What modern thinkers and figures should you listen to in order to understand what is happening in the world?

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26 Answers

  1. In addition, Jurgen Habermas (who coined the term “post-secular society”) will help you understand the current social and religious processes in Europe and America. To some extent, the situation described by Habermas is also typical for Russia.

  2. Of course, everyone chooses for themselves –

    • so what has been said is only personal notes, but if we talk about the analysis of the “current moment”, then for Facebook I would choose the following very diverse five

    (1) Alexander Fridrikhovich Filippov (Prof. Higher School of Economics, Moscow – – unique in its refined accuracy of thinking and readiness not only to see, but also to name what is visible to its eyes;

    (2) Gleb Olegovich Pavlovsky (Moscow) – the analysis here is interspersed with performative statements, but in any case, this is the person whose words mean a lot-silence, however, on symptomatic occasions – no less;

    (3) Grigory Borisovich Yudin (National Research University Higher School of Economics, RANEPA, Moscow) – speaks less often on topical issues, but often speaks about this or that perspective, which others are silent or do not notice; if you like, then these are “fleeting notes of an intelligent sociologist”, which is rare;

    (4) Oleg Vasilyevich Kildyushov (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow) is a “politically incorrect” observer who is attentive to details and is able to see and show others through them.;

    (5) Vladimir Sevostyanovich Demchikov (Irkutsk) – no less “politically incorrect”, although from a different “trench”, observer – with an admirable sense of style and the ability to always be more than any “format” – carrying out a” stylistic criticism ” of reality.

  3. Karl Popper — for the best explanation of knowledge and science, social engineering and critical rationalism, for clarity and depth of thought. Meraba Mamardashvili — for the wisdom of a stunningly heartfelt thought. They are no longer with us, but they will always remain modern.

  4. I can recommend Dmitry Galkovsky. He is certainly not a feminist or a cool manager, but just one of the few Russian philosophers, but it is very desirable to read.

    However, what is happening in the world for you is unlikely to be simplified, rather the opposite.

  5. Viktor Vakhstein-knows sociology very well.

    Dmitry Khaustov-knows philosophy very well.

    Alexander Smulyansky-knows psychoanalysis very well.

    Few people know the specific pitch — but damn it! These are the smartest people in the humanities in Russia.

  6. Read the book” Black Swan ” written by Nassim Taleb. An extraordinarily deep thinker. After reading this book, about seven years ago, I began to look at the world and the events taking place in it differently. I haven't read anything better before or since.

  7. It is surprising that no one here mentioned the wonderful philosopher and stand-up comedian Alexander Gelyevich Dugin. In his lectures, he always explains postmodernism, geopolitics and Atlanticists in a fresh and bold way. His arguments about the ongoing war between Eurasian and Western civilizations may seem controversial, but this is also quite a picture of the world, after reading it, you can look at things from a different angle. Many, by the way, do not buy his style of humor and have seen enough of his interview on russia.ru they brand Alexander Gelievich as a madman. I have seen such illiteracy even among female students of the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg State University. He is certainly a traditionalist, but a traditionalist in the context of postmodernism. That is, being in the media space, he likes to play with images, bring everything to a farce for fun and hype for the sake of. This behavior is quite relevant to the zeitgeist, in its own view. That is, Dugin not only understands the era in his works, but also in a sense mutates himself to it, which is actually very stylish. He has a cool full beard and looks like some medieval oracle or priest, while speaking in a super-equipped verbal hybrid of archaisms, philosophical terms, and Internet slang. His speeches about overcoming postmodernity and the emptiness of modernity are actually interesting and valuable for their non-triviality. I highly recommend it to everyone.

  8. Karen Armstrong-the most interesting religious historian (“The History of God”, “A Brief History of Myth”, “The Bible”) and a researcher of modern processes of religious fundamentalism. In the past, she was a Catholic nun who knew firsthand the entire range of religious consciousness-from fanatical faith to skepticism. There are some interesting books on Islam. But it is the “History of God” that makes the greatest impression, from primitive beliefs to modern philosophical concepts.

  9. It is worth listening to Konstantin Kadavr, he is a great thinker of all YouTube, a sage, a father and a duda player, a reader of agendas, a specialist in relationships. And it's also cool to fall asleep to his streams.

  10. Futurologist Jacques Fresco-understanding how society functions around the world and why there is so much internal discontent

    Ken Wilber (a kind of monk in the Western world) – Integral psychology and sociology, spiritual evolution

    Timothy Leary (true, he is already dead, but even in the days of the hippies, his thinking went into the vector that most will come to in 15-20 years, provided that I mean the current year 2015)

  11. Vadim Petrovich Rudnev! He writes very interestingly about how human worlds, consciousness and culture work, combining psychoanalysis, linguistics, semiotics, philosophy and a good sense of humor. Without it, you definitely can't understand anything )

  12. Posner – a man with liberal views manages to conduct a program on channel one, trying to convey his views to the largest audience and show people who are really important people for society. He openly says that he is forbidden to invite certain people. He goes to a debate with Navalny in the rain, where he leaves after convincing many viewers of his position, losing in advance because of the channel's audience. He writes a book in which he openly criticizes the authorities, knows that Putin was informed about this, but still remains afloat and his opinion is considered, and Putin himself even presents him with a state award. Has a good understanding of the Western and domestic press. In general, one of our compatriots is one of the wisest and most interesting personalities.

  13. Guriev, Movchan, Sonin, Inozemtsev, Aleksashenko, Yavlinsky (the last book is good), Yasin, and Auzan write extensively about the modern Russian economy and its prospects.

  14. I will now express my deeply subjective IMHO.

    The only decent thinker who will give you an idea of the world is only yourself. Understanding what is happening in the world is basically a system of your attitudes, thoughts, and previously acquired knowledge and concepts with a deliberately limited flow of information from the outside (due to the limited ability of a person to perceive in a qualitative sense and his mortality in a quantitative one).

    Thus, to create a truly detailed picture of what is happening in the world, it is necessary to consider a huge amount of information from completely different areas.: from geopolitics and economics to philosophy, sociology, ecology and art (as a reflection of a kind of “zeitgeist”). This is labor-intensive, time-consuming, and subject to severe distortions due to various factors, ranging from the subjective error of each author, ending with deliberately distorted information that is beneficial to certain individuals (and this is not paranoid nonsense, see hoax with the hydrogen sulfide layer of the Black Sea, inflated in 89-90. XX century).

    However, if this time-consuming task is still completed, it will be outdated information in relation to the constantly changing world and will only be suitable for analytical forecasts of varying degrees of reliability.

    Based on all the above, it should be noted that I started from an extremely abstract question: “understand what is happening in the world.” In this production, the answers that we are going to communism or technocracy, the golden billion led by freemasons and bankers-conspirators systematically destroy the population of third world countries, “the third day the earth will fly on the celestial axis” or that a small albino panda was born in the Moscow zoo will be fundamentally indistinguishable as they do not carry any practical use, except for taking time for conversations in the kitchen. And so I'll go back to the original answer. You are the best modern decent thinker who knows what is happening in your world and can change something in it.

  15. Foreign intellectuals

    Alain Badiou is the greatest and most influential philosopher of our time, a proponent of universal principles and approaches to explaining reality

    Immanuel Wallerstein-sociologist, founder of mir-systems analysis, which allows studying the evolution of civilizations

    Noam Chomsky-linguist, philosopher, publicist, is one of the biggest critics of capitalism.

    David Chalmers, a philosopher and psychologist who deals with human thinking, was the first to clearly formulate the so-called difficult problem of consciousness.

    Jacques Le Goff is a medieval historian, the brightest follower of the “Annals” school, whose works provide answers to the formation and development of European ideas, culture, and society.

    Richard Dawkins is a biologist, popularizer of evolutionary biology, and consistent critic of religion.

    Stephen Hawking is a physicist, popularizer of science, author of many best-selling books that have influenced humanity's understanding of current problems in the natural sciences.

    Russian intellectuals

    Simon Kordonsky is a sociologist, author of an unconventional approach to explaining the functioning of Russian society (estate structure, resource state).

    Alexander Etkind is a cultural scientist who deals with issues of colonization (internal colonization) and historical memory.

    Vladimir Sorokin is a writer with a very sensitive sense of Russian reality.

    Alexander Markov is a biologist, popularizer of science, author of many works on evolutionary biology and paleontology.

    Andrey Zaliznyak is a linguist, author of the grammatical dictionary of the Russian language, researcher of Novgorod letters, popularizer of the science of linguistics.

  16. George Ilyich Mirsky. This is about what is happening now in the Middle East world. Very interesting.

    Andrey Borisovich Zubov, Deacon Andrey Kuraev. And this is about what is happening to us.

  17. Definitely Brodsky. A person who has not lived the easiest life, who has gained life experience directly from the muddles on which he stumbled at every step, who has an outstanding intellect, cannot help but understand life. He was lucky enough to talk with, I'm not afraid of this word, the great people of the 20th century. In general, you can spend hours talking about how cool he is, but instead it's better to open his collection, get alcohol and cry from the impermanence of being in the corner

  19. Evgeny Yanovich Satanovsky aka “Armageddonych”.

    But not in Solovyov's TV programs, where he rather plays the role. It is extremely useful to listen to Satanovsky's broadcasts on Vesti-FM.

  20. Don't listen to anyone, take care of your nerves. The world is in such a mess right now, do you need it? You won't be able to convince zombie viewers anyway. Read a lot of books that are good and different, everything was written in them a long time ago.

  21. Alfred Koch writes about politics, especially domestic politics, very well and easily on his Facebook page. There are not treatises and articles, but rather notes and useful links. Sometimes it expresses everything that happens in one sentence.

  22. Regarding politics and political processes both in Russia and in the whole world, I would recommend paying attention to the political scientist Sergey Kurginyan.

    His point of view differs in adequacy and depth of study from what is said in the public media and “liberal blozhechki”

    I recommend starting your acquaintance with this person with the documentary ” Comparison. 9/11 after a decade” which can be easily found in vk or YouTube.

    In general, using this video, you can already get a picture of the person's approach to the “question”

    Regarding the functioning of life in general, from psychophysiology and interpersonal relationships, to a look at modern cinema, I would like to draw attention to Sergey Savelyev.

    Videos with which again can be easily found in social networks

    For me, this person is best revealed in the following phrase.

    “If a professor can't explain to a tenth-grader the essence of what he is doing in 10 minutes, this person is not a scientist, but a charlatan”

    And another person whom I respect very much and who has formed and has an influence on a certain stratum of people in the CIS is Vladimir Konstantinovich Tarasov.

    The man who created the first school of managers in the USSR back in 1984.

    In his speeches, he tells you how to build your relationships with this world, as well as with people with whom a person constantly interacts.

    Each of his speeches is a storehouse of wisdom packed in simple and understandable examples.

    I would recommend starting to get acquainted with this person, with his book called “Book for Heroes”.

    I would also like to mention Dmitry Yuryevich Puchkov and his team oper.ru.

    At one time, he seriously influenced my views on life.

    Recently, he actively runs a video blog and invites the most interesting interlocutors to intelligence surveys on the history of Russia and the USSR, cooking, retired and active military personnel, and so on.

    And in any case, the main thing is to constantly listen, hear, compare and form your personal worldview, trying to make your worldview as adequate as possible.

  23. I can recommend one book: This is Gilbert Eugene's “Post-industrial Transition and World War II” reporting on the relationship of war, technology and social order. Where the thesis about the need to see a person as a source of creativity and not a cog in the machine is almost clearly confirmed, since cogs are needed only as an excuse for stealing the budget or as a basis for archaic distribution of funds. Humanity is overgrown with scabs, the chitinous shell is too small, it's time to get out.

  25. Feminist Naomi Wolf – for a vivid explanation of the position of modern feminists for a wide audience.

    Anthropologist Jared Diamond – for his work on human nature and the origin of human civilizations.

    Biologist Richard Dawkins – for proving the theory of evolution, interpreting human nature, and criticizing religion.

    Philosopher Slavoj Zizek – for his sharp criticism of modern capitalist society and interest in mass culture.

    Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist and Nobel Laureate , for his innovative approach to analyzing human thinking.

    Sociologist Simon Kordonsky – for the most original description of modern Russian society.

    Publicist and media theorist Evgeny Morozov – for critical participation in the debate about how the Internet is changing modern society.

    Economist Thomas Piketty – for his rigorous proof of growing inequality around the world and analysis of measures to combat this phenomenon.

    Historian Niall Ferguson – for his up-to-date analysis of Western civilization, finance, and postcolonialism.

    Another historian, Eric Hobsbawm , for the author's reading of the 20th century, of which we are the heirs.

  26. To keep abreast of future trends, it is good to read modern futurists, especially the works of Japanese scientists, for example, Joey Ito.

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