From a Canadian whiteboy, far distanced from the particular American milieu that has given us this gentleman, i say that his is simply one of the finest voices and souls and messages in the world today. An astounding intellect but tempered in grace....
ABSOLUTELY !!! "The function of freedom.. is to free somebody else" How can we do that without the tempering spiritual philosophies of past generations?? We really are on the brink of "morally disappearing ".. this is sooo not cool.. "loving kindness, might makes right".. cannot be lost, or WE ARE TRULY GONE.. Thank you both; truly..
Yes, cornell west is a special, unique mind. Getting rid of the classics reminds me of when they cut much of the art, music, social studies and humanities programs from high school curriculum a few decades ago. Almost eliminating those important subjects can only have negative effects on creating well rounded people. A big reason so many people lack critical thinking skills these days and society is suffering, they fail to teach how to think and reason. We need to be taught what it is to be human.
That is part of the same old corporate class agenda of revisionism. Or rewriting history and deleting the history memory of the people. Stalin and the USA s corporate class perfected that agenda . Stalin even deleted the images of the photographic record of the 1917 revolution in which the original vanguard appeared. Changed the writings of many of them. Prohibited literature criticizing the regime. Etc. The same here more systematic and covered. Right now it is an ongoing agenda.
I can't help noticing they cut out civics so I taught that all important subject along with others they eliminated to my son at home. The arts were the easiest since I had a fully equipped art studio at the time and had my music instructor to add my son to his client list. We had a lot of fun while I worked on my next gallery show while he learned at my side. We had our music lessons together. Soon he was far better than I will ever be. He sings and plays several instruments and had his first art opening at a gallery a ten hour drive away in Flagstaff Arizona where we also visited the Grand Canyon. He got in a lot of driving practice along the way and got to drive my classic car for the first time. Soon he got some of his short stories published. I didn't expect all that. I just wanted him to learn a few skills to the best of his ability and become a well rounded person. At least he knows the humanities, a more realistic American history than they teach in school, visited as many museums as possible and became a well rounded person before entering the workforce. Did I mention how proud I am of the man he has become?;-)
@@leealexander3507 That's great!!! I was very disappointed in the public school system as my son went through school. I wish I'd made much different choices regarding his education. If only I knew then what I know now. Huge disappointment in the system. Somewhat like you, I decided after learning what public school was all about that life offered much more of a chance to become well rounded than public school ever would. So I trusted that he'd learn and pick things up through our extracurricular life and experiences which he did. Much of what he knows now I attribute to his ability to learn independently because he sure didn't learn much in school other than maybe not to trust public government institutions to do right by you but to trust yourself and take it upon yourself to get what you need and to learn much of what you need to know. We laugh now, that we both survived the public school system. We sure were glad when that was over. The importance of a well rounded education is that we learn such important skills and our brains are wired from the overlapping of subject matter, without the overlapping between various subjects we miss important variants of learning. Music for instance is very tied to enhancing math abilities. I didn't do well in math myself until I took astronomy, which helped me grasp math and taught me to visualize things in a more abstract way. I'm very proud of my son who's now 21. He turned out great in spite of the majorly disappointing public school system. There were a couple of teachers and a couple of classes or programs that were of value and I'm grateful for those, but for the most part it was really disappointing on so many levels. Really sad. You did right by your son, taught him self-reliance and that there are many ways to educate oneself if we watch for and take advantage of those opportunities.
A M E N. I have been teaching literature for about 25 years, and I can say that the humanities/classics/philosophy/the arts are where you learn about yourself. These subjects force you to both open your mind and mature.
At 15 started with Herman Hesse, passed through Sartre and the classics of German philosophy , found Marx and the others , the light opened my eyes and heart, discovered Lenin, Trotsky , Gramsci, then in a USA little church found the Bible and became a Marxist with a Christian perception and capacity to feel love. Read many classics in Christian doctrine but never abandoned my working class identity and faith and our capacity to find a better society. Lost my nationality in the process I rejected it. I am free from borders and limits like skin and culture. I am a new exmexican with a better community to belong.
That, and a buck, will get you a coffee. I matured just fine in the health sciences, got a great career, and retired early. Kids from poor families don't have the luxury of maturing by reading books in school. We do it by working a rotten job during school to pay for classes, and read on our own, after we get a good job that pays the rent, then pays the mortgage, then we retire early.
@@Cathy-xi8cb your experience. That is great and it's not. I could go into details of mine or my mother's or fathers all working class with sacrifices and limitations in the capitalist world of injustices with many failures and success. The point is that the learned culture in the library of intellectual growth offers many options to those choosing to find them. The classics are those stepping stones for the fortunate ones that will become the needed leadership and voices of freedom and justice. Without them we are lost and in the hands of others. It may not be a fortune but even if a burden is worth it. Like Christ found worth the sacrifice for us.
Where who learns about themselves? The "classics" teach a Eurocentric view. A world view teaches classics from all continents, thus exposing you to the humanity of the world.
@@alwaysv Eurocentric. What a regionalism. A limited view of the human experience. And more of the workers of a world system that unite us without the dominant class wanting it. The nature of the socio-economic organism works against the highjackers of its instruments of production. Making culture and knowledge a patrimony of the human race. Yes there are differences but the common factors are what matters in the context of the struggle for justice and equality. Making irrelevant those differences and setting them aside for particular situations where they might be important. A constant limitation of that perception is race or nationality. Many times I find an AA man and accuses me of racist when I said the problem of race is more A problem of class than of the skin. A LeBron James finds himself very comfortable among white wealthy as well as a tiger Woods. But never you will see a Bronx guy of the hood in a party at the Augusta chatting with trumpers corporate class. P
Dr. Cornel West you have my deepest condolences in the loss of your beloved Mom. Dr. West is a Good, Righteous Man who has a Genuine Love for All of Mankind! May God Continue to bless and guide him.
"The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) We need the Classics for not only our minds, but for our souls.
The only thing wrong here is that this conversation was too short. Wonderful questions. Awesome answers. Thank you, Walter and thank you, Dr. Cornel West, Sir.
I love to hear Dr. West speak. He has so much intellectual, spiritual and moral insight into both past and present social issues and possible solutions..
Once more Cornel convinced me he is a man to listen if you are looking for good ideas. The classics confirm to be relevant in times of history constant attempts at revision to rewrite it.Thank you Cornel for saying something I repeat constantly ..the need of a mature leadership without mediocre goals. I want to remind the AA community that we the immigrant are the same as you. In every sense. B. &BrLM
I would say that we need to become gynecologists in order to be born again from the belly of the system and help others be extricated from it with a stronger identity as oppressed wanting liberation. Other words same goal. Will know Thee truth and The truth will make us free.
@@reforest4fertility mother earth is sick and tired of a few jewels extracted from piles and piles of rock. Only to be possessed by a few as well. She is giving birth to a new kind of hot melting an abundant force that will dissolve the chains in a chain reaction unexpected and unpredictable by the miners without the science to stop it.
What it means to be human may well be the central core of all Philosophy. We are our own greatest enigma. Professor West is one of our learned ones,and he's willing to teach us if we're willing to learn. He has the qualities you look for in a scholar as well as a clergyperson: brains as well as heart; wisdom and compassion. Thanks,Professor. Love you,brother.
Frederick Douglass - “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” (West Indian Emancipation speech' at Canandaigua, New York on August 3rd 1857)
Classics was my first degree. What I learned from the fall of previous empires is why I have been ringing alarm bells for years. These courses must continue to be available, and our society needs people to continue to specialize in examining the past in the multidisciplinary way that classicists do.
The classic are important. Very important . Not only do we learn about ourselves from the classics we learn about humanity. About who we can be. About what this world can be. About our own brain. The flexibility of our thoughts and the complexity of reason. Our brains grow, our ability to think critically grows. We are better immensely through the classics .
Started communing with the classics in the evenings after running writing and online reselling activities after reading about a slave owner or European leader-royal did the same. The evenings left me better able to fend off problem undereducated underdeveloped men I found myself around and to manage myself in such a way that is dignified, gracious, disciplined. Only chronic sleep deprivation and marijuana fumes can rob me of the capacity and leave me as uncouth and niggardly of those who surround. The interview restores me and reminds me that in the depth of sleep deprivation I may find the tools of the adult expression for powerful, intimate, and grounded discourse and inquiry to better understand my life, our culture and leadership, and humanity. Thank you.
I really like him but I wouldn't call him a prophet. He doesn't seem to have the bravery to lead or a concise plan to win a victory for civil rights. But I do like him and see him poised in a position to become a prophet. It's hard, I know in America that the souls are outnumbered by the antichrist beasts but I pray for Cornell and for all of us
It's always inspiring to hear this man speak. He speaks for civilization--a civilization that has always been a vision and never fully realized anywhere. He knows what universities are for. Sadly, Harvard University is a business more than it's a university, ready to pave the groves of Academe and put up a parking lot. Seriously, what kind of school has George W. Bush and Ted Cruz as alumni?
So sorry to hear of your mother's death, Cornel. She sounds like she was a wonderful woman. Never expected Howard University would want to close the classics dept.
How would an Educational Establishment, a Post Secondary Education, be missing the Classics. Ridiculous. Give me a break. Who is the chump "in charge" who is behind not having The CLASSICS in *EDUCATION*
Alas, all that matters to institutions of higher education is money--grants, donors, tenure, and other such privileges. Of course they don't care about critical thinking, classical ideals, and the humanities. Such "frills" don't make money for them or for the students. Colleges reflect the bigotry, materialism, and selfishness of the culture at large.
Imagine all the technology we want to advance and program, but those who do it know nothing about the debates of ethics and morals. The classics at basic cursory level teaches us those ideas of ethics, morals, values, ideals, virtues, and how examine and debate all angles. Why get rid of them? What do we replace them with? Can we move forward as a society and mature without them as a catalyst for debate and discussion?
James Baldwin's astonishing intelligence, shrewdness and profound self-honesty make an example for young people the world over, regardless of race and time.
I think the abolishment of classics department is a good step towards the attainment of religious superiority, with religion here everything that can be sold without an effort. I am not ungry about this: it was an expectation that this will happen but I didn't expect to see it in my lifetime. Thankfully other cultures, more sane, will understand the value of Classics.
Biden has surprised me too so far. I praise him in hopes he will continue in this direction. Bad feedback and continued dissatisfaction might push him to head in a different direction. I believe we should let people know when they start heading down the right track. Not me, but us. One common citizen alone cannot provide enough positive feedback to matter much if at all.
Different people have studied the classics but seem to have gotten different things from them. Cornel West and Newt Gingrich are familiar with the classics but both seem to have come out differently as a result of studying the classics,why?
cornel is truly brother and sisters keeper radiating kindness in his passionate embrace of spiritual concern directly heartfelt not paralyzed by despair not surprised by evil remaining in the battle to the very end not laurel resting he clearly enjoys keeping his compass sharp honing points delivered as seed planter tilling ground made fertile by rolled up sleeve hope
Must chim in long a nouf to say wow, you know what a interactualy manner a tough pill to swallow, however at the end of the day love taking in every word proffeser West says good man.
