tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post111644713221176331..comments2024-03-24T09:36:51.494-04:00Comments on delagar: DWEMsdelagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-1116587170879447592005-05-20T06:06:00.000-05:002005-05-20T06:06:00.000-05:00Okay here goes my list:1. Gilgamesh even if he is...Okay here goes my list:<BR/>1. Gilgamesh even if he isn't quite a European, he did do the first actual writings and his flood story, well, I think it tops, Moses'.<BR/>Then I agree with you down to 8, I would add Marx, and because I like Carl Jung so much and I know he isn't a European male or is he? I don't agree with the guy about Dickens, although, he is a great writer and his writings did create some changes in society. I might put Thomas Kydd in place of Milton or maybe in place of Shakespear. Does it have to just be ten? <BR/>And what about the ten women. <BR/>Elliot, Austin, Shelly, Browning, Rossetti, Trollope, Kingsley, Bronte, and then I'd have to switch to American writers of which the list would go long past ten.zelda1https://www.blogger.com/profile/04212809913449846878noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-1116550577097263342005-05-19T19:56:00.000-05:002005-05-19T19:56:00.000-05:00See, Trina, this is why we start getting cranky ri...See, Trina, this is why we start getting cranky right there around #8. Johnson's a good pick. I can see why you want him. But is he more influential than Freud? Is he massively influential in the way Plato was? That's why I leave off Dickens, btw -- he's all right, and I do like David Cooperfield, but did he change the face of the Western World the way Plato did? So -- does Johnson do that?<BR/><BR/>Eh -- maybe. You can make the case that he invents dictionaries as we know them. Is that enough to put him on the list?delagarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-1116539587296365972005-05-19T16:53:00.000-05:002005-05-19T16:53:00.000-05:00Er . . . I would agree pretty much with your 1 - 8...Er . . . I would agree pretty much with your 1 - 8, but I can't believe you left out Samuel Johnson. Compiler of the first comprehensive dictionary of the English language? He'd better be in there.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-1116513170385580482005-05-19T09:32:00.000-05:002005-05-19T09:32:00.000-05:00Ooo...Smith & Marx. Can't believe I didn't think ...Ooo...Smith & Marx. Can't believe I didn't think of them. They'd go very nicely for the 10 slot. But which? Darwin or Freud for 9 and Adam Smith or Karl Marx for 10...see, I'm still stuck.delagarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-1116482476449209572005-05-19T01:01:00.000-05:002005-05-19T01:01:00.000-05:00I'll try it, using slightly more modern European f...I'll try it, using slightly more modern European folks--wish I could include Americans!--:<BR/><BR/>1. Montaigne (the first modern essayist and still highly readable)<BR/><BR/>2. Charles Dickens (his insight and levity are powerfully realized)<BR/><BR/>3. Charles Darwin (read him with a Stephen Jay Gould companion essay or two)<BR/><BR/>4. Albert Einstein (maybe we can understand relativity together, class!)<BR/><BR/>5. Victor Serge (a words-eye view of the Russian Revolution and the etiology of the 20th Century revolutionary world)<BR/><BR/>6. Mozart (modern music begins with Mozart)<BR/><BR/>7. Beethoven (but of course what else could possibly follow Mozart?)<BR/><BR/>8. Adam Smith (because he is more radical and community oriented than most people assume)<BR/><BR/>9. Karl Marx (it would be fun to show how he and Smith overlap in their sensibilities!)<BR/><BR/>10. John Locke (empiricism and individualism is an important element in modern Western thought and economic development of the West in general; though Professor Dahl's "A Preface to Economic Democracy" shows how interpretations of Locke are often too limited to a hyped-up sense of individualism)<BR/><BR/>Funny. I got stuck at 10...I think, however, I was stuck because it was the last slot and I started thinking too hard about it. I wanted Locke originally, but hesitated, thinking about Montesquieu, John Stuart Mill, Spinoza, Bach, Bismarck, and others and trying to find the "appropriate" Dead White European Male. That's why I realized I had to stick with John Locke--because he was really fundamental to me and should have been listed earlier!<BR/><BR/>Still, a useful and fairly enlightening exercise.Mitchell J. Freedmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09999515428915501896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-1116448824217519682005-05-18T15:40:00.000-05:002005-05-18T15:40:00.000-05:00Dickens--master of the novel.Dickens--master of the novel.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com