Popular Public Intellectuals Poll

[O]ur biggest problem isn't Muslims but our own intelligentsia, the Camus of today, if you will.

Today Prospect Magazine posted its winners in their poll recently conducted to list the West's top public intellectual beauty contestants . Noam Chomsky is number one. No, not Robert Spencer, not Hirsi Ali, not Ali Sina, not Ibn Warraq, not VS Naipaul.

Our public intellectuals are not their public intellectuals. We have two publics in the West. I write on occasion that we will face a civil war here because of our Left dhimmi fascists siding with Right fascists, eco-fascists, and primitive fascist Muslims. But there are names on the list below that show the divisions in the collective mind of the Left dhimmi fascists too. Christopher Hitchens is number five.

The point is that some on the so-called Left are sensible enough to know that they are betrayed by the likes of Chomsky, and that the Left is two things if anything: Left fascism on the one side, and Teddy Roosevelt Progressivism on the other. Making this division clear to those self-identified Leftists is tough. Still, one may see it in the results of the poll.

Most Leftists, like most everyone, make their public ideological decisions on the basis of sociability. If an idea sounds good or satisfies ones self-image, then regardless of the history of the idea, regardless of its possible sinister implications, one takes up the idea naively and carries it as ones own, being a nice and sociable and moral person. Don't wade through that Herder, never heard of that Fichte, never picked at that Sorel. No, and they won't because those foundational philosophers are not what the average liberal 'caring- sharing' person wants to see in himself and in his attitudes. Don't dare to dig through Darre to find the roots of fascism in ecology. No, our intellectuals love bunnies, not Nazis. But, there they go, hippity-hoppiting down the slippity-sloppity slope to fascism without realizing it.

There are, as one may see in the poll below, some who don't like the direction of the path we're on. Trust me, they will not listen to the words of Herder. They will not plunge into Fichte's pools of thought to find out why they don't like what the West is becoming. They won't uncover the meaning of the Left dhimmi fascism we see so clearly under the thin cover of Sorel. Ideas gestated in the mind of Feuerbach will never see the light in the mind of the average Left dhimmi fascist. But the poll shows that there is an intuitive splitting going on in the Left, so-called.

The times, they are a'changin'. Most people believe what most people believe, and those "most people" are the public intellectuals who con the majority of "most people" who haven't got the time or the interest to inquire deeply into the matters of the foundations of public philosophy. But the public intelligentsia is divided, and it's taking on a new direction. The Left dhimmi fascists are still number one according to Left dhimmi fascists followers. But that's a'changin slowly, and in time there is a hope that most people will believe what most people believe, and "most people" will hate fascism. When the list of top ten public intellectuals among the liberal segment of the West includes six anti-fascists, then most people will believe that Left dhimmi fasicsm is bad. When Spencer et al are in the top ten, then we'll see that most people have always believed that Islam is a primitive form of fascism. I know I've always believed that. I find others who've always believed it too. They obviously have extremely short memories, but why be picky?
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Dr. Pepper writes:

I don't think anyone knows clearly what the sociology of Left and Right (or more precisely, of PC and non-PC) is in the USA or the West in general.

We can't be sure how many ordinary people are PC, and how many are not PC.

If there is a "silent majority" of non-PC people, they are seriously handicapped by the fact that the general sociopolitical culture is dominated by PC -- the media, entertainment, education, legal system, politics, public discourse in general -- all dominated by PC.

The problem we face is not a conscious problem: the dominance of PC over ordinary people in our West is not a dominance of ideas thought and discussed: it is a dominance of givens passively swallowed, as unconsciously and naturally as oxygen is breathed.

Posted by: Dr. Pepper at November 10, 2005 03:01 PM

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[O]ur recent poll to find the world's top public intellectual [ran] last month in conjunction with Foreign Policy magazine.

You may have already heard that the poll was won by Noam Chomsky, followed by Umberto Eco, Richard Dawkins, Václav Havel and Christopher Hitchens.

As well as the complete results of the poll, the Prospect website features a range of articles on the results, including Robin Blackburn celebrating Chomsky's victory, Oliver Kamm denouncing it, brief biographies of the top five and David Herman's commentary on the results.

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/intellectuals/results

www.prospect-magazine.co.uk

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More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

Woody Allen

When the collective attitude shifts, when the public's eyes open upon new memes, then we'll find that everyone agrees that before was a time of very unappealing minds, and what did our parents' generation see in those people? Why, they're not pretty at all. Not like us. We are very pretty.