"...To give in to sophomoric relativism ("Anything goes" or "All views are equally valid") is a failure of nerve, and to succumb to wholesale skepticism ("There is no truth") is a weakness of the will and the imagination."
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Surprised yet again by another West quote. I thought he was an elitist, but he seems willing to call a spade a spade. Interesting.
A nice series of posts mi amiga!
No way! Cornel an elitist!!!! where did you get that idea?!?
Mi amiga,
I've seen the guy speak and be interviewed several times on the ol' boob tube. I also watched him on a PBS or CSPAN (don’t remember exactly) roundtable debate years ago. I remember being impressed at the time by his intellect but found him narrowly focused and fairly typical as liberals or Harvard types go (meaning elitist—please don’t take this as me being anti-Ivy League).
Btw, as I hope you know by now, I’m not "conservative" or "liberal." Depending on the issue I might line up on either side of the divide. If anything, I lean towards libertarianism in terms of political thought. My theology is “Via Media.”
Anyway, when I’ve listened to West he seemed to me to have only one message or concern and that being race relations and reducing the gospel to social justice. Social justice is certainly part of it but by no means all of it. Seeing things from one angle only usually means you don’t see the whole picture and as such the real “image” is likely to be distorted. At a minimum, when someone does this their perspective will be flat and far from 3-D. If someone’s perspective is not 3-D then their judgment needs to be questioned. I’m not saying West (remember I said I was suspicious, not anti) is this myopic. But from my initial and limited exposure that’s how I took him. Of course, mi amiga, I could be wrong. If you say I am, then I take you at your word. You seem to be an authority on West.
I was walking through my local Barnes and Noble a few days ago and saw a point-of-sale display with a new book by West. I believe the topic was about democracy and capitalism. I might go get it now and check him out.
I’m open to learning that indeed he's deeper and broader than one issue. Your quotes from him were awesome. I appreciate you offering them up Angevoix. I like to learn.
Well, that is really the reason I am posting quotes by him. I am by no means an authority on the man, but most of us, especially in the White community know so very little about him...
As far as focusing on social justice. We do tend to focus on it in our communities because the issue is so sorely neglected outside of our communities....especially with everyone else trying to name it and claim it, gab it and grab it. The focus seems to be on what we can get for being good little Christians, rather than what can we give as good Christians...
I believe Jesus said "Do unto others..."
Btw, I am in the midst of the Cornel West reader. The thing that is striking me the most is CW's persistent emphasis on love.
Yes,this is one of my favorites. It is just so awesome to me that a man who is one of the greatest intellectuals of our age is a Christian,in the deepest sense of the word.
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