I was thinking about this and could not quite come up with an answer.
I’m thinking along the lines of a person whose thinking has had a broad impact on life, the way we live it, and our concepts about it. This is opposed to a person that was the head of a movement that was specific in nature.
Who has changed or redefined the foundations of the world even in the modern era?
All answers are welcome.
nietzsche
-Imp
edit: and walt disney
Thanks!
If you guys would like to expand on your reasons I think that would make some good reading.
I’m looking for why and how (and whatever else you are thinking about) this person changed society.
nietzsche pronounced the death of god
disney filled the blank with fantasy
-Imp
I imagine a completely modernised Friedrich Nietzsche, who is trained in the modern psychology and economics, who is informed of the latest social developements, who manages to apply his philosophical principles to this new and more complex society… I am imagining a living Jesus that all nations would start wars to win him over. Nietzsche’s many predictions - predictions with huge social significance - have already came true, while many others are still in the process of occuring. An old Harvard professor in sociology would be inspired to produce some Nobel Prize winning essays on issues - old issues even, only if he manages to turn over a few pages of The Gay Science. Nietzsche is massively uderead, his philosophy even less practicalised, because all assume that philosophy is useless in practise - apparantly that’s why he’s still underead - the practicality of his golden ideas is not yet fully grasped. It’s pathetic that in my university’s library, there is no place for Nietzsche among the shelves of psychology and socialogy. While Kant takes one whole shelf in the philosophy section, Nietzsche takes only half, I feel little compesation from the fact that other philosophiers do worse. It is best to let the man’s books speak for themselves - if the reader is not absolutely amazed after reading three aphorisms, then this reader should…
I think that I am inclined to agree with you there Uniqor. I don’t agree with everything that he said, but I agree with more than not.
Hey, good to see you back too!
This thread has been pulse pounding!
Doesn’t quite meet this…
But certainly meets this…
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - read “Birds without wings” by Louis de Bernieres for a lightly fictionalized but massively readable history of the events preceding the formation of the 1923 republic. A good idea, determination and huge amounts of luck can change the world. Or “The Turks today” by Andrew Mango. A Muslim society need not be threatening to the West.
Uniqor - where you been…? I’ve been missing my daily dose of pro-Nietzche propaganda… 
BBC Radio 4 has recently asked its listeners to vote for their ‘Greatest Philosopher’.
And the winner is…
…Karl Marx.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
He “modernized” turkey, am I right? Break it down a bit, please.
Karl Marx
That’s an interesting choice because even the man on the street knows who he is, or at least did fifteen years ago. He certainly changed a lot of thinking and may have introduced a kind of frustration into the lives of many.
I say this because a lot of people would love to have a communist society, but “know” that it is not going to happen at least not soon. However, he did introduce the idea of worker exploitation and that’s one big idea.
However, most of his ideas have, thus far, gotten beaten by the Nietzschian idea of the strong man as played out through the ideal of a capitalist businessman. Donald Trump trumps the cooperative mensch! Too bad.
Sorry for the late response but you know how it goes with computers that have pentium 2 processors with internet connection speed that makes me wana pass out… phew it’s an oven here in this little Gothic public library. I’ll try to get a 300 quid Dell laptop when I get a job that actually covers the rent. btw, this is exactly what happens to a poor foreign student when the summer arrives and campus is closed.
As much as it’s my purpose to promote Nietzsche, it’s also my intension to strengthen my faith in the man - I welcome all criticism, the fiercer the better, so that I shall grow to know his philosophy better… waite a minute, am I actually writting to the deceased? 
TheAdlerian hi, I’d like to see your refutation to some Nietzschean ideas that you don’t find agreeable - relax man, this is a friendly invitation.
Uniqor you are in England right? Where are you from originally if you are a foreign student? Just curious.
Oh sure Uniqor! I don’t get too excited about the philosophical stuff only the social stuff. That and people trying to kill me over poorly developed science fiction concepts.
As you may remember, I am a pretty big Nietzsche fan. I’ve read his books and biographies about him and so forth. A good book is called Everything That You Ever Wanted to Know About Nietzsche But Were Afraid To Ask. It’s a fun book.
Anyway, I do not agree with his concept of the superman. The idea seems boring to me. I mean that it presents a boring life for the superman.
The comic book character Superman, as far as I know, was designed as a rebuttal to Nietzsche’s concept. Also, Superman fits well with Alfred Adler’s ideas about what the best kind of human would be. The best and strongest type of person is a cooperator that uses their strength and intelligence to help others.
The comic book character could take over the world if he wanted to by force. He doesn’t though. However, he in a sense has taken over the world via his good works and people love him. Meanwhile, the bad guys are always portrayed as having a lot of power as well, but they have the goal of forcing people toward their will. Ultimately, people gang up on them or they do something stupid and loose. Had they been nice and cooperative like Superman, then they would have gotten at least a part of what they wanted.
So, I see the superman as being the type of person that helps people and wins leadership through admiration as being far greater than a ruthless tyrant type. If you think about the people that we love (I guess most average people love these types) and admire the most down through history they are usually people that were creative and inventive in some way. Creators make ideas that are presented in books, plays, movies, social, political, and entertainment concepts. Inventors make things that help us and make life easier. These people become immortal.
Anyway, my concept of a superman is one that is not tied to material goods and uses his/her mental and physical talents to help others. A person like this is going to be free from a lot of stress and will have good feelings coming his way that will keep him healthy.
This does not mean that he would have the weakness and shame that Nietzsche believed was instilled by religion. Rather, he would be a bold and confident person that is looking out for life on Earth.
Much of this is colored by how I live my own life. I can’t think of anything that I have even done while helping people that I regret. Meanwhile, it feels great to think of a way to save someone, say from dying, as opposed to the feeling that one gets from cheating the cable company out of some free cable. Sometimes when you help people they treat you as if you were Superman. It’s great!
Anyway, that’s my only major compliant.
Rumours of my death proved somewhat exaggerated… mini 
at self.
While we’re at it: Mohatma Ghandi. A great soul who tried to show the world a way out of the cycle of revenge. Pity we learned bugger all from it.
Tab,
That was a good one and a good thought.
Tell us about Mustafa Kemal Atatürk though. I only know a little about his story and am curious. Nothing big just a little back story.
Clark Kent the superman is by no means the ubermensch. For a brief glance at the basic concept of the ubermensche, please check out en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubermensch
This archetype is rather distant from social related issues, I was thinking about Nietzsche’s ideas on religion, politics, herd morality and his predictions for furute development of the European societies.
Clark Kent the superman is by no means the ubermensch.
That’s what I was saying Uniqor.
I dislike the model of the ubermensch.
I read the link.
I mentioned that Superman from the comics was created as a response to the idea that a strong man is the ruthless aristocrat that Nietzsche frequently talks about. Superman is super helpful rather than super selfish and thus he improves the world and his own life.
The Adlerian superman would be the one from the comics. I am referring to Superman’s behavior not his powers.
The comics that you mentioned, I have read not, but I wouldn’t look for any philosophy in such stuff. You wrote clearly your notion about ubermensch, so I understood clearly, but I thought that you were a little off on that. Really, it’s all about overcoming nihilism, helping others or not, is not a ciriteria for being ubermensch. That link I posted is rather vague, to understand properly we need to read much more than that. The model is not merely a model that Nietzsche happened to constract on a sunny day in Sils Maria, but it’s kind of a summation of most of his philosophical ideas, regarding, free spirit, nihilism, power… To take credibility away from this model, is to do nothing less than completely kill Nietzsche. That’s a huge task which no one has yet managed to accomplish, in my opinion, no one can eve accomplish because the man’s philosophy is as tough as science. That’s why I’d rather concentrate on the smaller ideas here, you know the social ones. So please understand.
As much as I despise alot of what the man stood for, I’m going have to say Plato.
For social philosophy; I would have to say Sir Winton Churchill definetly rates somewhere up there with the best.
Mohandas Ghandi had many great ideals, though I see him as more of a religious philosopher then anything.
W.C.