British Magazine: Russell Brand Among World’s Top 5 Most Important Thinkers

Popular British political and cultural magazine Prospect may have turned heads last month by naming comedian Russell Brand among its top 50 world thinkers, but then things got even more bizarre when this week they and their readers named him among the top 5.

Asking readers to help them narrow the top 50 field down to 10 by submitting votes, the Prospect ended up with a list that places Brand ahead of renowned surgeon Atul Gawande, famed human rights activist Arundhati Roy, and economist Paul Krugman, among others.

“Brand is the spiritual leader of Britain’s disaffected anti-capitalist youth. In October he published Revolution, a manifesto for the radical redistribution of wealth and power,” Prospect explained of his inclusion. “Dismissed by his opponents as a clownish opportunist, he is nevertheless the most charismatic figure on Britain’s populist left.”

Since becoming more involved in political discourse, Brand has become something of a renowned troll: His “The Trews” YouTube series typically features him lobbing bombs at American media figures like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Fox News in general, MSNBC, and President Obama.

During a media tour for his book, Brand has had a confrontational run-in with Fox News security, and a series of awkward and/or heated interviews with British reporters, one of which took a bizarre turn towards conspiracy theorizing.

Here’s the full Prospect top 10 world thinkers list:

1. Thomas Piketty, French economist
2. Yanis Varoufakis, Greek economist
3. Naomi Klein, American author
4. Russell Brand
5. Paul Krugman, American economist
6. Arundhati Roy, Indian author and activist
7. Jurgen Habermas, German philosopher
8. Daniel Kahneman, Israeli-American psychologist
9. John Gray, British philosopher
10. Atul Gawande, American surgeon and author

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