Serious question. I’m vaguely familiar with him as a political commentator on the left, but the more I see of the guy, the more I think he’s just a liberal.

  • @dannoffsEnglish
    104•1 year ago

    Classic “Non-Marxist Socialist” lol

      • TreadOnMe [none/use name]English
        46•1 year ago

        Arguably the most common kind of socialism in the ‘west’ historically. To go off of what @emizeko said, they were usually utopian socialists, particularly religious and nudist sects in the U.S., there is a whole sect of German utopians that set up around Missouri I think, but there were lots of these groups up south of Seattle, and even (famously) anarchist nudist socialists on the peninsula in Seattle.

        They were non-Marxist in that they didn’t subscribe to any variety of Marxist economic or geo-political thinking, and they usually are big on libertarian principles coming first.

      • SerLava [he/him]English
        31•1 year ago

        I’m pretty sure the modern conception of socialism came out of the French Revolution and cropped up here and there in the early 19th century, and was pretty janky before people started figuring things out. More like a pre-Model T car or something. Clank clank awooga socialism

      • @BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.eeEnglish
        6•1 year ago

        Libertarian socialism? I don’t think most left-libertarians would consider themselves Marxists despite largely agreeing with his work

  • BidensGranddaughter [none/use name]English
    70•1 year ago

    He’s just another left-liberal who thinks THE solution is taxing the wealthy and having stronger unions, as if those are even viable options under a bourgeois democracy.

    I stopped even paying attention to him when he first ran under The People’s Party, a group of/closely-tied to LaRouchites. I assume the grift is to just get money from whatever Bernie supporters haven’t moved further left since 2020? I dunno, anyone still falling for this song and dance should read “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder by lenin-pensive

  • axont [she/her, comrade/them]English
    60•1 year ago

    He’s got some good takes and some wacky ones. He also talks in a way that would suggest he’s very radical, like he calls people brother and sister, and he’s got a very powerful speaking voice. He’s got a good sense of oration and he’s not afraid to throw around words like imperialism, structural racism, stuff like that. I think if you wanna look into West’s ideology, I think he’s caught up in too much religious symbols and metaphysical stuff to ever reach what we’d call coherent leftism. He’s a 1990s style leftist, when the smell of Marxism had drifted away, when any radicalism had been defeated, when everyone was a kind of utopian.

    But you’re right. He’s another ivy league professor. They’re always going to betray you, because they’re at their core just some academics who write papers. It’s the same with how people will occasionally get whiplash from something Zizek says.

    So far the only ivy league professors who have never betrayed me have been Michael Parenti, Richard Wolff, Paul Buhle, and Jodi Dean. They’re very cool and know what they’re talking about. There’s also Vijay Prashad who is possibly one of the best Marxist academics right now, at least among English speaking academia. China probably has some kickass scholars I’ve never heard of. I have a gut feeling there are some good academics who write in Spanish too.

    • Mardoniush [she/her]English
      37•1 year ago

      The way to tell if an intellectual is going to knife you is simple. What do they do outside of the university? Do they organise at grass roots level? Are they cadre in a political org? Or do they just posture at every election and protest to sell books?

      There are some exceptions like how Chomsky had bad takes while being legitimately involved in material work, but Chomsky is at least consistent in his bad takes, he doesn’t betray his own stated values at a moments notice. (He’s always walked an inconsistent line of electorialism vs anarchism, for instance)

      • axont [she/her, comrade/them]English
        24•1 year ago

        Yeah this is a good metric. Cornel West has mainly just done speeches his whole life. He’s been involved with DSA too, but mainly as a distant advisor role. He was famously at the Charlottesville thing as a counter-protestor and there was some kind of violent confrontation where some antifa defended him, which is pretty cool honestly.

        I don’t know what to make of West honestly. I’ve read his books and from those alone you’d think he’s got it figured out. Clear and concise condemnations of structural racism in the US and where it comes from. But from his interviews and speeches he sounds more vague, more fuzzy, less capable of presenting a coherent plan or message.

        I still want to like him because he was instrumental in my own development. I read his books as a teenager and they stuck with me, but he’s frankly a relic of a bygone age. He’s stuck 30 years ago when the moment’s long since passed him.

  • batsforpeace [any, any]English
    59•1 year ago

    I think his communication style gets people thinking he’s more radical than he really is, it also did for Obama in the beginning. Parenti would call out people like Hedges and Chomsky for sus logic or statements and they didn’t go as far as this tweet.

  • Othello [none/use name]English
    44•1 year ago

    i remember once in class my professor was trying to dunk on me and he said

    “you know who disagrees with you? (dramatic pause) Cornell West!”

    “I disagree with Dr. West”

    sputters “you disagree with Cornell West?”

    like hes a god or something.

    • Othello [none/use name]English
      27•1 year ago

      I said something like " the only white writers anyone ever needs to read in college are marx and shakespeare"… i would add Lenin to that list. (obviously others as well like there are more subects but we were only talking about literature and political theory and should education be centered around white writers at an hbcu)

      • Mardoniush [she/her]English
        13•1 year ago

        I think in terms of need that’s broadly correct (I might add Goethe and Hugo, and of course the Russian greats but certainly that’s it for English). If you’re reading Shakespeare there’s no reason not to be reading Shikibu or Achebe or a thousand other authors modern and ancient. And Dickens and Austen are way down the priority list.

        • Othello [none/use name]English
          15•1 year ago

          oh yeah in retrospect i would add a few more white people (mostly russians) for the literature side and engels (im sorry i always give marx credit for your work bud) and plato (just to sum up western philosophy before marx lmao). to be fair im quite clearly a Shakespeare nerd when i say you should read shakespeare i mean you should read a LOT of Shakespeare, i love that guy, he is so far above any other writer in English language its not even close!

    • neo [he/him]English
      10•1 year ago

      A professor I had once did that with Oliver Wendell Holmes, but he was being cheeky about it and his implied purpose for doing so was to challenge us as he made an obvious appeal to authority.

  • GarbageShoot [he/him]English
    43•1 year ago

    He is the latest grifter that the rubes on this website fell for now that Bernie and AOC are gauche and RFK let the mask slip