West-ward, Ho!
My provocatively titled essay about Professor Cornel West and the dangers of “free-market fundamentalism” is up at TCS. Enjoy.
And don’t forget to listen to clips of West’s “Sketches of My Culture,” which is a “watershed moment in musical history.”
October 27th, 2004 12:39
Will-
If don’t want the picture to run into the previous post put this:
br style=”clear: both;”/
between “less than” and “greater than” signs at the end of the post. (If I type the “less than” sign here it thinks I putting a tag or something and it won’t show up. That’s why I had to spell it out…)
October 27th, 2004 12:44
That’s some damn fine skewerin’, Will.
October 27th, 2004 13:07
Peter, Thanks for the tip.
October 27th, 2004 14:30
I’ve wondered what that book was doing in the sidebar. Nice article.
October 27th, 2004 15:05
Panglossianism is definitely my word of the day.
Thanks Will!
October 27th, 2004 15:35
Come now, Mr. West! Cherry picking RW Emerson quotes is easy, since he changed his mind on many things over the course of his life. For example:
“He is the richest man who knows how to draw a benefit from the greatest number of men.”
and one of the more famous quotes:
“Then, again, do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong.”
and:
“Nothing is beneath you, if it is the direction of your life; nothing is great or desirable if it is off from that.”
Of course, these quotes are taken out of context. In any case, its important to note that Emerson, while railing against the pursuit of wealth solely for its own sake, was not against the free-market, even though he saw some of the worst effects of a not particularly free example of it in mid-nineteenth century England. He may not have liked it much (spiritual/mystical individualist that he was), but he thought that the socialist schemes (he got to see the Brook Farm experiment rise up and whither before his eyes) were not pragmatic and could be positively detrimental to individual growth.
I doubt you’d see Emerson lining up with Cornell West, who is proposing, from what I can tell, nothing but platitudes about sharing and being nice, a lot like my Kindergarten teacher, except with an extra helping of angry, pre-packaged rhetoric.
October 27th, 2004 23:39
Dude, you got a Lebowski reference in. Far out man. Far fucking out.
October 28th, 2004 00:19
Billionaires, like Soros, shouldn’t exist; neither should piss poor stuggling writers. I tried to donate a dollar but then I became aware of the high transaction cost involved and I took back my donation. I don’t want to give your money to the credit card company or another billionaire named Bezos. I’d rather put a stamp on a letter and send you a check if only I new where to send it.
October 28th, 2004 00:23
Are you calling Professor West a ho in the title to your piece? I think that’s provocative and mean-spirited. Would you call a white professor a ho? Please explain yourself.
October 28th, 2004 00:59
Trumpit, why don’t you go troll someplace else? I get enough of you over at Glen’s blog.
P.S. I wouldn’t send any checks either; the CEO of your bank might be a billionaire, and you wouldn’t want to give any money to billionaires, heaven forfend.
October 28th, 2004 01:40
Every time I write a check it costs the bank a few few cents. Stop acting like a troll, Micha! A rich banker like you ought to send Will rent money monthly for your being such a trollopy troll. Notice, I didn’t call YOU a HO!
October 28th, 2004 01:51
Ugh! 934 Westminster St NW, Washington, DC 20001
No, I hadn’t thought of ‘ho’ that way, and my intended usage wasn’t color related. Whatever else you might say about him, Cornel West is an upright man and certainly ain’t no ho.
I know Micha to be a free-rider. He’s a rational man. So, Micha: less Wealth of Nations and more Theory of Moral Sentiments.
October 28th, 2004 04:51
Every time I write a check it costs the bank a few few cents
I guess banks are in the business of giving you free money. No wonder bankers are so rich!
October 28th, 2004 17:02
I don’t know, Will. I have to agree that the CD is a watershed moment in musical history. My eyes shed water in abundance the whole time I listened to it. In all modesty, I am extraordinarily clever sometimes.
October 30th, 2004 18:11
westward, ho!?
who you callin a ho, bitch?!
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