Keen on New Media: Fethullah Gulen - the world's top public intellectual!?!
By Andrew Keen
Who is the world's top public intellectual? Noam Chomsky? Pope Benedict XVI? Jurgen Habermas? Christopher Hitchens? Umberto Eco? Amartya Sen?
How about Fethullah Gulen, the liberal Turkish Muslim theologian?
So much for the wisdom of the online crowd. It looks like Prospect Magazine's supposedly democratic online poll to determine the world's leading public intellectual has been gamed by supporters of the reformist Turkish cleric (there's a gentle nudge towards the poll halfway down Gulen's personal website).
According to my sources inside Prospect, Gulen has garnered more than 10 times the votes of the second placed candidate (another Muslim, as it happens).
It's obvious that this kind of open democratic polling, in which any Tom, Dick or Mohammed can vote anonymously, doesn't work. I guess Prospect will have to revert to an off-line, more traditional way of validating their votes.
They better do it fast; their "World's Top Public Intellectual" issue is due out in July. Somehow I can't imagine Prospect publishing a picture of Fethullah Gulen on its cover and annointing the liberal Muslim as the world's top public intellectual.
Alternatively, the magazine could always a sponsor a single elimination play-off debate between Hitchens and Gulen...
I subscribe to Prospect and have been a reader almost since its inception, but the "World's Top Public Intellectual" really does the magazine no favours. It's akin to the Sun running a poll for best tits on Page 3. It trivialises intellectual debate, leads to the results such as the one noted here (heck, if I had a mind to, I could probably get them to name my dog -- or, even worse, me!), and really does nothing to promote intellectual discussion amongst the masses, the dissemination of the tools required for intelligent debate or, most vital of all, the development of such tools as part of the educational process in schools.
All in all, worse than a waste of time, it expends effort that could far more fruitfully be employed elsewhere.
Posted by: Macander | Friday, 09 May 2008 at 06:30 PM
Oh dear, someone didn't like my suggestion that a eurocentric clique wanted to keep Gulen off the list?
Nor my suggestion that whisky-guzzling neocon pundit Hitchens isn't an "intellectual", and his name disgraces any list of "intellectuals". What kind of "intellectual" puts their pen out to hire for the pro-war nutjobs?
Posted by: Neil McGowan | Saturday, 10 May 2008 at 09:01 AM
I am not sure how invalid the results.. today's technology easily prevents users to vote from same computer even for more than one individual.. sometimes in these kind of polls I disaggree with my wife but we have to vote for only one as we can not vote twice from our home computer even we want to vote for two different candidates.. so what I am trying to say if a guy has so many supporters who are willing to vote for him and he becomes distinguished by this way, this means that his followers are trying to give a message to us so that this guy is underrepresented and worths more interest (possibly?).. and these polls are for this?..! if our attitude is to only deal with "already famous" people, how can we give chance to new and different ideas???? I find this "anonymous" comment given above quite poor and a little biased towards the already famous people!
Posted by: Zeck O'brian | Wednesday, 04 June 2008 at 03:01 PM
It is unfortunately true that such voting depends just on popularity. But Prospect Magazine tells about that. One thing is Fethullah Gulen's schools held a competition among students from 110 countries only a week ago. He may be unknown for many millions but some really appreciate him, especially his attempts that try to eliminate hatred among peoples.
Posted by: Jeffrey Bahar | Wednesday, 04 June 2008 at 08:01 PM
I have known Gulen for a number of years now and I believe he deserves to be a most popular person with his vision and activities.
Although I agree such polls do not give you a scientifically precise answer and could be manipulated easily, the magazine did some sort of filtering which I think worked well and even if it didn't, the result should tell us something about his popularity.
Posted by: Anthony Chen | Thursday, 05 June 2008 at 05:47 AM
I think result is valid since it is open to the public.Also I have known Fethullah Gulen for years.He is kind of lover of peace..search for him
Posted by: micheal carrick | Monday, 23 June 2008 at 06:05 PM
I, also, think that Fethullah Gulen deserves this place because of all he has achieved through his life in terms of love, peace, dialogue between countries, education... I read his books and like his ideas. He's a real intellectual. I appreciate him.
Posted by: Burcu Atabey | Thursday, 26 June 2008 at 09:56 PM
As long as Christopher Hitchens is nowhere near the top ten anymore, I think it's a definite improvement.
Christopher Hitchens an intellectual?! Clearly, the man doesn't even know how to live. He's still fighting against the morality of his father, resentful of his brother, and frankly, he drinks and smokes far too much.
I find it hard to think of such a failure as a person as an intellectual. He should start from square one, read up on his Plato, and start asking himself honest questions about what constitutes living a good life.
Frankly, there is a difference between someone who is highly factual, rational, and intellectual, like Noam Chomsky, and someone who is merely persistantly argumentative in their advocacy of callous human behavior, such as Christopher Hitchens, Wm. F. Buckley, etc.
A true intellectual wouldn't argue in favor of and try to justify amoral "might equals right" arguments, because it would be abundantly clear from history just what sorts of horrors that leads to *AND* the excessive price that must be paid in the court of public opinion.
I find it amusing and telling that Hitchens, who once accused Amnesty International of supporting the terrorists and being anti-American by opposing Guantanamo, only required a few pathetic seconds worth of a simulated waterboarding session to say "Hey! That's TORTURE!!!"
Bull. Christopher Hitchens has never been -- and presumably never will be -- tortured in his lifetime. He had just the smallest taste of the suffering he so strongly advocated for on numerous unnamed people worldwide, many of whom, frankly, were innocent.
You cannot truely be an amoral intellectual, because it doesn't really take that much intelligence to realise that in order for your ideas to be relevant in this world, they have to take people's emotions into account... and if your arguments start to veer into Swiftian "eat the Irish" territory... or Bushian "with us or against us" territory... you *DESERVE* to have your opinions shunned and ignored.
That is not to say that there aren't situations in life where some must suffer or die "for the greater good", but the "might equals right" mindset and the horrors it unleashes are increasingly coming up against immediate worldwide public opinion and condemnation that invariably makes the conflict worse.
Intellectuals should *ALL* understand this phenomena by now... Gandhi most certainly did.
If you want to talk about real knowledge of how to live properly, I would rate any devout Buddhist far ahead of Christopher Hitchens, because at least they are cognisant of the fact that minimizing suffering matters.
Posted by: Mark Kraft | Friday, 04 July 2008 at 01:57 AM
'They better do it fast; their "World's Top Public Intellectual" issue is due out in July. Somehow I can't imagine Prospect publishing a picture of Fethullah Gulen on its cover and annointing the liberal Muslim as the world's top public intellectual.'
Judging by the front cover, I think this rather snide comment has backfired on its speaker. And I don't believe the poll was ever about some elaborate or dramatic process of anointing anyone anything.
I actually enjoyed their latest issue a lot - they made the best of a potentially difficult situation, took the opportunity to have a serious discussion, and, oh yes, were absolutely clear about the obvious limitations of such a poll, and the fact that their method may have to change in the future. They were also very convincing on how such things do not have to be absolutely scientifically conducted to still be useful and interesting. The Independent is a frequently eccentric paper, but I don't sneer when it does something unexpected - I sit down, read it, and take it seriously. Perphaps, in future, you could reproduce this same courtesy that so many of your readers extend to you.
Posted by: oli c | Saturday, 05 July 2008 at 02:32 AM
Fethullah Gulen is only an illiterate cult leader (is not even a primary school graduate but he graduates from primary school taking exams from outside ?!!!) waiting to return to Turkey at the proper time if secular western modern Turks lose the battle against these islamist fanatics one day, just like Homeyni of Iran.
Whatever he says, or writes or preaches to the west is very different and are all lies becase the videos at you tube and google inturkish, in his own native mother tongue tell all the turth about this fanatic illiterate cult leader. Ask any secular modern Turkish people and they will tell you the truth about him and his cult and their fanatic sheria dereams for Turkey.
So he may call himself even Einstein of moslem world and/or Turkey. By the way what makes you believe he is what he says he is because the most prominent characteristics of these fanatic Islamist are "takiyye" which means you may lie whenever it serves your own purpose!
So how does this happen ??? An intellectual??? Please get real and think about it!
Posted by: REMY | Monday, 21 July 2008 at 05:46 AM
a very ignorant to judge someone with what school he went or he didnt go.
Mr gulen`s work ,books and what he has accomplished are clearly brilliant.World peace owe him a lot.Some of us who fail to understand what he is all about will see as "the golden generation" make this world a better place than ever before.
Posted by: halil | Thursday, 07 August 2008 at 07:12 AM
http://news.ebru.tv/en/special/Gulen%20Movemet
Posted by: kemal | Monday, 19 January 2009 at 10:07 AM
Please read this long article and see the truth about this deeply dangerously islamist imam! Also he is not a danger only for Turkey but has really big Islamist ambitions for the whole world that he would never admit! http://www.meforum.org/2045/fethullah-gulens-grand-ambition
Posted by: rosemary | Thursday, 19 March 2009 at 09:08 AM
Please read this long article and see the truth about this deeply dangerously islamist imam! Also he is not a danger only for Turkey but has really big Islamist ambitions for the whole world that he would never admit! http://www.meforum.org/2045/fethullah-gulens-grand-ambition
Posted by: rosemary | Thursday, 19 March 2009 at 09:09 AM