Your Favorite Radical Thinkers!

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Re: Re: Re: Your Favorite Radical Thinkers!

FizzingWhizzbees said:


nice list, hiphop. just picking a few of the highlights there. :up:
lenin would currently top my list.

Nicest :)

Wladimir Iljitsch Uljanow, hm. Surely an important figure in history. I don´t know if he would be "my radical hero" though.
 
Gene Rodenberry. His notion of the Prime Directive has profoundly affected my social and political thought.
 
Dreadsox said:
George W. Bush

I don't think he's had an original thought in five years. Maybe you should admire his PNAC entourage instead. :sexywink:

But as for this thread, I really can't think of a radical thinker that I admire. I would, perhaps defiantly, say "Jesus," except that was excluded in the beginning; and, plus, most people can't decide on what He stood for anyway. Radical socialist or reactionary mullah...you tend to get those kind of sentiments from the ideological spectrum when you invoke His name.

But, regardless, I try to think for myself. Maybe that's a radical concept in the postmodern era.

Melon
 
William F. Buckley, Jr.

John Locke

St. Thomas Aquinas

George Washington Carver
 
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yolland said:
Gene Rodenberry. His notion of the Prime Directive has profoundly affected my social and political thought.
My opinion of the Prime Directive is more or less the same as Kirks.

TNG is exactly the utopian worldview that most leftists want to believe in, DS9 shows the darker underbelly that is closer to how it would actually be and Firefly/Serenity shows exactly how a big federation style government would be in real life - dangerous and imposing.

The best sci-fi is libertarian sci-fi
Mal Reynolds, Firefly
"That's what governments are for, get in a man's way."
 
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melon said:


I don't think he's had an original thought in five years. Maybe you should admire his PNAC entourage instead. :sexywink:
:wink: you know I was kidding, right?
 
Ok, okay, I officially recind the rule that you can't nominate one Jesus Christ of Nazareth. :laugh: No Bono, though, I don't want this to devolve into a shouting match about Bono's politics. :D

I knew Che would end up on this list. I have always personally been very conflicted about him. Even if he is always portrayed in movies by ludicriously hot actors. ;)

Lenin?! Wow. Love to hear more about why he's a favorite, FW. He's sure radical. :D Allende, too.

Antriam: Sure thing. :) Let's see, Paolo Friere is a great place for anyone to start. He wrote The Pedegody of the Oppressed which was basically the Bible of liberation theology, a Latin American Catholic movement which opposed the right-wing military dictatorships of the 1980s.

Montessori's greatest, I think, is Education and Peace. Her belief was that education needed to be radically overhauled and rethought, and the needs of the child should be the center of each classroom. (And how radical is that really LOL?) She let the child lead by his/her interests adn passions. She also believed that peace between nations was dependent on properly educating our kids. Child-led learning, she believed, helped foster the confidence, problem-solving and independence which was necessary to fight fascism (as an Italian under Mussolini, she knew a thing or two about this). Finally, she believed just as much time needed to be spent on teaching kids moral values--not in the watered down "character education" sense but in the sense of instilling in them the notion that everyone is dignified and scared, no matter what their background, place of birth, creed, etc. Anyway, you got me started. LOL. I actually have an article being published in the next Journal of Peace Education about her.

Johan Galtung's Peace by Peaceful Means is hard to describe, but it has to do with state, global and socioeconomic structures and how they need to change to better meet human needs. :)

More later...what a list, guys! I adore Wilde and Heinlein. Is Emerson radical? :shrug: It did remind me I wanted to add Thoreau, especially his challenging defense of John Brown. Thanks!
 
I don't know. I guess I tend to admire the thoughts and writings of Max Weber because his theory of bureaucratic administration is a great guide to me in ordering my personal CD collection, and the lives of my friends and coworkers.
 
Thomas Nagel is one philosopher whose works i really respect - sometime i even agree with what he writes.
Speaking of Star Trek, if Picard were to really exist I would have to put him on my list - the character seems to have a very Kantian philosophy, so maybe I should add Kant.
I've had a love/hate relationship with Che. There is such a mythical-like legacy to him. I agree with his socialistic ideas, but I can't ever support someone who picks up the gun.
Marx is fascinating and i love reading his critiques on free market society.
I love C.S. Lewis. T.S Elliot is my favorite poet.
Jesus and Lao Tzu sustain me - as much as i am sustainable.
 
blueyedpoet said:
Speaking of Star Trek, if Picard were to really exist I would have to put him on my list - the character seems to have a very Kantian philosophy, so maybe I should add Kant.
Hmmm, interesting connection. Then I guess DS9 would embody the Hobbesian outlook, the original would be...I don't know, Nietzschean (the indomitable will of the ubermensch!)? and Voyager would be...?

lol now I'm picturing Immanuel Kant in a spandex Starfleet uniform. lol
 
yolland said:
Gene Rodenberry. His notion of the Prime Directive has profoundly affected my social and political thought.

I have an in-law who once turned the TV off when Star Trek came on, citing the series 'stinky morals' for the action. American conservatism at it's most illogical.
 
ouizy said:

I kind of enjoy her for Machiavellian reasons. Very powerful businessmen are part of her cult, including Alan Greenspan.

Melon
 
Sherry Darling said:

I knew Che would end up on this list. I have always personally been very conflicted about him. Even if he is always portrayed in movies by ludicriously hot actors. ;)

He was cute, but a ruthless killer.....
After he died he became a hero of Third World socialist revolutionary movements. And how's that working?
Fidel left him to die in in Bolivia since there was too much competition.
Sadly, the hell they both reeked is still there today.
 
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