Goodbye Twentieth Century
 

I heard a programme on the radio recently where people argued who they thought were the most significant (not necessarily best) people from the last century in the areas of politics, the arts, sports, and science.

I've broken it down into the same categories they did, so here goes:

Who do you think was the 20th Century's most significant figure in the areas of

Politics/World Affairs:

Medicine/Biology:

Technology:

Physics:

Philosophy:

Literature:

Painting or Sculpture:

Music:

Film:

And finally, who you believe was the single most significant figure of the 20th Century:

Good poll, Herr Demon. Here be my answers.

Politics/World Affairs: Lenin (for not though entirely great reasons)

Medicine/Biology: Alexander Fleming

Technology: The inventors of microprocessors

Physics: Albert Einstein

Philosophy: Um, tough one, this, I'll go for Roland Barthes

Literature: William S Burroughs

Painting or Sculpture: Pablo Picasso

Music: Popular: Elvis Presley, Classical: Arnold Schoenberg

Film: (EDITED) - Yeah, put me down for Hitchcock too.

And finally, who you believe was the single most significant figure of the 20th Century: Perhaps Mahatma Gandhi (in a peace can prevail way)

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Politics/World Affairs: Lenin (for entirely great reasons!)

Medicine/Biology: slightly tangentially, I'd say Freud.

Technology: Not sure about this but would agree it must be someone with links to computers.

Physics: Einstein

Philosophy: (pre WW2) Wittgenstein (post WW2) Deleuze

Literature: James Joyce

Painting or Sculpture: Picasso or Warhol

Music: Elvis

Film: Godard

And finally, who you believe was the single most significant figure of the 20th Century: Lenin.

Politics/World Affairs: hitler

Medicine/Biology: jonas salk

Technology: the guys at apple or bill gates due to the sheer amount of money they've made

Physics: einstein

Philosophy: i don't know.

Literature: i don't read much, i don't know

Painting or Sculpture: dali and warhol

Music: elvis

Film: clockwork orange introduced transgression and extreme violence into mainstream cinema

And finally, who you believe was the single most significant figure of the 20th Century: too difficult a question.

Politics/World Affairs: Hitler.
Medicine/Biology: Not sure...
Technology: Probably Bill Gates... Steve Jobs
Physics: Albert Einstein
Philosophy: Jesus, I dunno.
Literature: William S Burroughs
Painting or Sculpture: Warhol
Music: Ugh... the Beatles, I guess
Film: Hitchcock

And finally, who you believe was the single most significant figure of the 20th Century

 

:

i'm with you on those.

cool thread

Politics/World Affairs: Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Medicine/Biology: James Watson and Francis Crick (discoverers of the helix structure of DNA)

Technology: whosoever invented television

Physics: Albert Einstein

Philosophy: I have no idea

Literature: Ernest Hemingway

Painting or Sculpture: Pablo Picasso

Music: Arnold Schoenberg

Film: have no idea.

And finally, who you believe was the single most significant figure of the 20th Century: Albert Einstein

Politics/World Affairs: Polish Goverment (Kaczynscy twins)

Medicine/Biology: I don't know

Technology: Apple?

Physics: Einstein

Philosophy: Daniken

Literature: Philip K. Dick

Painting or Sculpture: Salvador Dali

Music: Sonic Youth

Film: Stanley Kubrick

And finally, who you believe was the single most significant figure of the 20th Century: I have no idea.

A cursory glance, and I couldn't think of a single answer, except Joyce for literature. That's likely because I don't read much 20th Century literature. If it includes poetry and theatre, I'd again not be able to decide - WB Yeats, TS Eliot, Ezra Pound, Sarah Kane or Sammy Beckett? Nightmare.

I mean, anyone from the 90s should be discounted, because we're too close. On the other hand, if you say Shoenberg or Stravinsky, do you then have to consider whether you should include Messiaen, Shostokovich, Feldman, Cage, Ligeti (etc etc)? They're all doing their own thing, and it's massively important and great, but I couldn't single out a single character, not even in terms of which one I like most. Wittgenstein is probably a perfect choice if you're inclined towards those who followed the linguistic turn, but the 20th century was also dominated by hermeneutics (Heidegger), existentialism (Sartre), psychoanalysis (Freud, Lacan), structuralism (Levi-Strauss), that strange neo-analytic tradition (fucking MacIntyre), post-structuralism (Derrida), film theory (Barthes, Deleuze, Debord), post-modernism (Baudriallard) and those brilliant characters who've yet to sit in a tradition (Zizeck, Lyotard, Badiou). You see? Impossible. You could even argue (if you're prickishly inclined) that Lyotard belongs to PM, or Deleuze to post-structuralism (etc etc).

Impossible.

Politics/World Affairs: George H. W. Bush, Sr./Franklin Delano Roosevelt/Emperor Shōwa Hirohito/Adolf Hitler/Yasser Arafat

Medicine/Biology: Jonas Salk/Alexander Fleming
Science/Biology: James Watson and Francis Crick

Technology: John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain and William Shockley (The Bell Labs Team)/Marcian Edward "Ted" Hoff/J. Robert Oppenheimer/Nikola Tesla/Thomas Alva Edison

Physics: Albert Einstein/Georges Lemaître/Karl Schwartzchild/Werner Heisenberg/Werhner von Braun

Philosophy: Ludwig Wittgenstein/Martin Heidegger/Jacques Derrida/Michel Foucault/Jacques Lacan/(& psychology) Sigmund Freud/(& psychology) Carl Gustav Jung/(& lit) Jean-Paul Sartre/(& lit) Albert Camus

Literature (remember this is most influential): Sir Arthur Conan Doyle/Ray Bradbury/T.S. Eliot/Franz Kafka/Jack Kerouac/James Joyce/(comic books) Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

Painting & Sculpture: Pablo Picasso/Marcel Duchamp/Andy Warhol

Music: Robert Johnson/Muddy Waters/Elvis Presley/Chuck Berry/The Beatles

Film: Sergei Eisenstein/Orson Welles/Alfred Hitchcock/Stanley Kubrick/George Lucas

Most significant/influential: Albert Einstein/John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain and William Shockley (Bell Labs)/Marcian Edward "Ted" Hoff/John Lennon

I just bought a cheap Barnes and Noble classic version of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. So I have high expectations now...