JP is I believe the world's most famous and influential public intellectual atm, and a pretty polarizing figure. Most people seem to either love him or hate him. I'm in the middle, leaning toward loving him in the sense that I think he does more good than bad in the world. Some of his insights I find to be profound, and his criticism really sharp at times. At other times, really adolescent and superficial and biased. In this era of super-specialization, I find his learning to be uncommonly wide. He understands things that *he's not supposed to* as a mere psychologist, if that makes any sense! I've listened to some interviews of his with experts, where I'm clueless as to what the expert has just said, and then JP unpacks and drives it home with something like genius. His ability to understand and analyze what he's told, evidenced even when he's publicly learning on the spot, is remarkable, and drew praise from people like Lawrence Krauss when he was explaining physics to him.