Who are the most important thinkers right now?

[Anonymous]

Robert Sapolski

[Anonymous]

That guy who came up with the theory of luxury beliefs

[Anonymous]

Bernard-Henri Lévy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think Ibram X Kendi will be remembered as a popular political scholar who successfully sold a well-meaning but unproven theory on how to end racism. He will be remembered for both the concept's failure and worse, its further polarization of a society. And I say this as someone who's been fighting racism for almost 40 years now.

+1
Except I think he won’t be remembered by all that many.
It’s just that most who know of him are familiar with his work and theories through a mandatory anti-racist seminar or “training” that we were forced to attend that left a bitter taste in our mouths, particularly when he committed to the conclusion that discrimination is the tool that is necessary to use in order to correct past discrimination.
Basically—he is preaching “do unto others as you feel they have done unto you” rather than the golden rule.
And a lot of people get some immediate satisfaction from that sort of revenge-based policy. But it doesn’t actually serv as a useful tool if the goal is to move forward as a society in harmony with one another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jordan Peterson

Yes, he’s an important thinker for incels

If you really think this, I am fairly certain that you have not heard more than a 20-second clip of his thoughts.
A very small part of his focus at one time was in helping lost young men find meaning in their lives and in trying to figure out why so many were feeling so lost and as if their lives were lacking in direction or meaning as compared to former generations. And he has helped many young men turn their lives around by guiding them on a path toward responsibility, accountability, and purpose.

But he covers so many more topics in his clinical research and body of work. He’s a highly educated, widely published, bright scholar in his field (and this was the case long before he started trending about five years ago in YouTube for challenging Canadian law that was seeking to compel speech. (He was honestly questioning why any law should be made that was requiring someone to say a certain thing rather than just choose to not say the thing or not address it at all. In that particular case, it happened to be a law requiring someone to address someone by their preferred pronouns, with criminal penalties attached if one declined to do this. And his point was “I’m happy to do this to be polite in society, but the idea that anyone is required to address anyone in ANY particular way under threat of violation of the law is unprecedented and tyrannical. Why would we want government to make such a law?” Suddenly, from that, he was branded as anti-trans and anti-liberal.
And this made him re-think a lot of the ideas help by so-called liberals who, it turns out, are maybe not so liberal anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m going to say Bill Maher and Al Gore. Both ahead of their time and called it( climate change for one and Donald trump for the other) ahead of their time.

+1 on Bill Maher
I am a conservative who is not a big fan. And it is interesting to see that he is one of the few who is willing to say to both liberals and conservatives “this ain’t it”

[Anonymous]

Mahmood Mamdani
Carlo Rovelli
Jürgen Habermas
Slavoj Žižek
Bernard Lewis
Judith Butler
Saidiya Hartman
Noam Chomsky
Martha Nussbaum

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jordan Peterson

Yes, he’s an important thinker for incels

If you really think this, I am fairly certain that you have not heard more than a 20-second clip of his thoughts.
A very small part of his focus at one time was in helping lost young men find meaning in their lives and in trying to figure out why so many were feeling so lost and as if their lives were lacking in direction or meaning as compared to former generations. And he has helped many young men turn their lives around by guiding them on a path toward responsibility, accountability, and purpose.

But he covers so many more topics in his clinical research and body of work. He’s a highly educated, widely published, bright scholar in his field (and this was the case long before he started trending about five years ago in YouTube for challenging Canadian law that was seeking to compel speech. (He was honestly questioning why any law should be made that was requiring someone to say a certain thing rather than just choose to not say the thing or not address it at all. In that particular case, it happened to be a law requiring someone to address someone by their preferred pronouns, with criminal penalties attached if one declined to do this. And his point was “I’m happy to do this to be polite in society, but the idea that anyone is required to address anyone in ANY particular way under threat of violation of the law is unprecedented and tyrannical. Why would we want government to make such a law?” Suddenly, from that, he was branded as anti-trans and anti-liberal.
And this made him re-think a lot of the ideas help by so-called liberals who, it turns out, are maybe not so liberal anymore.

He's not really know for anything he did prior to 5 years ago or whenever it was. It's not like he was a known quantity before then.

[Anonymous]

Heather Cox Richardson

Jamie Raskin

[Anonymous]

Juan Cole

[Anonymous]

Sam Harris

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jordan Peterson

Yes, he’s an important thinker for incels

If you really think this, I am fairly certain that you have not heard more than a 20-second clip of his thoughts.
A very small part of his focus at one time was in helping lost young men find meaning in their lives and in trying to figure out why so many were feeling so lost and as if their lives were lacking in direction or meaning as compared to former generations. And he has helped many young men turn their lives around by guiding them on a path toward responsibility, accountability, and purpose.

But he covers so many more topics in his clinical research and body of work. He’s a highly educated, widely published, bright scholar in his field (and this was the case long before he started trending about five years ago in YouTube for challenging Canadian law that was seeking to compel speech. (He was honestly questioning why any law should be made that was requiring someone to say a certain thing rather than just choose to not say the thing or not address it at all. In that particular case, it happened to be a law requiring someone to address someone by their preferred pronouns, with criminal penalties attached if one declined to do this. And his point was “I’m happy to do this to be polite in society, but the idea that anyone is required to address anyone in ANY particular way under threat of violation of the law is unprecedented and tyrannical. Why would we want government to make such a law?” Suddenly, from that, he was branded as anti-trans and anti-liberal.
And this made him re-think a lot of the ideas help by so-called liberals who, it turns out, are maybe not so liberal anymore.

This seems to be the thoughts of many people regarding these issues. How is this so unique or brilliant?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jordan Peterson

Yes, he’s an important thinker for incels

If you really think this, I am fairly certain that you have not heard more than a 20-second clip of his thoughts.
A very small part of his focus at one time was in helping lost young men find meaning in their lives and in trying to figure out why so many were feeling so lost and as if their lives were lacking in direction or meaning as compared to former generations. And he has helped many young men turn their lives around by guiding them on a path toward responsibility, accountability, and purpose.

But he covers so many more topics in his clinical research and body of work. He’s a highly educated, widely published, bright scholar in his field (and this was the case long before he started trending about five years ago in YouTube for challenging Canadian law that was seeking to compel speech. (He was honestly questioning why any law should be made that was requiring someone to say a certain thing rather than just choose to not say the thing or not address it at all. In that particular case, it happened to be a law requiring someone to address someone by their preferred pronouns, with criminal penalties attached if one declined to do this. And his point was “I’m happy to do this to be polite in society, but the idea that anyone is required to address anyone in ANY particular way under threat of violation of the law is unprecedented and tyrannical. Why would we want government to make such a law?” Suddenly, from that, he was branded as anti-trans and anti-liberal.
And this made him re-think a lot of the ideas help by so-called liberals who, it turns out, are maybe not so liberal anymore.

He's not really know for anything he did prior to 5 years ago or whenever it was. It's not like he was a known quantity before then.

He may not have been widely known to the general public prior to the publicity around his resistance to that particular Canadian law, but Peterson was an accomplished academic and a popular teacher at the University of Toronto and Harvard. Some people may not care for him, but he is far from a crackpot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ezra Klein

No. Eyeroll.

+1

+2 who knew Erza read dcum 😆

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jordan Peterson

Yes, he’s an important thinker for incels

If you really think this, I am fairly certain that you have not heard more than a 20-second clip of his thoughts.
A very small part of his focus at one time was in helping lost young men find meaning in their lives and in trying to figure out why so many were feeling so lost and as if their lives were lacking in direction or meaning as compared to former generations. And he has helped many young men turn their lives around by guiding them on a path toward responsibility, accountability, and purpose.

But he covers so many more topics in his clinical research and body of work. He’s a highly educated, widely published, bright scholar in his field (and this was the case long before he started trending about five years ago in YouTube for challenging Canadian law that was seeking to compel speech. (He was honestly questioning why any law should be made that was requiring someone to say a certain thing rather than just choose to not say the thing or not address it at all. In that particular case, it happened to be a law requiring someone to address someone by their preferred pronouns, with criminal penalties attached if one declined to do this. And his point was “I’m happy to do this to be polite in society, but the idea that anyone is required to address anyone in ANY particular way under threat of violation of the law is unprecedented and tyrannical. Why would we want government to make such a law?” Suddenly, from that, he was branded as anti-trans and anti-liberal.
And this made him re-think a lot of the ideas help by so-called liberals who, it turns out, are maybe not so liberal anymore.

He's not really know for anything he did prior to 5 years ago or whenever it was. It's not like he was a known quantity before then.

He may not have been widely known to the general public prior to the publicity around his resistance to that particular Canadian law, but Peterson was an accomplished academic and a popular teacher at the University of Toronto and Harvard. Some people may not care for him, but he is far from a crackpot.

There are plenty of accomplished academics and popular teachers. That's not what this thread is about though. What is a core idea or concept from his corpus of scholarship that makes him stand out as a thinker above his peers?