Harvard Prof, Involved in Political Flap, Labeled 'Intellectual Lightweight'

CNSNews.com) - Cornel West, the Harvard professor and author at the center of a racial controversy at the prestigious school, is being criticized for his contributions to academia by both the political left and right. Author David Horowitz said West is "an incredible intellectual lightweight" who has only achieved success by playing racial politics.

The flap began when Harvard president and former Clinton Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers admonished West, a professor with Harvard's Afro-American studies department, for a variety of perceived offenses. West was called to task for allegedly inflating student grades, his stint as a singer in a self described "hip hop" CD, his role as a leader in Al Sharpton's nascent presidential campaign and his penchant for writing what Summers deemed pop culture books instead of academic books. An outraged West announced that he felt "attacked and insulted" and would not tolerate "disrespect."

Sharpton and Jesse Jackson then waded into the academic dispute. Jackson said the "tension at Harvard is having an impact across the country." Sharpton threatened a lawsuit against Harvard as "an aggrieved party" because West was rebuked for his involvement in Sharpton's campaign.

West is the author of a best selling book, "Race Matters", reviewed by the New York Times as a "compelling blend of philosophy, sociology and political commentary." According to the Times, "One can only applaud the ferocious moral vision and astute intellect on display in these pages."

West is still mulling over whether to leave Harvard for Princeton University. He told National Public Radio that, "In a deep sense, I weep for Harvard."

Race Card?

Author and former 60's radical David Horowitz told CNSNews.com that West "got where he got by politics and by playing the race card which he has played liberally in this conflict."

"I don't believe that Cornel West has ever written a work of serious scholarship," Horowitz added.

Horowitz, the author of Hating Whitey, a critique of the civil rights establishment, called West a "Marxist" who is cozying up to "anti-Semitic blacks" like Louis Farrakhan. Horowitz criticized West for alleging that America had been "niggerized by the terrorist attacks." According to Horowitz, West "means that blacks in America are subject to daily World Trade Center attacks. He's a racial demagogue."

The Economist Magazine editorialized that West's recent foray as a rap musician proved "that the medium is best left to the likes of Snoop Doggy Dogg rather than Harvard professors." The venerable magazine also mocks West's Web site because it "is shot through with embarrassing boasts and grammatical errors."

On his Web site, West, while promoting his hip hop CD titled Sketches of My Culture, states that "In all modesty, this project constitutes a watershed moment in musical history." This prompted the Economist Magazine to ask, "What on earth would the immodest version be?"

The Economist also ridiculed the typographical errors on West's Web site and sided with Summers' original critique. "[The Web site] describes Mr. West as "one of the most preeminent minds of our time" and refers to somebody called "Nietzche." So Mr. Summers clearly has a point." (Editors note: Correct spelling is Nietzsche)

The Washington Post's liberal columnist Mary McGrory sarcastically noted that West and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the chairman of the Afro-American Studies Department at Harvard, are "academic rock stars" who are threatening "to pull up stakes and make tracks for Princeton, where they indicate they will be ever so much more appreciated."

McGrory, in an article titled Hullabaloo at Harvard, referred to West and his colleagues as "academic divas" from a "spoiled college department." She criticized the involvement of Jackson and Sharpton in the dispute, calling them "two premier demagogues" and "two of the world's most preposterous personalities."

The New Republic Magazine has also taken West to task for his academic achievements. Writing in an essay called "The Unreal World of Cornel West" in 1995, literary editor Leon Wieseltier called West's collection of books "almost completely worthless." He chided West for his view that "Marxist thought becomes even more relevant after the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe than it was before."

West also wrote: "The relative unity and strength of our capitalist foes requires that we must come together if our struggle is to win!" Wieseltier said the comment reveals West's philosophy as "monuments to the devastation of a mind by the squalls of theory."

Grumbling at Harvard?

Harvard only has 14 designated "university professors", one of whom is West. According to Horowitz, for West to be chosen "one of only 14 out of 2,000 professors, there must be a hell of a lot of grumbling." Horowitz believes Summers was pressured by the faculty to rein in West.

"Cornel West is extravagantly public in his buffoonery, so it is hard to ignore him," Horowitz stated.

He said the elevation of West to the level of "university professorship" was "a racist joke because he's black. [They] put an idiot into one of Harvard's most distinguished professorships and no one will say anything."

Horowitz believes racial politics trump competence, noting that conservative author Thomas Sowell and economist Walter Williams, whom he considers intellectuals "could not get a job at Harvard."

Summers, who has now backed away from his criticisms of West and apologized, has agreed to meet with Jesse Jackson over Harvard's commitment to affirmative action.

Horowitz said Summers thought he could confront West because he, Summers, was a liberal from the Clinton administration. But, Horowitz now believes Summers is now "groveling" to the Afro-American studies department at Harvard and to Jackson.

"This kind of appeasement of bad behavior only encourages bad behavior," stated Horowitz.

Horowitz says Summers should not fear West's threat to leave for Princeton University. "The Harvard [Afro-American studies] department is undoubtedly the best department, but if it lost Cornel West, it would be even better," he said.

West did not respond to a request for an interview. He told National Public Radio last week that he will not talk to the media because there are "a lot of things going on that it's hard for the newspapers to really tell the truth about."

Annalex, I’ve read through the five sources you provided. The best of the lot (IMHO) were the two you wrote. They struck me as well-researched, well-reflected, well-constructed and quite original meditations on vital issues that the American people urgently need to confront and understand these days. Thank you for taking the time and for making the efforts that such projects of the mind require. I’m looking forward to your future essays along these lines. (Please put me on your bump list?)

What has me a little puzzled, however, is that you source a good deal of your effort to Ayn Rand’s theory of benign/beneficent American imperialism. On my analysis, your explanation could just as equally have been sourced to traditional just war theory, which historically long predates Objectivist philosophy.

Rand is the inheritor of a great cultural tradition just as you and I are. That tradition has definitely inspired a reaction from the Islamic world these days. Or at least, from a certain faction within Islam – Saudi-sponsored Wahabism. This sect that would sincerely like to see a return to the cultural norms of 11th- or 12th-century Bedouin social order: a tribal-based system that ekes out its primary economic subsistence from driving herds of various useful beasts (primarily camels, asses, and goats) from place to place under desert conditions. It is fundamentally a reactionary movement against Western-style modernity (against industrialized, materialist society), and what it sees as the primary sponsor of same – the United States.

This is not a dispute about Western civilization in general – it’s about America in particular, as the primary articulator and defender of what we Americans consider to be humane values, values that we seem to perennially cherish (and seek to universalize): individual liberty, justice under a secular rule of law, economic progress, the amelioration of human distress and need and want wherever these “social diseases” are to be found….

America is not an “imperialist power” in the classical sense. We do not wage wars in order to seize territory and economic resources and colonize people. The whole world knows this. Still, America is considered “imperialistic,” even by our allies from time to time. The normal sense of the word is inverted to cover so-called cultural imperialism. The successful, uncoerced “export” of American ideas is the root of American imperialistic evil, and why the OBLs of this world regard the United States as the Great Satan. Bedouin societies are tribal societies. As such, they are what Ayn Rand would perhaps classify as “altruistic societies” in the sense that the individual is expected to sacrifice his own interests if they conflict with the interests of the clan or group. American individualism is corrosive to the stability of such societies, and a threat to the interests of their ruling groups. This is what makes us their natural enemy.

In clan-based or tribal societies, it is the tribal chief who legitimately “represents” absolutely everybody else, with or without their say-so. Certainly this is the pattern that we see playing out in Afghanistan today, as local warlords bloodily contest the power of what passes for the duly constituted and internationally-recognized interim government (formal elections to be held in two years) in favor of their preferred, familiar, and quite-comfy-by- now local chaos of twenty-plus years’ standing….

The Afghani people themselves have to figure out which way is objectively better for their personal and social welfare in the long run. We cannot do this for them, though we can give them plenty of help and support after the fact. To me, it’s doubtful that a full-blown democratic society is about to blossom forth there anytime soon. There is so much poverty and ignorance, and the old tribal ways will not readily fade away.

Regarding Ayn Rand’s American Imperialism: I gather (please correct me if I’m mistaken) that this all boils down to the singular idea that America has the moral right to impose “liberty” on each and every foreign nation. Otherwise, foreign nations might turn out to be national security threats to the United States.

Thus, the Imperium of the United States has moral carte blanche to impose – by force if need be. The United States is fully justified, for reasons of national security, to adopt a national mission to recruit/convert the rest of the world into the order of freedom. That such a national policy, fully willed and devoutly supported by the American people, would absolutely obviate the rise of powers hostile to the interests of the United States, forever.

The Founders must be spinning in their graves. Our nation began from the insight, “no foreign entanglements,” and now we’re being urged to become “the world’s policeman.”

I don’t think that can work. For one thing, the order of liberty is predicated on a world view and moral system that is almost uniquely American. Cultures that do not share that belief and moral system are unlikely to become truly free societies. (But I don’t care if another country is a monarchy or an aristocracy or a democracy, so long as it provides for geographic integrity and internal stability; fosters the prosperity of its people and respects their natural rights; and does not interfere with its neighbors – or with us.)

Ayn Rand and so many others by now have said that the best defense of a healthy American future is the total destruction of any nation that harbors evil intent towards us, whether or not they actually carry out their evil intent in ways that actually hurt us.

Gee. If that were official U.S. policy, we would have taken out France a long time ago :^), never mind the Arabist terrorists. Who by the way, probably learned a whole lot from the Algerian War of Liberation [so-called] from France. Certainly, Yassar Arafat’s PLO seems to have studied this historical event with great diligence, and have been applying its lessons….

Respecting the historical problems of colonialism: It has been tried, in spades, all over the globe –where natural riches (like gold, diamonds, copper, oil, etc.) remained outside the market, for lack of “diligent, rational exploitation.” The Powers then who did the “exploitation” (excuse me, the “colonizing”) euphemized the exercise by calling it the carrying out of “the White Man’s Burden.” I cannot think of a more cynical, deplorable, racist remark. And I don’t care if a great English novelist and poet spoke these words and made them immortal.

Anyhoot, when the “White Man” finally walked away from his “burden,” life in the formerly subject territories tended to revert to the more ancient cultural customs and understandings. When the White Man left, the underlying society pretty much wholly reverted to its traditional cultural forms. With the difference, perhaps, that they had learned from the White Man how to make the trains run on time.

Annalex, you touched on the importance of culture as the main cohering element in civilizational order. I would love to return to that subject again some time, but it’s time to wrap this up.

In conclusion, there is no “one-size-fits-all” rule for American policy. We need to stay diligent, focused, and committed to handling threats one by one, as they come. As important as military, economic, and diplomatic force, America must project moral force through unwavering commitment to our principles of right and wrong. If we have to act alone to protect American interests, then we do so. We don’t have to ask anybody for permission to defend our people and our way of life. If we can achieve true moral clarity on the issue of the terrorist threat against us, and if the American people share that moral clarity, then we will prevail. I don’t know by when, but we will. In the final analysis, there is no alternative.

President Bush is doing a truly outstanding job of communicating our American moral vision with unshakable conviction and unrelenting force. He has also turned out to be an exceptionally fine war-time commander-in-chief. What I would like to see is more Libertarians getting behind this man of great character and determination – instead of constantly taking pot shots at him during this extraordinarily difficult time in our national life. JMHO FWIW.

Thank you so much, annalex – for the excellent work. You’re a good man, a fine thinker, and I wish we could just clone you…. All my best – bb.

The same Randian rationale which has given birth to annalex's "new appreciation" sends me scurrying away. Rand was no libertarian.

[l]ibertarianism is a philosophy of government and interpersonal relations, not a religion, not a comprehensive moral code, not an attempt to identify every aspect of Reality, not a Utopian search for earthly social/political perfection.

IMO, libertarian philosophy is founded upon three ideas which depart to a degree from both (in the current American sense) liberal and conservative thought:

1. Man will usually act in what he perceives to be his own interest, albeit far too often in his short-term interest.

2. No other person or group should be given the authority to determine what is in an individual's interest, nor to use force, fraud or coersion to get him to behave accordingly.

3. No person or group of persons may justly initiate force, fraud or coercion against another for any reason.

Proponents of these ideas do not suggest that individual, societal and governmental adherence to them would bring about earthly perfection, as people will often make poor and self-damaging choices; some of those choices will harm not only themselves, but often indirectly or secondarily harm others as well and have a detrimental impact on society at large.

Here, however, is the important point:
Less harm will be caused by the self-destructive decisions of individuals than by the use of force by third parties in the attempt to prevent, punish or over-ride them. Where libertaians most often find disagreement from both liberals and conservatives is in the matter of defining what goes beyond the merely self-destructive and causes harm to others. This is admittedly subjective, but libertarians, as I'm sure you've seen said many times before, draw the line at whether an individual has used force, fraud, or coercion in the allegedly harmful act.

Absent governmental authority to act against behavior which has directly harmed no one but the actor, there will be less security and more freedom (except perhaps to those individuals whose security is most threatened by government itself, sometimes because of societally unacceptable lifestyle, sometimes as a result of the unintended consequences of "benevolent" government action).

[l]ibertarians are willing to make the trade.

"...and good GOPers need to eschew 'The New Tone' Bovine Excrement and call the Left out fer the intellectually-dishonest lowlifes they are!!"

Amen, Slim!!
Man I'd have thoroghly enjoyed hearing that man speak; probably moreso than any other conservative on the scene today.
With Rush a close 2nd, maybe.

Politics is a bloodsport that the Left has been engaged in fer years...for the Right to triumph in winning over the hearts and minds of the American Sheeple, we gotta come out swingin' and don't stop until the Lib'rals are left squirmin' helplessly in the muck!!"

Now follow what I'm going to try & say to you, here.
That *fighting*, nasty, take no prosoners mindset you speak of as a necessity to victory by our side?
A mindset I could nevert over emphasize enough, as critical to stuffing the Liberal Beast back into the hole it slimed outa?
I seriously wonder if the females of our conservative movement are going to tolerate such a needed tack by their men.
I onlt mention that, because I've been attacked, ignored, shunned by many of these people for precisely that attitude in the past, Slim.
So think about that, too.
From which flank shall we find ourselves fighting, huh?

"We know we're right...now let's be BOLD!!"

You of course mean for some of us to continue as we have, eh?
OK. ;^)

"Humor helps, too..."

~oy bouy.
Now hearin' that comin' from you?
That's funny.
You really outa go to more of these CPAC thingamadodads more often; if that's the effect it has on your POV. :o)

...& don't kid me, either; Mrs Mudboy has GOT to agree with me, too.

Your post #85 reflects a view closer to the libertrian view than it does to that of annalex, IMO.

Few libertarians would disagree with this:

"We need to stay diligent, focused, and committed to handling threats one by one, as they come. As important as military, economic, and diplomatic force, America must project moral force through unwavering commitment to our principles of right and wrong. If we have to act alone to protect American interests, then we do so. We don’t have to ask anybody for permission to defend our people and our way of life."

However, though I could certainly say the following, I'm sure my meaning would be quite different from yours:

"If we can achieve true moral clarity on the issue of the terrorist threat against us, and if the American people share that moral clarity, then we will prevail. I don’t know by when, but we will. In the final analysis, there is no alternative."

I don't think it likely that the American people can achieve moral clarity. A comprehensive understanding of the relevant facts is essential to making many of the fine judgements necessary to achieve such moral clarity. Few if any grass-roots Americans have the time, energy, or resources to acquire those essential facts. We are, therefore, left only to trust or not trust what we are told those underlying facts are. IF there is a perceived need or a desire in the highest echelons of our government and/or intelligence community to deceive us we are always quite vulnerable, but now, with emotions inflamed by the events of 9/11 we are more vulnerable than ever. Should we trust? Your penultimate paragraph indicates firmly that you say "yes":

"President Bush is doing a truly outstanding job of communicating our American moral vision with unshakable conviction and unrelenting force. He has also turned out to be an exceptionally fine war-time commander-in-chief. What I would like to see is more Libertarians getting behind this man of great character and determination – instead of constantly taking pot shots at him during this extraordinarily difficult time in our national life. JMHO FWIW."

Having observed the actions of our national leaders and our intelligence community (at times "up close and personal") over the course of over two decades, I say "no." Saying I do not trust is not the same as saying I'm sure that funny business is going on, but I've seen plenty in recent events to make me more suspicious than a simple "I don't know."

"I seriously wonder if the females of our conservative movement are going to tolerate such a needed tack by their men."

Not only by "their men" but by themselves as well...women can be vicious. All good folks of both genders should accept the new "in-yer-face" strategms, because it is truly a Fight of Good/Right versus Evil/Left/Wrong. The ever-expanding Federal Leviathan is inefficient, ineffective, and siphons off far too much in the way of resources that could be put to much greater use...to support such an entity is either stupendously Ignorant or inarguably EVIL!! Those "women" who argue against us using all the resources at our disposal to make this point to as many people as possible are one or the other...screw 'em!!

"You really outa go to more of these CPAC thingamadodads more often; if that's the effect it has on your POV. ...& don't kid me, either; Mrs Mudboy has GOT to agree with me, too."

The Missuz had actually OK'd my going to the full three days of CPAC, but work intervened. Speaking of the LoveOfMyLife, I actually got her to join me for the patriotic Pre-Game show which I thought was very well-done. As has become my traditional practice, each time Der SchleekMeister joined in with his share of the oratory, the "Mute" button was activated and that ticked her off...LOL!! She asked, "When are you gonna get over it?!" and I responded, "Once that Lowlife Scumbag is Held Accountable for his Crimes against this Nation and Humanity and is coolin' his heels in a Federal Penitentiary for the remainder of his days on this Planet!!" Suffice it to say, the Missuz was glad when the game started and she could scamper off to do whatever it is that non-football-fan-wives do when their hubbies are engrossed in an important football game.

FReegards...MUD

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