Why do there seem to be so few "Intellectual Giants" in our time?

Question

My question may not be true to you, tell me what you think. =)

I will always choose the best answer, it's my question and a best answer can differ from my own view if it's well reasoned. Also, all forums attract a greater proportion of *bunny boilers* than are in the general population, i ain't going to let that be a factor

Wow!! The History Community never disappoints on quality of answers.

I am talking about the last forty years really, where are our Orwell's, Huxley's and Einstein's?? Think we live in a largely information rich culture but there's often a lack of real depth in knowledge.

My personal opinion on this question ain't going to be a factor in choosing best answer tho. =)

Lol, i'm not English Warren, seem to make myself understood, even by you tho. =)

Cracked up laughing Bletherskyte!!!! Us ENTP'S could if we took time out from looking for the Grail.

On your bike Mister!!!! Excellent answer too. =)

This has been a most interesting post, i do think there are fewer IG's in our time because of the unfair world we have created. The West is WAY too satiated, people's minds are largely limited to ideas that support the system and 80% of the world is in the kind of dire need associated with natural disasters and war historically. In many places it's impossible for people to even eke out an existence from the land now cos of our greed.

So many are too in need to conceive any ideas apart from how to survive and we are too satiated to have the desire to. Education now is almost an oxymoron, students are choosing to study worthy but easy subjects for the most part. This tendency ain't *brand new* and reduces our IG pool.

Historically, more IG's came from the middle *chattering* class, people of some means but not to our level. =) In the past there were great inventors, now i mainly see not so great developers of previous ideas. We still produce a few IG's but oh dear!!! =)

Answer 1

I'll bet that if you count the number of intellectual giants from previous centuries that you know and come up with an average per century, you'll find that the number of giants in the past 100 years is no different from the past.

I do think that there are fewer true intellectuals per capita than in the past. This is because we no longer have to use our brains for gathering information since computers and calculators do it for us. Our leisure time is filled with entertaining things to do. We don't have time to think.

Why do you think so many prisoners become writers and philosophers? There's nothing to do in a prison cell but think.

That's why the Aristotle got to where he is. He didn't have a pile of books or computers or MTV or Disney World or a BMW or even cold beer. It was just Aristotle, his toga, sandals, a trail, and a pile of kids who'd rather listen to him babble than watch an atrocious Greek play down the road (come on, have you ever sat through Antigoni?) What else is Aristotle supposed to do but philosophise?

Answer 2

I would disagree, I would say rather why do we not recognize the IG of your time.
I believe that in the past the knowledge of the average person was less, a good education was harder to attain, and fewer had the ability to study, so the IG were fewer and more easily recognizable as such, and received greater recognition for being a rarer breed.
In the present world with highly complex computers at our finger tips, all kinds of media, and information sources I believe that we are inundated with so much rapidly growing and expanding technologies that we do not recognize IG because next week they are old news. I do fell the the modern media "establishment" will tend to report of Paris Hilton rather the one that is developing nano technology for use on curing certain disease.
Bill Gates once stated that technology is developing faster than the ability of people to learn and understand the technology.
I feel that with the advent of the Internet the bar has been raised. For 30 years ago were the IG the top of a pyramid that pyramid would be tall with a narrow base, I feel now we have a short pyramid with a much wider base which makes it more difficult to measure a gaint.

Answer 3

I suggest you look up the Nobel Prize winners from, say, the last five years, and then research a little into why they won their prizes, for what work or achievements. I bet you probably won't understand even the beginning of what these people think about and work out every day. I'm not trying to be rude, it's just that we're dealing with such "Intellectual Giants" that the rest of us would be something like dwarfs in Lilliput.
When Einstein first published his paper on relativity, it was reckoned that there were only a dozen people in the world capable of understanding it, nowadays anyone with a Master of Science in physics has to understand it.
And I agree with the previous answerers who suggest that our society seems to glorify and promote ignorance and stupidity, whilst intelligence and scientific achievement is considered 'swotty' and 'nerdy'.
Maybe Socrates and Plato were right after all, and the ignorant masses should have no say in the running of society.

Answer 4

This website is the reason that we have no IGs.
People went to the likes of Einstein, Aristotle, Da Vinci, and Newton for answers, because they were assured of knowing something about it, even if that was not technically their area of expertise.
Now, you can immediately ask an expert in a specific subject. So there don't need to be any Renaissance men anymore. That doesn't mean there aren't, but they are not in as high of demand, because raw information, or digested information, whatever you want.
That's why no one notices the Intellectual Giants. The Internet is the ultimate Intellectual Giant, and it overshadows the other, human ones.

Answer 5

When I was a small child, music was recorded on graphite discs that were played at 78 RPM speed. I saw one of the first 45's pressed in vinyl. They were funny looking with that big hole in the middle. Then they slowed it down to 33.3 and could get 12 songs on one disc and so on.

Now we walk around with a whole library of music in a device smaller than a deck of cards.

As a child, the only way a doctor had of looking inside of the human body was with an xray or by cutting you open. Now you can swallow a camera that will relay pictures of your entire gut back to a computer monitor. They can perform major surgeries with the use of endoscopes and lazers. They can literally bring some people back to life.

When I was a child, the telephone was the only form of communication. The service was terrible, you often had to share a party line with neighbors, and you had to call an operator to place a long distance call and wait for her to call you back once she got the person you were calling on the line. It cost a fortune, and people really did sound like they were a long distance away.

I remember my family's first television. It had a nine inch round black and white picture tube and was all fuzzy. The sound wasn't always great either.

You probably can't tell me the name of the person who invented the CD or IPOD or the endoscope or CPR or the wireless phone or even TV, but you can bet their names will be in history books.

Answer 6

The accomplishments of Francis Harry Crick and James Dewey Watson, Stephen Jay Gould, Stephen W. Hawking, and Robert J. Oppenheimer would refute the idea that there are few "intellectual giants".

Answer 7

I would agree that many IGs are only recognised as such after their time. Also consider how many people ther have been considered IGs in each century. That is not many. 20th century... Einstein and Hawking are the ones that spring to mind. Even if we are optimistic and say 5 per century across the world, that is not many. 'our time' could mean this decade, it could mean our lives. That is not all that long when yoy think about it. That is what makes these people true giants amongst men; their rarity.

Answer 8

there are quite a lot of intellectual giants in our time. the problem is exposure, the media exposes those who are but a flash in the pan, the Paris Hiltons and the bagg-poppy-DJ's and their ilk. Furthermore, people have no patience to read what the giants have to say, because it cannot be squeezed into a sound byte or a headline.
one more thing... lots of IG's were only recognized as such many years after their time so... let's wait a century or so and see how our contemporaries are rated.

Answer 9

To be an intellectual giant one must first dream, our dreams have been subject to the bureaucratic "driving out of the magic" that Weber predicted. Individual intellect is less free to explore and develop as it will these days. Its more closely aligned to making money and as such any projects that do not promise this tangable end result will not achieve the necessary funding. i think also that as developments are mainly technical these days then teams are more responsible rather than individuals

Warren!! Oprah winfry is no intellectual giant ,you clown Giddens maybe, Bowlby perhaps, Winfry ? hahahaha!!! Give over. Smart girl yes, but thats about it.

Jerry Springer anyone?

PS. INFJ's rule

Answer 10

I'd say we've got plenty of intellectual giants right here and now. What about Stephen Hawking, for example? The problem is not that there are no intellectual giants, but that there are so many different spheres in which they operate. For example, Dr. Zahi Hawass is a standout in Egyptology, but not that many people are familiar with his name. With physics, mathematics, history, anthropology, biology, languages, many different types of medicine, etc., there are so many geniuses that we wouldn't be able to list them all.