Vote Now! Top Five Thinkers for Our Times

And hurry, voting ends next week!

Pick your top choices from 100 nominated public intellectuals worldwide, or write in your own favorite. It’s your chance to think about the “Thinkers
Shaping the Tenor of Our Times” — and make your thinking part of those times.

Not that I’d dream of influencing anyone; Thinking Parents think for themselves and help their children learn to do the same. But here are JJ’s power of mind (education) and power of story picks:

Howard Gardner
Steven Pinker
Salman Rushdie
Christopher Hitchens
Richard Dawkins

“CRITERIA: Although the men and women on this list are some of the
world’s most sophisticated thinkers, the criteria to make the list could
not be more simple. Candidates must be living and still active in public
life. They must have shown distinction in their particular field as well
as an ability to influence wider debate, often far beyond the borders of
their own country.”

Otherwise I would’ve written in Carl Sagan, and I forgot Jacques Barzun isn’t dead yet, right, even though he’s in his second century of life:

Good grief! — what are we looking for? A world leader or a bowling buddy?

It has been a very long time since America had a world-class president: Wilson the academic from Princeton, Roosevelt the patrician from the Hudson Valley, Kennedy the sophisticate from New England, and Eisenhower the beloved World War II hero.

Other than that, we’ve had a haberdasher, an actor, a peanut farmer, a few lawyers, and a failed businessman and military drop-out. None of them brought any great degree of intelligence or imagination to the highest office in the land. And still today, we’re just looking for a hand-shaker: someone who we think can chummy up to coal miners, factory workers, farmers, inner-city minorities, pregnant teens, and high school drop-outs.
Who can kiss babies, chug-a-lug beer and shoot pool. . .

This is the dumbing-down of America and the dumbing-down of our candidates. It is what Jacques Barzun, one-time dean of Columbia University, alluded to nearly 50 years ago in “The House of Intellect”: many Americans, clinging to an exaggerated sense of ‘democracy’, actually fear or envy or are suspicious of excellence.

. . . is he still intellectually active in public life, does anyone know? If not, at least his thinking is!

The Top 100 Public Intellectuals
May/June 2008
They are some of the world’s most introspective philosophers and
rabble-rousing clerics. A few write searing works of fiction and uncover
the mysteries of the human mind.
Others are at the forefront of modern finance, politics, and human
rights. In the second Foreign Policy/Prospect list of top public
intellectuals, we reveal the thinkers who are shaping the tenor of our time.

We chose the first 100 (click here for our criteria). Now, it’s your
chance to choose who should receive top honors by voting for the world’s
top five public intellectuals. The list of the Top 20 Public
Intellectuals—based on your votes—will be published in our July/August
issue.

Here’s how to vote:

1. Choose your five top intellectuals in the ballot below by clicking on
an individual’s name. (If you are unfamiliar with any of our picks, just
check out their bios.) To undo a pick, simply click the box again.
2. Write in a candidate. Who should we have included, but did not? Click
the “Write in a candidate” option at the bottom of the ballot, and let
us know who we missed.
3. Submit your votes.

You may only vote once. Voting closes May 15.

Who will YOU choose and why?