Your Ideological Mount Rushmore

[President Johnson]

Franklin Roosevelt
Lyndon Johnson
Helmut Schmidt
Martin Luther King Jr.

[HillGoose]

Dick Cheney
Donald Rumsfeld
Bill Kristol
Paul Wolfowitz

wild actually now that i think about it tbh

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

George Washington
Lee Kuan Yew
FDR
Napoleon Bonaparte

I can jive wid it

[dead0man]

Carl Sagan
James Randi
Penn Jillette
and lets say....Paine

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

George Washington
Lee Kuan Yew
FDR
Napoleon Bonaparte

Having taught in Singapore for a decade- up top!

Where did you teach ?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Most shaped my worldview is a bit different from people I most admire in ideological terms, and would certainly lead to a more interesting bunch.

I had this thought too, but for me "most shaped" would I think be my mother, my WWII veteran grandfather, one of my aunts, and one of my high school homeroom teachers. I believe in filial piety enough that I'd love to immortalize these people, and I also really like Mr. Smith's answer, but I'll take a stab at giving a "most admire" version:

Francis of Assisi
Christina Rossetti
Leonard Cohen
Tanaka Mitsu

These are just off the top of my head, though, and there are plenty of other figures in the same rough weight class for me.

[Vosem]

I have an unusual question to pose to everyone on Facebook....who are the 4 public figures who have most shaped your worldview?

When I ask this, you can include, for example, writers, activists, politicos, theologians, philosophers, historical figures, and that sort of thing.

Think of it as your own ideological Mount Rushmore, if you like.

This is actually a really difficult question in some ways -- wouldn't literally everybody here have to answer, like, Marx and Darwin? (Or, like Nathan suggests, just whatever family members and teachers had the strongest influence on your worldview?)

The founder of Goldwater-era and post-Goldwater-era ideological American conservatism, I think, was Henry Hazlitt, who popularized the works of Mises and Hayek among a right-wing English-speaking audience and inspired William Buckley to enter politics. (Hazlitt is also generally a "who's who" of mid-century right-liberalism, who built the network of the time; Wikipedia recounts, as a representative anecdote, that Hazlitt introduced Mises and Ayn Rand to each other). I think Hazlitt's 1951 novel The Great Idea, although a relatively forgotten work next to Rand's novels and Hazlitt's nonfiction work, is also substantially responsible for introducing something like "the libertarian personality"; it is the earliest work of what is identifiably modern libertarian utopianism, and the first to assume something like 'of course capitalism will triumph against tyranny'.

To choose a more modern figure, the godfather of cryptocurrency-era technoprogressive "conservatism" is Tyler Cowen, the chair of the economics department at George Mason University who hired a number of libertarian intellectuals over the course of the 1990s/2000s, several of whom went on to be very influential/spark entire intellectual movements. Most obvious here is Robin Hanson's invention of futarchy in 2001 directly inspiring the invention of Bitcoin in 2008, as a currency that could serve as the basis of a futarchic state (and discussions on Hanson's blog of the work of Curtis Yarvin, which went on to inspire Steve Bannon to work on Trump's campaign, and so perhaps ~~arguably~~ led to his victory, depending on how much you credit Bannon for this), and Bryan Caplan pioneering direct attacks on the American educational system, which have been rapidly mainstreamed in the post-COVID era.

I would probably say at least one figure representing American constitutionalism (probably James Madison, or some other early Founding figure), at least one figure representing European anti-socialism (most likely Hayek, perhaps Mises), at least one figure representing the postwar capitalist turn (most likely Hazlitt, perhaps Hayek goes here), and at least one figure representing the contemporary intellectual techno-progressive right (most likely Hanson, though maybe Cowen as a stand-in for "all of the above", though Cowen is really much more moderate than most of the figures to come out of this space).

[Jim Crow]

Presidents

George Washington
Abraham Lincoln
Dwight Eisenhower
Ronald Reagan


Theologians

Augustine
Aquinas
Martin Luther
Martin Luther King Jr.


Philosophers

Plato
Aristotle
Aquinas
John Stuart Mill

[Ragnaroni]

Ronald Reagan (could be switched out for George H.W Bush)
John Maynard Keynes
Domitian
Edmund Burke

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Ronald Reagan (could be switched out for George H.W Bush)
John Maynard Keynes
Domitian
Edmund Burke

Reagan and Keynes together? That's certainly a conversation starter.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Ronald Reagan (could be switched out for George H.W Bush)
John Maynard Keynes
Domitian
Edmund Burke

Reagan and Keynes together? That's certainly a conversation starter.

What do you think of my selection?

[Ragnaroni]

Ronald Reagan (could be switched out for George H.W Bush)
John Maynard Keynes
Domitian
Edmund Burke

Reagan and Keynes together? That's certainly a conversation starter.

I believe that they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Keynes (and I mean proper Keynes not the modern stuff) was essentially "save during the good times, spend during the bad". Why not have Reaganism during good times and break out Keynes when there's a recession?

[Brother Jonathan]

Lord Salisbury
Alexis de Tocqueville
Leo Strauss
Alexander Hamilton

Something like that anyway

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Ronald Reagan (could be switched out for George H.W Bush)
John Maynard Keynes
Domitian
Edmund Burke

Reagan and Keynes together? That's certainly a conversation starter.

I believe that they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Keynes (and I mean proper Keynes not the modern stuff) was essentially "save during the good times, spend during the bad". Why not have Reaganism during good times and break out Keynes when there's a recession?

Good explanation. Not a fan of Reaganism, but it and Keynesianism are certainly reconcilable...

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Ronald Reagan (could be switched out for George H.W Bush)
John Maynard Keynes
Domitian
Edmund Burke

Reagan and Keynes together? That's certainly a conversation starter.

What do you think of my selection?

Establishment/Anti-Radical Lefty. At least for the three that I recognize.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Ronald Reagan (could be switched out for George H.W Bush)
John Maynard Keynes
Domitian
Edmund Burke

Reagan and Keynes together? That's certainly a conversation starter.

What do you think of my selection?

Establishment/Anti-Radical Lefty. At least for the three that I recognize.

Yep, that's about right. As for the last one...I've been introduced by Nicolas Gomez Davila over the course of this year and some of what he says deeply connects with the traditionalist and deeply religious side of me. Whirlwind social change has never been my thing, but perhaps this feeling has intensified over the past few years.
If I had a fifth name to add, I think I would add Marx. Sometimes I have to tell myself to avoid excessive class reductionism...

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Ronald Reagan (could be switched out for George H.W Bush)
John Maynard Keynes
Domitian
Edmund Burke

Reagan and Keynes together? That's certainly a conversation starter.

What do you think of my selection?

Establishment/Anti-Radical Lefty. At least for the three that I recognize.

Yep, that's about right. As for the last one...I've been introduced by Nicolas Gomez Davila over the course of this year and some of what he says deeply connects with the traditionalist and deeply religious side of me. Whirlwind social change has never been my thing, but perhaps this feeling has intensified over the past few years.
If I had a fifth name to add, I think I would add Marx. Sometimes I have to tell myself to avoid excessive class reductionism...

Putting Burke and Marx on the same list is even more of a conversation starter than Reagan and Keynes.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Ronald Reagan (could be switched out for George H.W Bush)
John Maynard Keynes
Domitian
Edmund Burke

Reagan and Keynes together? That's certainly a conversation starter.

What do you think of my selection?

Establishment/Anti-Radical Lefty. At least for the three that I recognize.

Yep, that's about right. As for the last one...I've been introduced by Nicolas Gomez Davila over the course of this year and some of what he says deeply connects with the traditionalist and deeply religious side of me. Whirlwind social change has never been my thing, but perhaps this feeling has intensified over the past few years.
If I had a fifth name to add, I think I would add Marx. Sometimes I have to tell myself to avoid excessive class reductionism...

Putting Burke and Marx on the same list is even more of a conversation starter than Reagan and Keynes.

For years, especially when Marxism influenced me in a more singularly strong way, I believed in a big chunk of what I felt Marxian social analysis postulated. However, I never saw the elite, generalized, as uniquely bad, which meant that things like Maoist hating on landlords never had fertile ground in my head (in fact, I've had a net positive opinion of all the landlords whose houses I've lived in).

When you take Marxist-style thinking about society and strip away the class warfare parts and insert belief in markets (which I've also always had to some degree) and a good dose of Burke, you can get class-conscious class responsibility that villainizes neither the poor nor the rich and believes in a market economy, while rejecting many things that the New Left holds dear (and I've never really identified with the New Left, really). Marxian influences still show quite clear with my utter dislike of Latin American right-wing politics.

Is this, hilariously, not too different from the ideological evolution of many ex-Trotskyists?

[Alben Barkley]

Ron DeSantis
Ted Cruz
Donald Trump
John Howard

Men of substance.

Thanks a lot, Mec.  I had to look up John Howard which led me down a long rabbit hole of reading up on Aussie government.  And now I'm just looking at pix of Emus.  

This being, of course, because after Australia's decisive defeat in the Great Emu War, emus took over the country. That's why so many Aussies care about our politics; they came over here as refugees after being expelled by the emus.

Anyway, my own picks:

- Harry S. Truman
- Woodrow Wilson
- John Rawls
- Alben Barkley!

(Yes, the 1948 Democratic ticket was my favorite of all-time, how could you tell?)

Actually, Scoop Jackson might be my fourth pick or at least a runner-up. He, Wilson, and Truman all inspire my strong belief in social liberalism at home and liberal interventionism abroad.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Ronald Reagan (could be switched out for George H.W Bush)
John Maynard Keynes
Domitian
Edmund Burke

Reagan and Keynes together? That's certainly a conversation starter.

I believe that they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Keynes (and I mean proper Keynes not the modern stuff) was essentially "save during the good times, spend during the bad". Why not have Reaganism during good times and break out Keynes when there's a recession?

History would seem to show that's not necessarily how the public thinks, and shua IIRC once made the observation that in bad times, Americans are hostile to new spending, because they feel like the government should be tightening its belt like they have to (and for tax hikes, that goes without saying). In good times, Americans feel like we should be even more prosperous, and because we can afford it, new spending is welcome. Obviously that wasn't quite the case during COVID.

That phenomenon was basically the result of decades of slogans and politicking which causes Americans to mistakenly view government spending the same way as a household budget. Call it "reverse-Keynesianism" perhaps.

Also worth pointing out is that Reagan, W. Bush, and Obama all governed as Keynesians. You can pursue those policies through tax cuts, new spending, or both, and even the Recovery Act which started what became known the Tea Party ("Taxed Enough Already") was 2/3 tax cuts. The media mostly swept that under the rug.

[Ragnaroni]

Barack Obama
Lyndon Johnson
Edmund Burke
Nicolás Gómez Dávila

In response to your message asking my thoughts on your picks. Obama makes sense, Johnson too. Both famous american left guys. Edmund Burke is interesting and apparently Davila is conservative too. What parts do you like about Burkean conservatism?

[Ragnaroni]

Ronald Reagan (could be switched out for George H.W Bush)
John Maynard Keynes
Domitian
Edmund Burke

Reagan and Keynes together? That's certainly a conversation starter.

I believe that they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Keynes (and I mean proper Keynes not the modern stuff) was essentially "save during the good times, spend during the bad". Why not have Reaganism during good times and break out Keynes when there's a recession?

History would seem to show that's not necessarily how the public thinks, and shua IIRC once made the observation that in bad times, Americans are hostile to new spending, because they feel like the government should be tightening its belt like they have to (and for tax hikes, that goes without saying). In good times, Americans feel like we should be even more prosperous, and because we can afford it, new spending is welcome. Obviously that wasn't quite the case during COVID.

That phenomenon was basically the result of decades of slogans and politicking which causes Americans to mistakenly view government spending the same way as a household budget. Call it "reverse-Keynesianism" perhaps.

Also worth pointing out is that Reagan, W. Bush, and Obama all governed as Keynesians. You can pursue those policies through tax cuts, new spending, or both, and even the Recovery Act which started what became known the Tea Party ("Taxed Enough Already") was 2/3 tax cuts. The media mostly swept that under the rug.

I agree. The greater public tends to disagree with spending, however uneducated they are in the field of economics (not trying to insult them). Difference is : Keynes didn't like massive deficits... Reagan, W. Bush and Obama did.

[TDAS04]

Dave Leip
Olawakandi
Rod Balgojevich
George Santos

[MR DARK BRANDON]

Joe Biden
Barack Obama
Tony Blair
Bill Clinton

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Elisabeth Fraser
Hope Sandoval
Rachel Goswell
Bilinda Butcher