This month’s Atlantic feature on “25 Brave Thinkers” illustrates, to me, the same kind of thing that is wrong with our health care debate. Their list is mostly a mix of millionaires, billionaires, miscellaneous big shots, and people with permanent positions at academic institutions.
I’m sure a lot of them do great work. But how can what you’re doing be so brave when there are no possible serious repercussions? Why is it so gutsy for Freeman Dyson to spin his global warming denial nonsense when he’s a permanent member of the Institute for Advanced Study? What could possibly happen to him as a result?
I love my iPhone and I give Steve Jobs (who is on the list) credit for that. But how on earth is it braver for a billionaire businessman to unveil a new line of consumer electronics than it is for Joe Shmo middle-class person to take out a loan to open up a new business?
We live in a society where the well off have everything and the poor have nothing. Do we have to laud the rich as brave heroes, to top it all off?
Update. I didn’t articulate this well, but what bothers me most is juxtapositions like this:
Morgan Tsvangirai, Prime Minister of Zimbabwe
Why he’s brave: He stood his ground against Robert Mugabe and is now bringing some normalcy back to the country.
Jeff Zucker, President of NBC Universal
Why he’s brave: He retained Jay Leno and moved late-night TV to prime time.
The Moar You Know
Who pays the bills over at the Atlantic?
That’s what I thought.
namekarB
I concur. If we are going to laud brave heroes, we should be heaping praise on Murican Gladiators in football, basketball, hockey, et al.
The Grand Panjandrum
Sorry Doug but you are not correct here. An alternate definition for brave is: a fine showing. I think they mean it in that sense. In this case they are correct, many of the people on that list a indeed brave thinkers.
Go have a couple beers or a few shots of some good tequila reposado. You seem a bit out of sorts today.
catclub
“Do we have to laud the rich as brave heroes, to top it all off?”
Yes. SATSQ
M.B.
Welcome to The Atlantic magazine (and the New Yorker, and the New York Times magazing, etc. etc.). And they wonder why no one cares about print media anymore. When I first moved to San Francisco I read the Chronicle a few times, before realizing that in the features sections all of the same people (fashion designers, dancers, writers, etc) were featured, over and over again. Literally, from week to week. They were all friends of the editors, I guess. Boooring!!
Brachiator
WTF?
Not a bigshot. And in a state where the probable execution of innocent people is being covered up, definitely counts as brave.
Same with Iftikhar Chaudhry, Chief Justice of Pakistan.
I’ll even defend Steve Jobs over Joe Shmo, “middle-class person to take out a loan to open up a new business.”
ITunes and the iPhone helped change the way that people lived. If Joe Shmo’s new business revolutionizes the way that people do things, then he might count as brave as well.
It’s not about being a billionaire or a bigshot, it’s about the impact of your ideas on the world.
JHF
Right on, DougJ.
DougJ
It’s not about being a billionaire or a bigshot, it’s about the impact of your ideas on the world.
Then call it that, not “brave”.
IndieTarheel
From the way things are looking these days, the rich are lauded as brave heroes BECAUSE they are rich. Only those with enough fortitude to become rich are possessed with the qualities that enable us, the great unwashed masses, to worship them as heroes and give them whatever they desire.
__
Nothing less is to be expected from the Fainting Goats of the Village.
DougJ
Craig Watkins. Job: Dallas District Attorney . Why he’s brave: He’s championing wrongly convicted prisoners and challenging unreasonable sentences.
More’s the pity they included him on a list with Freeman Dyson and the head of NBC.
Why oh why
How dare you diminish the career sacrifices Ben Bernanke and Barack Obama had to make?
Zifnab
Wait, it’s “gutsy” to be a paid shill for a mega-corp more interested in profits today than massive pain and suffering tomorrow?
Shit, these guys would be writing “Profiles in Courage” articles about George Wallace 40 years ago.
The Grand Panjandrum
OK. I read the article again, and I stand corrected. They do use the definition of showing or having courage. However, I think many of those people on that list are very brave. Morgan Tsvangari is one good example. Given that they are looking across a variety of disciplines I see no problem with the list in theory although I do disagree with some of the choices.
I am generally more adverse to the overused word “hero.”
John Sears
America’s basically a Calvinist country. We seem to believe, at a gut, cultural level, that everyone who is wealthy and powerful deserves it because success of any kind flows from God. This also allows us to screw the poor, because they must have done something to deserve their poverty.
Why oh why
Why aren’t Bill Gates and Warren Buffett on the list?
Rock
Yep.
Some people on the list are brave. But a lot of them are simply successful. I think Americans (or the American media) like to to equate success with virtue, with the implication that having such virtue has resulted in success.
It actually is a piece with the belief that poor people are poor due to their moral failings. Successful people must be virtuous, or they would not have succeeded.
Mark S.
Jeff Zucker:
Kill me now.
dmsilev
Assuming, and this is a big assumption, that the Atlantic’s capsule description of Dyson’s views are an accurate description, ‘denial’ is an unfair characterization. He admits that global warming is real, but doesn’t like the mitigation strategies currently being discussed. A better description would be that he believes that the Magic High-Technology Fairy will arrive to save us without the need for any significant efforts right now. That’s probably wrong, but it’s a different sort of wrong from outright denialism.
-dms
slag
You’re on a roll today, DougJ.
What John Sears said.
Yes. That’s how we got here.
henqiguai
@John Sears (#14):
What John Sears said. And, social darwinism, bitchez !
Been waitin’ fer a’ opportunity to spray that one out there…
liberal
Yeah, that’s silly.
But the most offensive item on the list is Ben “bail out all ur banksters” Bernanke.
Cat Lady
Meredith Whitney qualifies. Yes, she’s a millionaire, but in her male dominated world, anyone who tells the truth when all around you people are being highly paid to tell lies takes quite a bit of courage. I hate risk, so I admire anyone who takes risks.
I’d like to see Bunnatine Greenhouse or other whistleblowers. Those people are heroic.
Keith
Their bravery should be rewarded with a cut in their capital gains tax rate and/or the removal of the burden of the dreaded Death Tax.
Elie the Amateur
Rock @ 16
This point of view (if you are rich, God loves you and everything you do is ok), would be right at home with the Calvinists of the 16th century. It has always been a popular notion among the haves throughout the world…
That said, the next 10 to 20 years are going to present many challenges to that notion, I predict. Hard times ahead — lots of change and the vehicle that the rich had to communicate — the bought and paid for media — will not be able to keep them looking good…
Brachiator
@DougJ:
RE: It’s not about being a billionaire or a bigshot, it’s about the impact of your ideas on the world.
The Chief Justice of Pakistan risked imprisonment or worse to stand up to Pervez Musharraf. He may be further imperiled by his comments about the Taliban (he don’t like ’em).
Counts as brave to me.
I take your point about some of the other people on the list (Ralph Nader? Really?) It’s a crappy list because it mixes the worthy with those who are celebrated for no rational reason (yeah, I’m talking about you, Trey Parker and Matt Stone).
liberal
@dmsilev:
IIRC he once made some reference (maybe in the New York Review of Books) to bioengineering some kind of plants or something to grow photovoltaic cells. (No, not based on chloroplasts, but based on your usual PV cell.)
I thought to myself that the guy might be a brilliant scientist, but he doesn’t understand much about biology or engineering.
Shawn in ShowMe
You know whose ideas also had a big impact on the world? Hitler.
DougJ
It’s a crappy list because it mixes the worthy with those who are celebrated for no rational reason (yeah, I’m talking about you, Trey Parker and Matt Stone).
That’s what bothers me most, the mixture of the actually brave with the merely rich and successful.
liberal
@Brachiator:
Yes, because without Jobs, no one would ever have come up with similar technologies/distribution arrangements.
/snark
malraux
Not only that, but Jobs kinda had to do that multiple times. He turned Pixar from a spin-off medical imagining company that wasn’t doing all that great to a genius film studio. And Apple computer itself was founded by a few guys, including Jobs, taking out loans or selling personal items.
dmsilev
@liberal:
re: Freeman Dyson
He’s a theorist, and a fairly abstract one at that. In general, that means that he should be kept far far away from actual laboratories.
-dms
Zifnab
@Brachiator:
But that’s not any “Braver” than Microsoft releasing Windows 7 or Toyota releasing the ’10 Camry or Airbus building a new bigger plane or Exxon drilling a shale oil well.
Apple makes electronic devices. Now they’ve made a new one. Why is that “brave”? That’s business.
Pangloss
America’s Greatest Heroes are Airport Strip Club Customers, says a survey of Airport Strip Club Dancers.
Scott Rock
Well, yeah. If we told the truth–that the rich become rich via a combination of institutional privilege and crass exploitation–we’d have their heads. The rich must, in addition to being rich, be intelligent, morally upstanding and heroic, because we live in a society where Horatio Alger wrote nonfiction.
Matt Taibbi perhaps put it best as the peasant mentality:
tc125231
Well the major reason is that the prevailing current belief system among the rich (and also the “Christianist” crowd, but more on that another time) is a kind of modified Social Darwinism. They adhere to this belief system because it allows them to make a virtue out of every from of self-interest.
1. Acquired wealth is the most important measure of virtue (and, of course, of God’s favor).
2. Due to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, which is God’s Will, it is impossible to have acquireed wealth in any way that God wouldn’t approve of. This is a reincarnation of the Leibnitz proposition (“All things for best in the best of all possible worlds.”) which Voltaire satirized in “Candide” around 400 years ago.
http://www.ams.org/notices/200903/rtx090300376p.pdf
http://www.studyworld.com/newsite/reportessay/literature/Novel%5CCandide__A_Contrast_to_Optimism-176.htm
3. Thus, people who have acquired wealth are both morally and evolutionarily superior. Consequently, their disproprtionate wealth is simply an expression of God’s (or Evolution’s) will. It is part of the ceaseless attempt of the human race to perfect itself in God’s image.
Short summary –they can feel GOOD about having everything. No guilt is required.
This, of course, requires kicking the teachings of Pinko Jesus out of Christianity. (none of this, “It is easier for a camel (hair’s rope) to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter heaven” stuff for this crowd!
One of the depressing things about or so called intellectual elite these days is their propensity for repeating intellectual dead ends that were hashed through hundreds of years ago. Their future, however, is short. Despite endless babble, the planet’s climate is changing. It really doesn’t matter what Freeman Dyson, who is a very old man, wants to say about it.
When people figure out how badly they have been screwed, they will be looking for blood.
Shawn in ShowMe
I haven’t looked at the list but I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that Aung San Suu Kyi, Arundhati Roy aren’t on there.
Zifnab
@Brachiator:
Ralph Nader was brave when he was successful. Now he’s just stupid.
The South Park guys (alongside Seth MacFarlane and David Chapelle and a few other trail blazers) were brave back when they were pushing material that probably should have had them fired. But once they don’t get fired, it’s not really that brave when they keep pushing the line.
South Park’s anti-Scientology episodes – in my opinion – were very ballsy.
Rock
He had the foresight to buy Pixar, but I think that Catmull and Lasseter were the ones that turned it into a genius film studio. I’m not against giving Jobs his due in heading some innovative companies, but Pixar and Renderman existed before Jobs and the technical and creative achievements were made by Catmull and Lasseter and they people they worked with.
Joel
The Atlantic “Brave” list lost all credibility when I saw Freeman Dyson’s name on there. Yeah, an old crank with permanent tenure and no standing in the scientific community is brave.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Lionel Hutz: Mr. Simpson, this is the most blatant case of fraudulent advertising since my suit against the film, “The Never-Ending Story”.
Homer: So. Do you think I have a case?
Hutz: Homer, I don’t use the word “hero” very often, but you are the greatest hero in American history.
Homer: Woo hoo!
Brachiator
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Which is pretty much why Time Magazine made him their Man of the Year in 1938. So, your point would be?
Liberal – (RE: ITunes and the iPhone helped change the way that people lived.) Yes, because without Jobs, no one would ever have come up with similar technologies/distribution arrangements.
The iPhone was originally invented by Leonardo da Vinci. Unfortunately, no one had yet invented the telephone company.
/countersnark
Zifnab – Apple makes electronic devices. Now they’ve made a new one. Why is that “brave”? That’s business.
Jobs (and others) had to fight entertainment company executives who are still fighting a pointless battle of copyright, DRM, and the ways that people get their entertainment and live their lives. If it makes you feel better, discount Jobs altogether and simply praise the cell phone. A recent NY Times article noted that in just about 20 years, 85% of adult Americans have cell phones, one of the swiftest adaptations to technological change in recent times.
A comparison. The invention of the transistor led to the invention of the modern American teen ager, who soon didn’t have to sit around and listen to the family radio, but could independently discover and champion their own music.
Sentient Puddle
@Joel: I didn’t know who Freeman Dyson was, so I decided to take a look.
And that’s the point I gave up.
Garrigus Carraig
DougJ, welcome to the class war. The first rule of the class war is: you do not talk about the class war.
Zifnab
@Brachiator:
But that’s still not “brave”. Innovative? World changing? Sure. But it’s not like Steve Jobs stepped in front of a moving bus, here. He didn’t put his fiscal well-being on the line. Apple was already making a huge comeback on the iPod core technology.
He’s just another billionaire making a relatively intelligent business decision. Might as well call Warren Buffet “brave” for buying into Goldman Sachs.
Shawn in ShowMe
That ideas with great impact aren’t necessarily brave?
gwangung
@Zifnab: Gotta agree (and I’m an Apple fanboi….)
LD50
@Sentient Puddle: @dmsilev: I know how wingnuts will interpret Dyson’s inclusion. They’ll say “SEE? DYSONS A BIG SCIENCE GUY AT PRINCETON AND HE REJECT’S GLOBAL WARMING!!!!111!! AL GORE IS FAT!!!!”
However nuanced his views may or may not be, that’s not how the 20%ers will use it.
Stefan
Jobs (and others) had to fight entertainment company executives who are still fighting a pointless battle of copyright, DRM, and the ways that people get their entertainment and live their lives.
Yeah, so what? That’s just business. He had to fight people who wanted to keep the money for themselves, so that instead he could instead keep the money for himself. That’s self-interest, not bravery.
Seebach
I am distressed by the many people in this thread who do not understand what the word “brave” means.
Is the pe-ni-s reduction pill guy brave? Most people are trying for male enhancement. And yet the guy in the project wonderful ad is selling REDUCTION pills! How contrarian and entrepreneurial!
Warren Terra
I can never decide whether it’s worth the effort to cancel my Atlantic subscription or just to let it run out naturally. Thing is, it’s got a long time to run. They just mailed me a special offer to renew my subscription for half the usual renewal rate, so I can’t be the only person disinclined to renew.
I do rather love their naming Nader for having been brave thirty years ago now, despite what he has since become (I can think of any number of names and adjectives for Ralph Nader today, but “brave” isn’t one of them). I guess it’s just that the godforsaken publishers or editors of the Atlantic felt the need, given the current economic situation, to acknowledge anti-capitalist sentiment and the attendant philosophical and political movement – but being the scum they are they decided to affiliate that sentiment with Ralph Nader rather than with anyone less execrable.
The Jeff Zucker nod is also pretty special: the Leno show whose novelty the Atlantic particularly cites is tanking badly, and it’s become very clear that the whole “it’s OK if Leno tanks because his show is so cheap we still make money” argument was a complete and utter disaster – the geniuses who came up with that idea apparently forgot to account for the struggles their best shows would have to survive in earlier time slots, and the enormous drag that Leno’s low ratings would have on the rest of the network’s schedule, especially the local news broadcasts and late-night shows following Leno. The result may destroy NBC.
Warren Terra
@Garrigus Carraig
QFT
Evinfuilt
My poor desk did not deserve my head banging into it so hard.
But its a perfect Juxtaposition for this day and age, after all aren’t all those teabaggers just like Holocaust victims or some other BS.
ericblair
@dmsilev: Assuming, and this is a big assumption, that the Atlantic’s capsule description of Dyson’s views are an accurate description, ‘denial’ is an unfair characterization. He admits that global warming is real, but doesn’t like the mitigation strategies currently being discussed. A better description would be that he believes that the Magic High-Technology Fairy will arrive to save us without the need for any significant efforts right now. That’s probably wrong, but it’s a different sort of wrong from outright denialism.
I don’t know anything about Dyson personally, but this sounds like a trap that a lot of risk-taking successful people fall into. They’ve taken a lot of risks in their careers, and by a mixture of brilliance and inevitably some luck, have ended up on top. There are plenty of brilliant risk-takers that didn’t get a good roll of the dice: they sink into obscurity and you don’t hear about them. The problem, then, is that through survivorship bias the influential people in the first group may end up with a very distorted idea of how much luck and circumstance was involved in their success and therefore significantly and dangerously underestimate risks.
I mean, wouldn’t it be a lot less risky to slow down human inputs into the (extremely complex, chaotic-in-the-technical-sense) climate, then sitting on our asses and attempting to introduce a significant, untested compensating input into the climate down the road to hopefully balance things out? This seems to be a nonsensical analysis of the comparative risks, but fits in with how a lot of these people think.
tootiredoftheright
Seems Freeman Dyson does accept that man made burning of fossil fuels is responible for global warming.
He thinks that planting a trillion trees would remove all the carbon.
Aside from being well known for concept of the Dyson Sphere and people confusing him for the inventor of the Dyson vaccum cleaner why is he being mentioned at all?
Tax Analyst
So is Chipper Jones on the list? (Baseball player – Atlanta Braves). He’s still a pretty good hitter and his salary is probably enough to make him at least “well-to-do”.
Maybe not at the top of the list, but I’d put him over that putz Freeman Dyson.
schrodinger's cat
I hate these lists, seems like magazines publish them when they are out of new material or are too lazy to go do some real reporting.
schrodinger's cat
@tootiredoftheright:
Because he is a cranky old coot.
Olly McPherson
@Warren Terra:
Seven years ago, the Atlantic was my favorite magazine. I let my subscription lapse two years ago and haven’t regretted it for a minute.
twiffer
@ Brachiator: praise the cell phone? why the fuck should i praise that damnable piece of crap that makes it all too easy for work to track me down? i hate cellphones. might as well praise the blackberry for making sure we don’t miss a single email and can work from anywhere! god forbid anyone be unreachable on the weekends or when on vacation.
goddamn “productivity” enhancing devices.
Brachiator
@Zifnab:
Kind of a non-issue. I already noted that the list messily includes some truly brave folk and others who are not.
Bad Atlantic Monthly. Bad. Bad.
Given the billionaires who made reckless decisions that ruined the freakin’ global economy, a “relatively intelligent business decision” counts for a lot.
Warren Terra
@ Twiffer, #59
I think you’re confusing technology with your co-workers or bosses. The cell phone and the mobile internet are awesome. The people who don’t understand that you deserve to take a real vacation and to relax on the weekend and on your off-hours are inconsiderate, if not worse.
Stefan
and it’s become very clear that the whole “it’s OK if Leno tanks because his show is so cheap we still make money” argument was a complete and utter disaster – the geniuses who came up with that idea apparently forgot to account for the struggles their best shows would have to survive in earlier time slots, and the enormous drag that Leno’s low ratings would have on the rest of the network’s schedule, especially the local news broadcasts and late-night shows following Leno.
The solution is simple: expand Leno’s show from one to five and a half hours, so it runs from 8:00PM to 1:30 AM. That way there are no other shows for him to drag on. Problem solved with some visionary (and, if I may so, brave) thinking!
I’d like to believe I’m joking, but I guarantee you someone at NBC has already proposed that…..
Stefan
You know, come to think of it Leno from 8-9 PM would do a better job than Leno from 10-11 PM. It’s a show that parents can watch with their kids, it’s main competition would be variety/reality shows on the other networks, and it wouldn’t suck out five hours of 10-11 PM programming best reserved for adult dramas.
Brachiator
@twiffer:
God, I wish the excellent James Burke TV show Connections, was easily available on DVD (not even sure if the book is still in print).
The impact of technological innovation on society is often unexpected and outrageously significant. To you, the cell phone is an annoyance. But in Niger it may have helped stave off starvation.
henqiguai
@Brachiator (#64):
Did a quick search (’cause I really did love that series, too), found it being offered up (books and DVDs) at amazon.com.
Or have you seen that the amazon.com offerings are just a come-on ?
Notorious P.A.T.
“Morgan Tsvangirai, Prime Minister of Zimbabwe
Why he’s brave: He stood his ground against Robert Mugabe and is now bringing some normalcy back to the country.
Jeff Zucker, President of NBC Universal
Why he’s brave: He retained Jay Leno and moved late-night TV to prime time.”
Thank you, Doug, for the biggest laugh I’ve had all week.
binzinerator
@malraux:
Big fucking deal for Jobs. Jobs did nothing that hundreds of thousands if not millions of other entrepreneurs have done when they put up their own cash or sell their stuff or max out their credit cards to make a go of an idea.
If that is the standard for bravery then even people who have failed miserably in their business ventures are as brave as Jobs — and arguably there are tens of thousands who were far braver because they put far more financial risk when they could ill afford to lose on the line for their idea.
This country… holy shit, where the ersatz is as good as the real. Proof is in that juxtaposition DougJ pointed out.
People who can’t tell the difference between a loaf of bread and a loaf of shit are gonna end up eating from the toilet and shitting in the fridge.
Gus
Love the Tsvangirai/Zucker juxtaposition. I was immediately reminded of a great Blazing Saddles quote, “Now you men will only be risking your lives, while I’ll be risking an almost certain Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.”
Peter VE
Ben Bernanke? How brave do you have to be to save your masters butt?
Jen R
@Brachiator:
Netflix has it.
tc125231
@dmsilev: Actually, he questions whether it’s a bad thing. Simplistically put, carbon is the stuff of life!
It won’t be bad for him –he’ll be dead.
My grandchildren are in an entirely different position.
tc125231
@schrodinger’s cat:
Which is most of the time.
tc125231
@Olly McPherson:
Amen. Fallows blog posts didn’t make up for the rest of its drivel.
Mike G
Why should they be? Have they ever moved a mediocre talk show, that only half-asleep rubes in Nebraska find vaguely humorous, from 11:30pm to 10pm? That’s COURAGE.
More to the point, how much advertising has Democracy for Burma bought in The Asslantic, compared to NBC or Apple?
SiubhanDuinne
@Sentient Puddle: Well, yeah. By that definition, Brick Oven Bill is brave.
SiubhanDuinne
@Brachiator:
All three series are available on DVD (so is Burke’s The Day the Universe Changed). I used to have them on VHS (a format no longer accessible). Every once in a while I see the DVDs listed in various DVD catalogues, and I keep being tempted to buy them all, but they’re a bit pricey.
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yeah, that’s the problem. I’ve seen the DVD set of Connections for $99. As much as I love the show, that’s too much money. The paperback companion to the show is available for a reasonable price on amazon, but the TV show is superior to the book.
Wile E. Quixote
@DougJ
Doug, you need to pull your fucking head out of your ass, seriously, pull it out. Dyson isn’t a denialist, he just thinks that the current mitigation strategies suck because they disproportionately affect third world countries that are trying to industrialize so that their citizens can enjoy something approaching the same standard of living that you do.
Dyson was working on alternate energy sources years before you had heard of them, and the man did more for the environment by telling politicians that there was no safe level of fallout and that atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons needed to be completely banned than any of his detractors over at Climate Progress ever have.
Oh, and by the way Doug, what the fuck have you done, personally to combat global warming? I’m willing to bet that the personal sacrifices you’ve made to combat global warming are about as significant and meaningful as those that Jonah Goldberg has made to combat global terrorism. “Courage on the cheap” is a perfect description for most western environmentalists who think that sacrifice is great, for other people.
D. Aristophanes
If we’re getting all literal here, people with certain clinically diagnosed mental illnesses are the real brave thinkers, because it actually pains them to cogitate.
Not articulated very well either, but suffice to say I agree with you, DougJ. This is stupid, put-it-in-a-box journalism and annoying as all hell. The Atlantic, it turns out, blows major fucking goats.
D. Aristophanes
I think you’re confusing technology with your co-workers or bosses.
Not entirely accurate in a modern working environment where individual employees are in charge of their respective accounts. It is not necessarily the boss or co-worker that demands 24/7/365 uptime from the worker … it is the structure of the work itself.
But this is not a disagreement with your point that the technology itself is neutral – I think that’s right. Just that it’s more complicated than inconsiderate managers.
slippy
Freeman Dyson is a denialist?
Wow. He just shat all his hard-earned credibility. In sci-fi circles, this guy’s a legend. Until now, when he’s a putz.