Jean Ziegler - Der Optimismus des Willens

First of all, I must mention that I agree with Ziegler's analysis of world affairs. We are on the same side, so anything negative I'll say in the following is not biased by politics.

As a leftie, my congnitive confirmation bias was pleased to hear Jean Ziegler say what should be said more often in my opinion. But, as an intellectual aspiring to wisdom, watching this man talk for one hour and half is nothing but scary. As a summary, I would argue that Jean Ziegler is like Noam Chomsky but without the intelligence nor the charisma. He comes out as a submissive child who learned a limited set of ideas when he was young and keeps repeating those ideas without ever thinking deeply about them. Sorry but the world is more complicated than what you think sir!

My guess is that he was from a left-leaning family which programmed his behavior for the rest of his life. He would absolutely hate to read this but his behavior is fascistic in nature. Had he been born to a alt-right family, he would have been a Trump supporter. Had he been born to a Nazi family, he would have been a fervent member of the Nazi youth. In short, the guy is scary and quite dangerous in my view. We must be thankful that he was not smart enough to have had a political role in Europe; he's just talking and some people (who don't know better) like what he says. He is certainly not somebody I'd quote to make a point or explain my view to others. Making a documentary about him does not seem to be a good idea in his own interest.

Finally, given the shallowness of his views, I can't help but think that deep-thought Jean-Paul Sartre must have been secretly smiling listening to him...