Re: top 5 favorite & disliked philosophers
by nonsolopossibile on December 13th, 2012, 9:37 am
I'm surprised to see so many people list Russell in their dislikes. I found his book "Power" brilliant, if not verging on prophetic. It still remains for me one of the best resources for understanding totalitarianism, revolutions and authority - which is exciting today. I liked that it turns us back to self-criticism rather than blaming the worlds problems on evil atheists or backwards believers or godless communists, instead we're asked to look at the impulse to power, which is a danger for each of us.
Favourites:
Paulo Freire - education for liberation, for "conscientization", for critical engagement in transforming one's world, for our shared humanisation.
Noam Chomsky - the idea of manufacturing consent, the doctrine of good intentions, ecumenical alliances, but also his democratic-socialist/anarcho-syndacilist ideas, etc.
Karl Marx - filtered through the two above, Freire and Chomsky.
Walter Brueggemann - understanding the Bible as a disjointed and ragged conversation among exiles, reading the prophets as criticism of the empire, and generally being able to trace the contours of the text in ways that are pastorally relevant but also true to the strange, Jewish, ancient, otherworldliness of the message.
Martin Luther King - paradigmatic prophet, does the whole tearing down and building up thing, there's the urgency of "Why We Can't Wait," met with the timelessness of most everything else.
Slavoj Zizek - I like his anecdotal, story-telling, weaving a narrative style, his fresh and enjoyable engagement with old and marginal ideas, from theology and pop-culture, and for making continental philosophy seem relevant to me.
Guru Nanak - Sikhism is incredible.
Least Favourites:
Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris - Religion causes all the problems, say these partisans of the Iraq War, torture, and defenders of U.S. foreign policy. I agree with Chomsky and Hedges, these guys subscribe to the state religion which is more dangerous than any. Tariq Ali bursts the myth of the "clash of civilisations" which the New Atheists profess. I miss Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Russell, Freud, Marx and real atheist critiques.
Ayn Rand - Surely for the same reasons as everyone else. Throw in Milton Friedman and the Chicago School with her.
The Christian Right - Just about all of it.
Pope Benedict (Cardinal Ratzinger) - for dismissing Liberation Theology as Marxism, for abandoning and denouncing the Church of Latin America for standing up for the poor.
Dante - For being too long, too confusing, too hellish and too influential. Throw in Milton.