I recently read that Dr. James Rosenau, a noted political scientist and professor passed away.  There are plenty of people who knew Dr. Rosenau better than I.  And it's probably best left to someone smarter to explain how his application of the science of Complexity to politics was revolutionary.

But, in 1999 I was fortunate to be one of his students for 2 semesters and he changed the way I see think. At the very least, I owe him this public Thank You.

By the time I met Dr. Rosenau, he had risen to the top of the political science hierarchy as a teacher in the rational actor school of thought, scrapped the majority of those beliefs, started fresh with a new way to view the world and once again rose to prominence.  

Dr. Rosenau had a lot of endearing qualities.

He admitted his past beliefs to our class without shame or regret. "I used to believe that if we studied hard enough, we could know what [presidents and politicians] were going to do before they did it." he confessed with a chuckle once.

He drove us to "climb the ladder of abstraction" by continually asking, "of what is this an instance?"

He said mental frameworks were important and said facts were, "lookable-upable." he admitted he made that word up.

He wrote a play. He laughed when he told us it was criticized as wishy-washy.

Whenever a student suggested that it might not be possible to completely understand systems made up of free-willed people, he suggested, "then why don't we all just go to the beach?"

He corrected us anytime us used the words, "completely," "entirely," or "totally" unless they were correct in the most literal sense.

Personally, he taught me a new way to see everything from traffic to the international economy and he did it in a way that was encouraging, honest, and left you feeeling like a peer of this incredibly intelligent person. 

Lots of people can look back on a professor or teacher who changed our personal trajectory.  I have a feeling that James Rosenau was that person for many of those lucky enough to have him.