What's Your Intelectual Ancestry

[CoasterMatt]

Mr. Rogers taught me to be nice to my neighbors

[Prudence]

How could I have forgotten?!!? John Stuart Mill and the joy that is utilitarianism.

Plato, Machiavelli, Boethius, Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, Francis Bacon....I love those guys.

[flippyshark]

Oh jeez, let me see...

In spiritual matters - The various gospel authors (canonical and otherwise), Kierkegaard, Robert Bultmann, John D. Crossan, John S. Spong, the Tao, Zen, any number of commentators, redactors and critics, and FWIW, a book that makes me think maybe religion is worth keeping - Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott.

In skeptical matters - Robert Ingersoll, Bertrand Russell, Isaac Asimov, Martin Gardner, James Randi, Michael Shermer (also, and in the realm of sci-fi, speculation and intellectual inspiration, I gotta add Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan, Stephen J. Gould, Jane Goodall, Steve Hawking, I'm forgetting many others, which is a problem with questions like this.)

In aesthetic matters - W. A. Mozart, Frank Zappa, Expressionists (esp. van Gogh), Surrealists, Bunuel, Jodorowski, Kubrick, Samuel Barber, Uncle Walt, Charles Schultz, Herge, Kurt Weill, many punks, and the guy whose music my own compositions always come out sounding like, Mike Oldfield. There are a ridiculous number of things missing from this list, but, this third category is the most important one. (As a writer, I should throw in the two authors I seem to imitate most frequently, P.G. Wodehouse and Vladimir Nabokov.)

But this makes me sound like I actually have an intellectual life. I don't. I'm a complete goofball.

Oh yeah, Jaws. How could I forget Jaws!?

[Prudence]

Damn you guys are making me remember stuff.

Ray Bradbury opened up a new world for me. James Tiptree, Jr, turned that world on its ear. "The Screwfly Solution" is one of the top 5 literary works ever. I remember reading it while sitting on the kitchen floor of my apartment up in Bellingham. It terrified me to the core of my being.

Shakespeare, of course. Aristophanes. Camus and Kafka. Zamyatin. Ben Johnson. John Webster.

[Kevy Baby]

Bill Watterson, Gary Larson, Berkeley Breathed, and Garry Trudeau.

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

...and a heavy dose of Meinke.

Karl or Peter?

[wendybeth]

I don't know about intellectual impact, but I tend to gravitate to the Neoclassic period, in literature and philosophical essays. Hell, I'm all over the place. Virtually every person, place and epoch mentioned has had an impact on my psyche. I love the smut comedy of Aristophanes, and the witty mischief of Voltaire. Dave Barry (sorry, KB) is right up there as well. Like I said- all over the place.

[Tref]

Holy mackerel! There are some pretty heavy names being bandied about in this thread. Admittedly, folks, I'd be straight out lying if I named so much as one philosopher much less two or three. Is it any wonder I don't hang with this crowd? -- Whew! I probably shouldn't have wasted so many golden hours reading Mad magazine.

Fact is, I was going to say something coy, like: everything I ever learned I learned from the everything I ever learned I learned in kindergarten poster.

But instead, I'll just say my papa and my poor mama. And Boethius.

[MickeyD]

Yogi Berra.

I'm as deep as a puddle in this crowd.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Originally Posted by Tref

Fact is, I was going to say something coy, like: everything I ever learned I learned from the everything I ever learned I learned in kindergarten poster.

Good LORD you crack me up.

Sweet Jesus, that is funny.

I also identify with the Goonies. So, yeah. I'm the Goonie at Dorothy Parker's round table.

I guess it's all about what school of thought or philosophy or lifestyle appeals to you most, and helps design who you are. Being totally honest, your answer is the best answer. Or some version of it: "Everything I ever learned is from something I, well, learned." Heh. It can't just be experience though, because we create all kinds of false memories and blackout other things and don't retain everything. So maybe it's what we retain that defines us, and the rest is fodder for our dreams and nigtmares.

I'd like to be the goofball art lady who sits around with a bunch of seriously stylish and serious minded intellectuals, while I simultaneously enjoy their compnay and despair from it, thinking they're far too into their own brains for their own good, so why don't I just go over to where that cute drunky carpenter is sitting by the bar and buzz the night with him a while....but not before I gossip viciously about this and that outfit with my vicious circle counterparts. And then, later with the carpenter, post naked tussle and pre the morning after, we'll go off on some sort of Goonie like adventure. And we'll never say die.

You know, that *does* sound like me. Cool.

[Matterhorn Fan]

Originally Posted by flippyshark

But this makes me sound like I actually have an intellectual life. I don't. I'm a complete goofball.

You're an intellectual goofball, silly.