INTERESTING HOW EVERYBODY ON THE BOARD HAS AN OPINION ON SOMEBODY THEY DON'T KNOW AND HAVE NEVER READ. CORNELL WEST WHETHER YOU LIKE HIM OR NOT IS A TOP INTELLECTUAL. WITH TONS OF PAPERS PUBLISHED (IN THE TOP JOURNALS OF THE FIELD) AND DOZENS OF BOOKS. HIS CREDENTIALS ARE IMPECABLE. SO WHY DON'T WE ALL DROP THE RACIST OFFENSIVE TONE AND ATTACK HIS IDEAS WITHOUT THE AD HOMINEMS. I DOUBT ANYBODY WILL BECAUSE NOBODY HERE IS IN GRADUATE SCHOOL, OR STUDYING TO BE A RABBI OR A MINISTER. YES BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE HIS BOOKS ARE WIDELY READ. SO LET'S ATTACK HIS IDEAS, NOT THE MAN.
Please ping me on any response you might have to Mr. Maimonides all-caps screed.
This ought to be good.
;-)
My opinion, from what I have read of West's work: He has an engaging, energetic and very creative mind. Alas, that brain power is muddled by what I see as his wholehearted embrace of Marxism in thought, act and deed. It is difficult to elevate the meretricious, no matter how pretty the props. Put more simply, you can't polish shit. As for the professional standards in his work: He is slipshod, lazy, and not much of a writer. He is very undisciplined as a communicator. He is heavily weighted down, ironically by his incredibly lofty opinions...of himself. And he truly needs an editor. Yes, he publishes a lot. So does Sidney Sheldon. It's guys like these who make me feel sorry even for trees raised for pulp.
And there's another reason for West's success: Traditional academic rigors are not applied to him because he is a ... Black Liberal. Academe went south about 30 years ago, and took Common Sense and professional standards with it, and most of it hasn't recovered. In the humanities, at any rate. The loonier the premise, the more prolix the impenetrable prose to explicate it. Liberals writing for liberals edited by liberals. Yeah, tough standards. Libs get a pass. Black libs get a bigger one. Every campus wanted at least one Black star. West became a superstar in the Ivies.
Before you misread me: I think he's brilliant. But fatally infected, thus useless.
I truly don't know why you brought up something two-and-a-half years old, when we're all busy stoking this hurtling train of a presidential election express, but something tells me you're looking to provoke...and be provoked.
Let me oblige, by dissing another Black writer. Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for literature, one of the biggest jokes in the history of the printed word.