The Glade 4.0

What happened in our society that we no longer seem to produce philosophers? Where are the Freuds, Jungs, Kants and Sartres? Have they been replaced by the Levitts, Gladwells and other "economists" or perhaps by the science of Michio Kaku and Stephen Hawking? Where is the human-aspect that examines beyond cold-rationality and logic? Have we become so enamored of technology that people too are unconsciously being reduced to series of 1s and 0s?

For that matter where are our time's Steinbecks, Tolstoys, F. Scott Fitzgeralds and Brontes? The Beethovens, Davincis and Beatniks? What works of modern pop culture would stand the test of time?

_________________

I think we will have to look back in order to see them. History is, well, history....the present is hard to look at through that kind of lens. I don't think we will really understand and appreciate who the artistic/philosophy greats were until much later. It seems that the best of the best were always underappreciated and misunderstood during their time.

_________________
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

What makes you think those people don't exist?

Where/who are they?

_________________

Me. I just haven't been discovered yet!

_________________
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

The 21st century is a bit young, yet, but for your persual, I'll give you the 20th:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ph ... th_century

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

You're question is loaded. There are no philosophers/thinkers of this age who have stood the test of time, because that time hasn't passed yet.

People say the same thing about music, art, inventions and ideas etc.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Everyone will stand the test of time through really effective futuristic search engines. Sites like Pandora group you to similar artists, and so on.

_________________
"The map is not the territory."

I don't know, but I don't think today is any different in yesterday. Current theorists/etc aren't typically known today because they aren't taught, and they aren't taught until "experts" have introduced those thoughts/ideas into academic arenas.

Now, if you ask people in those respected fields, I'm sure they could provide you a list of people of the same caliber with defining thoughts or revolutionary insights that are not known yet outside their circles.

If you need to "search" to find it (using a search engine), most would argue it did not stand the test of time.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

So then you define "stand the test of time" as learning through a classroom, television, a friend, or anything other than the Internet? Interesting. Nobody is born with knowledge.

_________________
"The map is not the territory."

My use of the word "search engine" wasn't in exclusivity. It was in context to the example you used. Futhermore, "The internet" is not synonomous with "searching on the internet".

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

You are searching for Beauty in a society that doesn't really know what it is.

_________________
"I've got twenty ways to tell you shut the f*ck up / nineteen of them are twenty-four bars long / the other one goes: SHUT THE F*CK UP" - Aesop Rock
"There is no God higher than truth." -- Gandhi
Formerly: Tulamian

Or another line of thought, you are searching for Beauty in a society in which the concept has been decentralized and no longer defined by the "elite".

You aren't looking hard enough.

_________________

Point them out I want to read their works

_________________

Fiction
Junot Diaz
Amy Bloom
Cormack McCarthy
J.M. Coetzee
Salman Rushdie
A.S. Byatt
Ian McKewan
Larry McMurtry (because you've obviously never read The Last Picture Show_
Thomas Pynchon
Mario Vargas Llosa
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Milan Kundera
Isaac Babel
Vladimir Nabokov
John Updike
Thom Jones
T.C. Boyle
Carlos Fuentes
Julio Cortazar
Clarice Lispector
Manuel Puig
Umberto Eco
Jorge Luis Borges
Mariano Azuela
Murilo Rubiao
Albert Camus
Jean Giono
Bao Ninh

Poetry
Bin Ramke
Donald Revelle
Tracy Philpot
Kevin Young
Yusef Komunyakaau
Brenda Hillman

Playwrights
David Cranes
Bertolt Brecht
Harold Pinter
Tom Stoppard
Eugene Ionesco

Philosophy
Slavoj Zizek
Iris Murdoch
Umberto Eco
Roland Barthes
Jacques Lacan
Julia Kristeva

That's just off the top of my head and limited to the 20th Century, the majority of which are either still living or wrote after 1960.

_________________

I think it's going to be hard to identify these people. What did Freud's, Darwin's, et al contemporaries think of them?

That is a rhetorical question, largely because it seems to run the gamut. Mozart widely praised from his youth, to some famous creators not getting credit til after their death. Still, the point remains: how would this sort of person appear to society?

There's also probably a sort of older-is-more-revered thing going on here, too. It's hard to top Beethoven on a scale of epicness, and in part I'd say it's because classical music has a sort of aura to it nowadays. Does someone like John Williams compare? He definitely has the popularity needed already, with a lot of his tunes instantly recognizable and part of popular culture... but something about it just doesn't compare. Samuel Barber died in 1981, and his most well-known work compares more favorably I suppose, but he's probably a lot more obscure than John Williams for better or for worse. :p

Literature is not my forte and I won't even try, here. I'm also failing to come up with someone like Freud.

Chomsky is probably worth being mentioned? He might fall under too scientific if you're putting Hawking aside, though.

I also wonder if changes in society itself recently make this picture a whole lot murkier. If the great American authors of a century past first published in today's world, would things turn out differently? Probably too complicated for me to even try to tackle... especially given my lack of credentials in any number of applicable areas. :p

Oh Faaaaaarskyyyyyy....



Personal opinion, of course, but I'd also add José Saramago to that list.

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

I should add a caveat to Cormack McCarthy and mention two novels: Blood Meridian and The Road.

_________________

I haven't read Blood Meridian, but The Road, well...I can see why it's not for everyone. I thought it was good, though. But maybe there's just something wrong with me :p

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Ahhhhhh much love for Khross.

_________________

Yes, my to read list just expanded a fair bit.

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones