Brave Thinkers
The sun revolves around the earth.
Animal species never change.
Black people are inferior to white people.
The government can’t provide health insurance to old folks.
Humans can’t fly to the moon.
Telephones are only for talking and listening.Some of these assumptions had the force of science behind them, others just the force of habit, but all of them seem ridiculous in retrospect. All of them collapsed only because someone had the courage to step outside the consoling, persuading flow of tradition and ask fundamental questions about why things are the way they are, and how they might be instead. The Atlantic has always aspired to challenge its readers, and its times, by giving voice to some of the most provocative thinkers of their eras. Brave Thinking, from Henry David Thoreau’s blunt naturalism to Martin Luther King’s calls for justice, can be unsettling. But it drives society forward. Now, in our first annual Brave Thinkers issue, we have identified a small group of men and women who have risked their careers, reputations, fortunes, and, in some cases, even lives to advance ideas that upend an established order. Why 27? Because after months of research, tabulation, and debate about hundreds of candidates, that’s how many we could agree on. Some of them may prove to be wrong, and others wrong-headed. But all of them embody the kind of courage that stirs the spirit and inspires us to think for ourselves.
Click here to view all of The Atlantic’s Brave Thinkers, or browse the list below.
Thorkil Sonne
CEO and Founder of SpecialisterneBen Bernanke
Chairman of the Federal ReserveMorgan Tsvangirai
Prime Minister of ZimbabweCamille Parmesan
Professor, University of Texas at AustinShai Agassi
Founder of Better PlaceSteve Jobs and John Lasseter
Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, Pixar Animation StudiosMontgomery McFate
Senior Social Scientist at the Human Terrain SystemFreeman Dyson
Professor Emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study, PrincetonIftikhar Chaudhry
Chief Justice of PakistanJohn Fetterman
Mayor of Braddock, PennsylvaniaArthur Sulzberger Jr.
Publisher of the New York TimesCraig Watkins
Dallas District AttorneyHenry Greely
Director of the Stanford Center for Law and the Bio-SciencesWalter E. Hussman Jr.
Publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-GazetteRalph Nader
Perennial Third-Party Presidential CandidateSheila C. Bair
Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance CorporationPaul Polak
Founder of International Development Enterprises and D-RevTrey Parker and Matt Stone
South Park CreatorsBarack Obama
President of the United StatesMark Zuckerberg
Founder and CEO of FacebookDanny Day
Founder and President of EpridaJim Webb
Senator from VirginiaJeff Zucker
President and CEO of NBC UniversalMeredith Whitney
Founder and CEO of Meredith Whitney Advisory Group LLCAlex de Waal
Program Director at the Social Science Research Council
Archive for October, 2009|Monthly archive page
Brave Thinkers – The Atlantic (November 2009)
In Uncategorized on October 21, 2009 at 8:13 amvia theatlantic.com