Ghost in the Wire

What'd they do, just copy from the bestseller list and throw in a few "eccentric" tokens?

I'm curious why precisely you would put Murakami up there...as a public intellectual?

Well there are other novelists, so I'm assuming novelist counts as a category. And as far as novelists go, at least as far as novelists commenting on the uncanny in everyday life (a theme that captivates me), there's no one better.

And independently, having read interviews of/with Murakami (with topics ranging from the importance of jazz to exercise regimens and what a certain someone might even call the care of the self), and having been utterly fascinated by the quasi-non-fiction of his Underground, I think he does a lot more that just write novels. So damn straight, I'd give him a top five nod if I could.

You? Who would you add?

Well my first response is a depressing but uncompromising: "they're all dead," followed by the more entertaining: "yeah I like Markson and Coetzee and J-L Nancy and Eco too...don't forget John Berger and René Girard, Zizek and Julia Kristeva or any number of up and coming scholars and writers" then circling back to a qualifying: "like n+1, I think this generation doesn't begin to match up, yet..."

Third response might be a smart-ass quote from Foucault:

"The word intellectual strikes me as odd. Personally, I've never met any intellectuals. I've met people who write novels, others who treat the sick. People who work in economics and others who write electronic music. I've met people who teach, people who paint, and people of whom I have never really understood what they do... But intellectuals? Never.

On the otherhand, I've met a lot of people who talk about "the intellectual". And listening to them, I've got some idea of what such an animal could be. It's not difficult -- he's quite personified. He's guilty about pretty well everything: about speaking out and about keeping silent, about doing nothing and about getting involved in everything... In short, the intellectual is raw material for a verdict, a sentence, a condemnation, an exlusion...

I don't find that intellectuals talk too much, since for me they don't exist. But I do find that more and more is being said about intellectuals, and I don't find it very reassuring.

I have an unfortunate habit. When people speak about this or that, I try to imagine what the result would be if translated into reality. When they "criticize" someone, when they "denounce" his ideas, when they "condemn" what he writes, I imagine them in the ideal situation in which they would have complete power over him. I take the words they use -- demolish, destroy, reduce to silence, bury -- and see what the effect would be if they were taken literally. And I catch a glimpse of the radiant city in which the intellectual would be in prison, or if he were also a theoretician, hanged, of course."

Source: Michel Foucault:The Masked Philosopher. Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and other writings 1977-1984. (page 324)

ps. Your list is interesting all the same. Would someone like Fidel or Chavez or S. Marcos ever have a place though? If not, why not?

Well, I hadn't heard of Lessig, Zakaria, or Lanier. In fact, I haven't heard of half of the people on their list. I don't know if that means that my interests aren't intellectual enough or aren't public enough...

Meanwhile, what's "top" mean here? Best at being intellectual, best at being public, or best at combining the two?

These votes always say more about who's voting than anything else. But FWIW, I'd go for Naomi Klein, Amartya Sen, and Slavoj Zizek as people who maintain a basic intellectual curiosity combined with a desire to communicate. And I'd write in Alain de Botton and Julian Cope.

I agree: the category of "top" certainly says more about the voters than the votees. I think it's for that reason that it should be interesting to see what voting patterns emerge, if only because it may tell us a little something about what both "public" and "intellectual" mean to the voting population, at least in the aggregate, and at least in the here and now of this particular poll. But then again, maybe Hitchens will "win," and then I will just be sad.

I love the name, the look, the imagery, the subject matter-- neat blog. One of the better ones I have seen by an academic. Cheers...

Havel, good choice.

I enjoyed your site so much so i have to say it to you. Discontent makes rich men poor: http://www.bartleby.com/100/ , we elected them , I want to achieve it by not dying!