mr ibsen martinez laments the fact that only a handful of latin americans make it to the so-called world's top 100 public intellectuals list.

well, in asia, at least five chinese, as i read senor ibsen's account, made the cut. but any filipino thinker? nada.

this isn't to say--i sure do hope so--that filipinos are ignoramuses, uncultured, unthinking, uncivilized. remembe, it was a filipino intellectual who wrote the philosophical construct of the seminal, epochal movement called "people power revolution" that toppled ferdinand marcos's dictatorial regime in february 1986.

it was the same trailblazing, historical antecedent that other nations used as reference/guiding light in ovehauling their formerly closed societies, like the ussr, other european, asian & african states.

yet, have we read or heard of this filipino thinker being listed up as among the world's most influential "public intellectuals"?

today, sadly, it would be downright politically naive, if foolhardy, for any filipino intellectual worth his/her salt to come out in the open & declare his/her intellectual brilliance in the defense of the people, in the face of the brutal, ruthless, determined open secret (undeclared, though widely practiced) policy of the gloria arroyo government of "salvaging" (in the corrupted filipino-speak, it means "exterminating") all known intellectuals who speak the truth about this government, this military, this police, this, as it were, syndicate's unbridled corruption, fascistic bent, lying, cheating wont.

the son of the famous filipino newsmen's icon, the late joe burgos, got abducted by the philippine military, as ample proofs of evidence show. yet, months after his abduction, jonas burgos is nowhere to be found, w/ his mother, editha, & his siblings understandably fearing for his life, while so many filipinos believe jonas has aready been permanently "silenced" (read: killed) by the military.

even this commenter, w/ my numerous postings in world media outlets against the depravity of the arroyo government,has now received, just recently, two threats on my life via two text messages sent by an unknown texter, obviously from the military/police.

that probably explains why filipinos have become intellectual pygmies, horrifyingly after the 1986 people power revolution. the fascist ascension to power of the group that included fidel ramos, gloria macapagal arroyo, gloria's military connivers (esperon, mayuga, et. al.) who helped her stole the 2004 presidential elections against the hugely popular fil-american candidate, fernando poe jr (the acknowledged king of philippine movies then) is primarily responsible for the prevailing dwarfism in the filipino intellectual life. pity us, the filipinos.

Is there discontent with Alma Guillermoprieto?

I really enjoy her commentary on the Americas.

Certainly there are others who should be in the list, and I would drop Vargas Llosa. I like his books but don't think he belongs on the list.

Son variadas las razones por las que LatinoAmerica no figura en la conciencia glogal, a los efectos de su articulo, a pesar de la capacidad demostrada de sus intelectuales-intelligentsia, y de sus pueblos en todos los ordenes; nombro solo tres de varias más:

Cuando se ve a LatinoAmerica solo como el traspatio de los Estados Unidos y se adopta la concepción que tienen de la zona como su apendice comercial-industrial-materias primas, nada más.

Cuando los medios de comunicación globales allí destacados solo se dedican a informar sobre las catastrofes naturales, sociales y politicas, y no sobre los desarrollos en dichas areas y las de naturaleza cultural, intelectual y/o tecnologíca. Este aspecto lo compartimos con otros países y zonas del mundo, desde donde se informa de la misma manera.

Cuando se parte de la premisa de que los asuntos importantes de la humanidad solo surgen de Washington, New York, London, Berlin, Paris, Estados Unidos, Union Europea, Rusia, Japón, y ahora se añade China e India.

Hay otras, pero esto no es un tratado.

How are Latin American and Spanish public intellectuals alike? Are you referring to the shared language, history, traditions, etc.? This arrogant grouping is precisely the problem with Latin American public intellectuals -- they write to the upper classes who value their link to Europe a bit too much. When intellectuals deign to address the majority of the people in their respective countries, then we Latin Americans will have "public intellectuals." Until then we are stuck with intellectuals who sing to themselves about word origins, European ancestral pedigree, and their country's global relevance. Dull, irrelevant stuff.

Please read Papini´s article of 1950 " what latin- america never have produced " being religious minded , he said , latinoamericans didn´t give us even one heretic and their saints are not thinkers but spiritless good people .Arriviste and arrogant Garcia Marquez deserves to be out for his contradictory dream of being a best seller rich man and leftist figure , friend of Clinton and Castro .

My dear friend this depents where the list was made, if is made in Russia,where wont be English names,same in Pekin and the same in Buenos Aires.

After all this is a country where the vast mayority of the people still speak English...so if you put it in the world contest, yes we count very little.....

To I.G. of Ecuador: David Petraeus *is* an intellectual. It's just that his expertise is limited to the military field.

Who cares about this list? The only thing more annoying than non-productive pseudo-intellectuals telling each other how important they are, is when they fight over who is more important.

I took a look at the list of the top 100 public intellectuals and wasn't surprised to see that Noam Chomsky topped the list with almost twice the number of votes than the number two intellectual, Umberto Eco. What's fascinating to me is that, in spite of his enormous worldwide stature, Chomsky can rarely get an article printed in the US 'mainstream' media—although he has no problem in the rest of the world. The question is: what is the US media (owners) afraid of?

J.A.:

"If the list were proportional to population, there should be the a lesser number of intellectuals for the U.S. and Britain. "

Yes, I know. The question then becomes which other regions are being underrepresented to make room for all those Americans and Brits. And while there are somewhat fewer Latin Americans than one might expect, my point was that the other continents seem to be underrepresented far more conspicuously.

"The American experience is not just limited to the U.S.--Canada is part of the hemisphere as much as Brazil.

Thinking globally from an American standpoint begins with embracing America as a hemisphere. "

I don't really see what the perrenial Latin American beef about the usage of the term "American" has to do with anything here. This is supposed to be a list of the world's top public intellectuals, which is not synonymous with the American experience.

Also, how about a deal: we'll stop calling ourselves "Americans" when you stop calling us "gringos."

Mr.Martínez: contrast that list with the Nobel Prize of Literature list, how many survive today?

Latin Americans cut it. The problem is: are the people taking names off neutral? I have a sneaking suspicion that are not.

Latin American cut it. The problem is: are the people taking names off neutral? I have a sneaking suspicion that are not.

To Lookinginfromoverseas:

You wrote: "Possibly Correa in Ecuador values and supports development of fundamental academic institutions. We'll have to see."

What a joke!!!

Correa is a close friend of FARC, the Colombian marxist drug-dealing, terrorist organization, which holds hundreds of hostages chained to trees in the Amazon jungle. Correa has been protecting those criminals inside Ecuadorian territory, providing them refuge, supplies, intelligence and, more recently, even medical and legal assistance.

Ecuador's institutions have been assaulted by Correa's mobs: the Electoral Tribunal, the Constitutional Court, the Attorney General Office, the Central Bank, the Banks Auditing Office, the Business Auditing Office -which are supossed to be independent agencies- have all been packed with Correa loyalists. Congress was closed last year by the Police, and replaced by a puppet Constitutional Assembly which is preparing a new Constitution at the will of Correa.

Journalists reporting these actions are under constant threat; the director of an independent newspaper was murdered. Opposition leaders who started to investigate Correa-FARC relations are now indicted on charges of treason.

Please take a look at Ecuadorian newspapers in order to learn something about my country's situation.

If you are making a list of tango dancers, Latin America is the place to look, but public intellectuals just don't get much play there.

Universities are largely vocational training schools, academia in general is replete with bogus "universities" and the people with influence, for the most part, are members of powerful families whose main thrust is protecting their wealth along with the status quo. These people and their military henchmen don't respect ideas. There just isn't much room for reflection in Latin America.

On the left the breakthrough of genuine new ideas from liberation theology has been supressed by Rome. Intellectual support for tinpot clowns like Chavez in Venezuela is diminished as the few people able to handle rigorous thought become discouraged. Possibly Correa in Ecuador values and supports development of fundamental academic institutions. We'll have to see.

Lo más triste es que los hispanoamericanos estemos discutiendo estas cosas en un foro de angloparlantes... y en Inglés. Eso da una medida de que los hispanos ni siquiera hemos sido capaces de aprovechar el internet para crear un espacio en nuestro propio idioma donde debatir asuntos de alcance global.

Crear un foro de esas características podría ser un primer paso, pues los principales periódicos en Español no tienen ni remotamente un nivel comparable en cuanto a la diversidad ni la profundidad en los debates, mientras que otros espacios en Español son refugio de extremistas de todo calibre.

En cuanto al tema de PostGlobal, la lista de Foreign Policy es decepcionante. Hay nombres absolutamente relevantes como Gardner, Eco, Cardoso, Chomsky, Gore, Huntington o Hirsi Ali. Pero otros fueron incluidos por el simple hecho de ser personajes conocidos: Applebaum, Friedman, Krugman, Zakaria. Alguien en su sano juicio puede sostener que Applebaum es más influyente que Bob Novak o Fred Hiatt? O que Friedman es más influyente que Dick Cheney?

Pero el punto más bajo es David Petraeus. Alguien en el mundo puede decir que el Gen. Petraeus es un intelectual?

En la lista faltan nombres fundamentales. Aunque muchas personas no compartimos su ideología, debemos reconocer que Eduardo Galeano y José Saramago tienen tremenda influencia sobre la forma de pensar de cientos de millones de personas, sin duda mucho mayor que Vargas Llosa. Por eso Latinoamérica está como está.

I think it's mostly about three things:
economic power and language.

The U.S. has dominated in commerce for half a century, so its wealth has been felt all around the globe and many people have this idea that money and power flows from the intellectually gifted. Britain dominated this front prior to the U.S. As such the English language quickly became a global one - others learned English to engage in trade with these powers.

Top heads of industry are often quickly heralded as the most brilliant of minds, when more often than not they inherited their status, or their wealthy upbringings ensured stellar educational opportunities at top schools, universities. Their priveleged connections ensured they'd prosper in trade.

So, I'd say wealth does tend to produce lots of educated people, and if they happen to speak the language that dominates the marketplace of trade and ideas (English), then they are automatically more likely to be considered as intellectually gifted.

U.S. and British Media dominates the world so people are more likely to know their celebrities, billionaires, and intellectual elite.

I'm sure Spanish speaking countries have just as many gifted and brilliant intellectuals as we have in America and in the U.K. We'll probably just never hear about them, whereas you're probably more likely to hear about ours.

The biggest problem is the assumption that there should be a relationship between the numbers of people in a geographical area and the number of people represented worldwide as public intellectuals. Why is there an assumption that there is an even distribution of public intellectuals in every population?

Is the rate of advanced education the same? Is the openness of societies the same? Is the level of wealth the same? So why would the rate of public intellectuals be the same?

After losing members in the USA due to birth control & Scandal the Catholic church is now making a comeback due to the millions of Illegal Aliens pouring across our borders. Its an ideal plan, let the Catholics Latinos pour across our open borders and Breed like Rabbits while forcing American tax payers to pay an average of 20k per year for each one to provide education, medical care and welfare for them. That is why the Pope spoke about taking care of Immigrants and wants blanket amnesty for them and why all Catholic Churches are for breaking the law and encourage & protecting Illegal Aliens and open Borders! When the next president gives the 20 to 30 million mostly uneducated Illegal Aliens citizenship alone with chain migration there will be 100,s of millions of new fast breeding, educating hating, criminally inclined , welfare loving Catholic Latino citizens and the Nation will soon join the Third World as they breed us into poverty, like they have Mexico and Latin American. But the Democrat Politicians will have the welfare votes and further their Socialist Agenda, the Republican Politicians an unlimited supply of nearly slave labor for their Pay Masters in the Corporations and Businesses and the Church more millions of Catholics to preach their dogma, past the collection plate, and lots of children for the priests to play with. The only losers are current American Citizens & their progeny and either Party or the Catholic church gives a damn about them!

FF,

If the list were proportional to population, there should be the a lesser number of intellectuals for the U.S. and Britain. Martinez's question is valid in the context of a list created from an American standpoint. The American experience is not just limited to the U.S.--Canada is part of the hemisphere as much as Brazil.

Thinking globally from an American standpoint begins with embracing America as a hemisphere.

Best,

JAB

Elites in Latin America don't want the general population to get a better education because that would mean a generation of open-minded and critical thinkers, not good for the self-serving elites who are for keeping the ancient status quo rather than promoting economical and social development. This ancient status quo was inherited from the Spaniards who never came to America to create but to extract, to the white "criollos" to keep a few wealthy ones at the top of the pecking order, as long as they get more money, keep their social status and other entitlements everything is ok.

Most of these intellectuals are sell outs who enjoy the benefits of catering to the powerful, just ask jet-setter Mario Vargas Llosa. It will be a long time until Latin America turns out to be a more productive and modern society.

Is Hernan DeSoto considered an intellectual or not? His ideas certainly have broken into the mainstream of international economic thought.

With so many Latin American sabios why can't they come up with an economic program to keep their people from risking their lives to become illegals and neo-slaves in America? All indications are that the "wise people" of Latin America are encouragaing the not so wise to leave Latin America.

One of the things I have noticed living in Mexico for four years is their aversion to foreign teachers in their universities to teach international affairs and foreign languages. Mexican university professors of these subjects are good but limit the students only to the Mexican perspective and create a lack of understanding of foreign idioms and culture. I'm not sure if this is true in the rest of Latin America but it is a limiting factor is Mexico's positioning in the rest of the world.

all the American people see as far as Latinos are concerned are the illegals lining up on the streets looking for day work. Intellectuals are not speaking up and that is their fault. and as far as leftists go, no one needs to recognize them because in their wake people die.

Where's Carlos Fuentes?

Well, actually, 5 entries on the list is not especially noteworthy given the population of Latin America relative to the world. Latin America has, according to Wikipedia, 582 Million people, while the entire world has about 6.6 Billion. So, everything else being equal, we'd expect to see 8 or 9 Latin American entries on a list of 100. To see only 5 is still perhaps disappointing, but the really striking thing is the lack of East Asian entries. There are only 4 of them, despite the population of East Asia outstripping Latin America by a factor of 3.

The self-centeredness of the list is amazing. :-)

great, insightful analysis.