what you get here

This is not a blog which opines on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers to muse about our social endeavours.
So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

The Bucegi mountains - the range I see from the front balcony of my mountain house - are almost 120 kms from Bucharest and cannot normally be seen from the capital but some extraordinary weather conditions allowed this pic to be taken from the top of the Intercontinental Hotel in late Feb 2020

Sunday, September 19, 2021

Against the Current

Creativity is an over-used word these days…..The reality is greater and greater homogeneity. I have to rack my brains to come up with the names of individuals – including the dead - whose combination of original insights, language and sensibility makes me feel as if I'm being directly addressedI’ve just tried to do that exercise – and here’s what I came up with….So far. Interesting that most tend to be awkward characters and out of sympathy with the prevailing mood. 

I need to include more women – and Chinese!! 

Name

Nationality 

Reason for inclusion

Perry Anderson

1938-

UK/US

 

The insights his wide reading give of both other countries and previous periods – and the elegance with which they are expressed

Jacques Barzun

1907-2012

French/US

 

Historian – with special interests in cultural history and history of ideas

Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945

German

 

Pastor whose protests and writings against the Hitler regime continue to inspire; and who was executed in the final days of the Second WW

Brecht poetry

 

He may not have been a very laudable character but his political poetry is very powerful

Peter Drucker 1909-2005

Austro/US

America’s first writer on management

JK Galbraith 

1908-2006

Canadian/.US

The breadth of his experience in both public service and academia gave him the ability to express home truths in a pithy, amusing and provocative way – much to the discomfort of the powerful

Francis Fukuyama  1952-

US

He writes brilliantly – on a wide range of subjects

Johan Galtung 1930-

Norwegian

Initially a sociologist but has made major contributions to other social sciences. Occupied the world’s first chair in Peace Studies

David Graeber 1961-2020

US/UK

Anthropologist, anarchist and activist – and prolific writer

Chris Hitchens 1949-2011

UK/US

may lack the humility but compensates with his brilliant oratory and range of reading

Ivan Illich 1926-2002

Austro/South American

A cleric who moved on to work with Paolo Freire and to brilliant critiques of western society

Clive James 1939-2019

Anglo Australian

A hugely underrated essayist and aphorist

Paul Johnson 1928-

English

is an extraordinarily cultured and highly independent English historian whose book on “Intellectuals” did him no favours. “Modern Times” OK

Arthur Koestler 1905-1983

Hungarian/UK

Spanned journalism, literary and scientific work

Deirdre McCloskey 1942-

US

may be too much the American centrist - but is both highly original and a fantastically clear writer

Pankaj Mishra 1969-

Indian

A bit of an autodidact essayist 

Edgar Morin 1921-

 

French

a real original – a prolific writer who breaks disciplinary boundaries and speaks frankly even about the most personal matters for which French academics take him to task. This is a superbly crafted profile

Michel Onfray 1959-

French

An original, prolific and provocative French thinker – who set up a people’s university in Brittany

Elinor Ostrom 1933-2012

US

Has straddled various disciplines – and produced the key intellectual justification for the new work on “the commons”

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