Time magazine named “The Protester” the person of the year, in recognition of the global rise of populist movements. It was quite a blow to the Apple devouts expecting to wake up to Steve Jobs‘s face this morning. (Raising the existential question, can one “snub” the dead?)
But Time editor Rick Stengel‘s decision was also a vote of confidence for actor Jesse Eisenberg, who had suggested revolutionaries for person of the year while participating in a panel the magazine hosted this fall. (His qualification was having played last year’s man of the year, Mark Zuckerberg, in a movie.)
Amid a chorus of “Steve Jobs,” Mr. Eisenberg said that choosing any individual would “undercut those movements.”
We haven’t read the cover story by Kurt Andersen yet, but with only a quick glance we noticed that this is his second magazine piece this month to name-check Francis Fukuyama‘s The End of History.
