List #349827349827304

(I like to make lists.)

Foreign Policy recently published its "100 Top Global Thinkers of 2009", which I found immensely interesting. Though some of the picks were far from surprises (Obama, anyone?), the feature highlighted their major contributions in a way that emphasized not their right- or wrongness but rather their importance, and I enjoyed reading about some of the people whom I was not familiar with. So, in the spirit of things...

Top Ten People Who Have Influenced My View of the World and How I Live My Life

1. Phil Mikaelsen
Mikaelsen is a writer of children's/young adult books and thus is probably a surprise as number one. However, Mikaelsen's Touching Spirit Bear remains the most important book I have ever read. It illustrates, above all, humanity's capacity for change, from preferences to paradigms, and how everyone, no matter what their experiences, has the ability to do good. This is one of the most central views I hold: we all can change, and this very convincing, 240-page book instilled it in me.

2. my mother
From my mom, I have learned that not being able to control one's temper is unflattering, a lack of flexibility in thinking is inhibiting, and that the little things only count when taken in the context of the bigger picture.

3. Noam Chomsky
Yes, Chomsky is somewhat radical. Yes, he's blunt and at times offensive. But he's not afraid to speak his mind, and he can put together evidence in a way others simply haven't and make it extremely convincing. Chomsky takes old news and makes it new. His lesson: the scientific method.

4. Aldous Huxley
1984 scared the living daylights out of 14-year-old me, mainly because I could see symptoms of Big Brother's world in my own. But Brave New World was and continues to be absolutely terrifying--its symptoms also show, but what is so dangerous about Huxley's future is that it is welcomed by its victims, not feared like Orwell's. Huxley's analysis of pleasure as the greatest weapon is, in my humble and correct opinion, spot-on.

5. Davey Havok/Jade Puget
I lumped these two together because of their mutual role in writing the lyrics for the bands AFI and Blaqk Audio. AFI is and probably always will be my favorite band (even though their most recent album comparatively sucks) because of the poignancy and pertinence of their lyrics. When I was struggling with depression, Davey's "dark room" and "poisoned hearts" rang true--and even now, I continue to find new lines in their songs that have a beautiful applicability. The masterfulness of their lyrics is this openness: in different settings, they mean different things, but they never lose their truth.

6. Malcolm X
Malcolm X repels many people because of his radicalism, his unabashedness, and, in some people's eyes, his racism. However, to only see Malcolm in this light is to ignore the transformation he underwent during and after his pilgrimage to Mecca. In realizing that not all white men are devils and completely reforming his ideology, he illustrates, once again, our ability to change--but also our willingness to take that change and use it as a force for further change. Malcolm X's lesson: learning never ends.

7. Mark Smith
Mr. Smith was my AP European History teacher in high school. He showed me the power of history and how the old cliche about repetition is extremely true. Existence is a pattern; seeing the future is as easy as figuring it out. But history is also wonderfully rich, and thus any historical analysis is incomplete, which I find fascinating. In order to know where you're going, you have to know where you've been, but you can never know completely. And sometimes, perhaps, that's okay.

8. Arthur Pigou
I am a nerd. I put a dead economist on my list.
(Pigou's focus on the externalities of economic activities is extremely relevant today in a world where markets and their effects will only become more complex and more intertwined with business, politics, religion, human rights, the environment--all the major forces at play. His lesson: consequences matter.)

9. Thomas Friedman
Okay, so I'm not a huge Friedman fan. His writing's a little bland for my tastes, and I just can't accept some of his ideas. Yet I love studying terrorism, and in the course of doing so, I came across Friedman's book Longitudes and Attitudes, which is essentially a collection of all the material he wrote from a few months before 9/11 to the invasion of Iraq. There is no better way to get to know an author than to read his/her entire body of work, and while I didn't do quite that, I did gain a respect for Friedman's ability to latch onto a few major ideas and then illustrate their roles in global affairs. Friedman also forced me to realize that, contrary to my own view, the Islamic world is largely at fault for what I like to call, in true Friedman fashion, the "terror epidemic". As a future foreign affairs journalist (perhaps), I feel that he's been a good mentor, albeit an unknowing one.

10. Henry Kissinger
Kissinger doesn't mince words. His critique of idealist policies is at times subtly scathing. However, his bias has a point. Kissinger showed me that blind idealism, whether liberal or neoconservative, rests on assumptions that historically have been false from before idealism's conception to the present. Any idea, no matter how longstanding, deserves to be reexamined; it is comfort of use that often inhibits change for the better. (Also, if you wish to commit patriotic suicide, Kissinger's Diplomacy is a good place to start.)