zakaria - a journalist and Islam commentator - is at 17. And Richard
Dawkins comes in at 19. Who woulda thunk it?

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nickb
The full list of 100 is here: [http://www.prospect-
magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10...](http://www.prospect-
magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10261)

or here: <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/extras/intellectuals>

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rms
Yan Xuetong (#56) is awesome. I heard him lecture in China and asked him if
there were any scenarios where a globalized utopia could arise. He said the
only way that could happen is the Independence Day scenario (an alien
invasion) but it would give us unity like nothing else.

This is the most recent publication I've seen by him (I have a Google alert
for him). [http://meiguofeilong.blogspot.com/2008/06/who-will-
maintain-...](http://meiguofeilong.blogspot.com/2008/06/who-will-maintain-
peaceful-cross-strait.html)

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erdos2
The article claims that "...a number of intellectuals—including Aitzaz Ahsan,
Noam Chomsky, Michael Ignatieff, and Amr Khaled—mounted voting drives by
promoting the list on their Web sites."

This is false about Noam Chomsky: there were no "voting drives" on
chomsky.info or zcommunications.org, where Chomsky has a blog. Chomsky has
never paid any attention to the Foreign Policy vote. I wonder what possible
motive Foreign Policy has for making this false claim.

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simplegeek
I really doubt Aitzaz Ahsan's contribution. I've been following that judiciary
debacle in Pakistan and I don't think he's that vocal even in Lawyer's
community, especially after that Long March decision that he took on his own
at the eleventh hour.

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wallflower
It's tough to rate someone in the present time or even in the near future. I
think the only way really to determine their relative ranking is to look at
history/have the benefit of hindsight - e.g. DaVinci, Newtown, Shakespeare..

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1gor
I fail to understand how Kasparov made it to the list. He has no following in
Russia whatsoever, and not many in the West like his neo-conservative
connections.

His inclusion makes the rest of the list somewhat suspect.

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edw519
What, no Steven Hawking?

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dhs
Yeah, it's scandalous. Steven Pinker is in at 57, Craig Venter at 71, even
Malcolm Gladwell made it to 77. But Steven Hawking is not intellectual enough,
it would seem.

