Living in More Than One World

It’s always encouraging when a first-rate mind is celebrated in the media. That’s been the case recently with Amartya Sen, an economics Nobel Laureate who will shortly publish a new book, The Idea of Justice. Sholto Byrnes of London’s The Independent has an interesting interview with Sen on July 19, The thinker: Inside the mind of prized intellectual Amartya Sen. Byrnes points out that Sen’s work has had a significant impact on the world and that he is going strong well past what would be retirement years for some others. “Sen is 75,” Byrnes writes, “but his mind has a sharpness that those decades his junior would envy.” The interview was conducted at Trinity College, Cambridge, where Sen was master from 1998-2004. He was then off to Dublin to receive an honorary degree from Trinity College, Dublin. His official Nobel autobiography lists a mind-boggling number of universities in which he has taught, including “Delhi University, the London School of Economics, Oxford University, and Harvard University, and on a visiting basis, at M.I.T., Stanford, Berkeley, and Cornell.” Sen was also recently featured in Jon Snow’s blog on Britain’s Channel 4, Meetings with remarkable men: Amartya Sen. (Snow muses that Sen would be one of eight people he would sit at dinner with Nelson Mandela). Also see Paul Cullen’s interview with Sen, Beacon of light in a dismal science, in The Irish Times on July 11. Cullen notes that more than 500 people came to hear Sen speak in Dublin, with many more turned away. All these pieces celebrate not only the power of the mind, but also the importance of intellectual curiosity. Cullen describes Sen as “a soft-spoken polymath whose work spans an impressive number of fields – economics, philosophy, social theory, ethics, even feminism.” Besides his honorary degree, Sen was also in Dublin to receive an honorary membership in the Royal Irish Academy, and spent the morning before at the National Gallery. Clearly a man who makes the most of his time!

Kathy M. Kristof’s Personal Finance column in the May 17 Los Angeles Times, Charlie Munger’s got a billion words of wisdom, is well worth reading, beyond whatever you take away about investing. Munger is vice-chairman of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Buffett’s right-hand man and, as Kristof puts it, “one of the world’s savviest investors.” Munger, who is 85 and a Harvard Law graduate, is also chairman of Wesco Financial, and an example of a person who trains his powerful intellect on a variety of areas. He, like Buffett, remains vital and relevant long past traditional retirement years. I first heard of Munger in 2002, when interviewing the late Jim Michaels, the legendary former editor of Forbes, for my forthcoming book, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life. Michaels was Drucker’s longtime friend and also his editor when Drucker wrote for Forbes. He drew my attention to the intellectual similarities between Munger and Drucker, and told me of a lengthy lunch the three had together and the brilliant conversation between the pair, whom Michaels said were meeting for the first time. I think many of us would have liked to have been at the table that day!

Cindy Leise’s neat human interest story Toni Morrison’s first-grade teacher recalls past century, in Ohio’s The Chronicle-Telegram, is the kind of article at which local newspapers excel. Leise interviews 98-year old Esther Hunt, who taught the Pulitzer Prize-winning Morrison in 1937, in Lorain, Ohio.  The peg for the story was Morrison’s local appearance at Oberlin College’s Convocation Series, which unfortunately Hunt could not attend because of a family event in another state. According to the article, she taught in Lorain City Schools for 45 years, until her retirement in 1974. Morrison’s latest novel is A Mercy, which was published last year.
While newspapers remain under threat partly due to the upheavals caused by the online world, it is also true that readers beyond Lorain County Ohio would never have had the opportunity to read this charming story had it not been made available free online by The Chronicle-Telegram.

Lisa Miller of Newsweek has a revealing interview/feature on Huston Smith. The 90 year old religion author-professor has an important new book:  Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine, an Autobiography. The foreword was written by Pico Iyer, whom I referenced in the May 2 blog on Geoff Dyer. (Iyer’s book The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, recently came out in paperback.) Smith is known for his million-selling book The World’s Religions, originally published in 1958 as The Religions of Man.  It was also completely revised and updated when it was renamed in 1991. He was also the subject of a fascinating, five part PBS series in 1996, The Wisdom of Faith, a series of interviews conducted by Bill Moyers. I’ve long considered Smith to be a Peter Drucker-like figure. Both remained relevant and productive deep into old age, were renowned authors, professors and wisdom figures, and were considered to be at the top of their field.  Drucker was also interviewed by Moyers, for a PBS program in 1988, but not as extensively. Smith includes an anecdote about Drucker in the 2001 book Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief. In addition, there are commonalities in the writing styles of Smith and Drucker: both are clear and compelling, and adept at conveying ideas to wide, diverse readerships. I don’t know if the two knew each other. It’s reasonable to think their paths must have crossed at some point. If anyone has the answer, I’d love to hear about it!