from the desk of Annette Walker

from the desk of Annette Walker

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Cornel West Links Art, Social Justice and the Meaning of Humanity




            Cornel West Links Art. Social Justice and the Meaning of Humanity
                                     
                                                                    by Annette Walker

     Cornel West is a philosopher endowed with poetic discourse and a commitment to social transformation grounded in courage, compassion and love.  The Princeton University professor was the keynote speaker at the recent Art of Social Justice conference at the Auraria campus.  The evening event attracted a crowd of 1,000 people.
     Organized by the Collective for Social Justice, a student group, the three-day conference explored a broad range of topics, such as labor, corporate responsibility, the prison complex, food production, indigenous rights, education, women's issues, ethnicity within the current political atmosphere, and the Occupy movement.
     "The main goal of the conference was to speak to the interconnectedness of a broad range of issues and to provide tangible definitions to the term "social justice" by showcasing the people doing the real work," said Candace Johnson, a member of the Collective.  "Another goal was to bring together activists from a wide range of fields and have them connect with each other to see the overlap and fill in the gaps," she continued.
     The conference, however, involved more than these traditional social issues.  There were also workshops on self-empowerment and uses of new media.  West's talk was preceded by a powerful presentation by local poet Dominique Ashaheed whose themes ranged from the present controversy regarding Trayvon Martin to the murder of Emmet Till in Mississippi in 1955. 
     West was an appropriate person to address art and social justice because he seamlessly blends both into his scholarship and activism.  During his Auraria presentation he described life in 2012 in the United States as ". . . .a disappearing middle class on the vanilla side, gangster activity on Wall Street, a shadow banking system, the prevalence of greed, and the Horatio Alger mystique still remains in America."
     He then applauded writers that he called "truth tellers" for their portrayals of various aspects of American society.  "Thank God for Eugene O'Neill for The Iceman Cometh and Steven Sondheim for Pacific Overtures; and thank God for Toni Morrison for Beloved as well as James Baldwin who didn't need to go to college to make his contributions," West exclaimed.
     Jazz great John Coltrane and other musicians, such as Charles Mingus and Bruce Springsteen frequently become metaphors in West's oratory.
     West acknowledges the tremendous influence that some artists, writers and musicians have had on his thinking.  Most notable is the impact of the groundbreaking work of Anton Chekhov, the 19th century Russian playwright and short story writer.  West even defines himself as a Chekhovian.
     His fascination with Chekhov involves the main fundamental question that motivates his writing.  What does it mean to be human?  As a philosopher, West says that "the existential quest for meaning is at the center of my thought."
     "I find the incomparable works of Anton Chekhov--the best singular body by a modern artist--to be the wisest and deepest interpretations of what human beings confront in their daily struggles," West writes in his introduction to The Cornel West Reader.  "His salutary yet sad portraits of the nearly eight thousand characters in his stories and plays--comparable only to Shakespeare's variety of personages--provide the necessary ground, the background noise, of any acceptable view of what it means to be human," he continues.
     West admires Chekhov's avoidance of facile solutions to social problems.  "I find inspiration in his refusal to escape from the pain and misery of life by indulging in dogmas, doctrines or dreams as well as abstract systems, philosophic theodicies, or political utopias.
     Although Cheknov was a religious agnostic, West affirms his own Christianity and also refers to himself as a 'Chekhovian Christian'.  "By this I mean that I am obsessed with confronting the pervasive evil of unjustified suffering and unnecessary social misery in our world," he writes in the Introduction in the Reader.  "And I am determined to explore the intellectual sources and existential resources that feed our courage to be, courage to love and courage to fight for democracy."
     Although West's Ph.D dissertation was entitled The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought, he considers himself a non-Marxist socialist.  He considers Marxist thought a legitimate part of the Western stream of the larger modern articulation of historical consciousness, and he accepts some of its doctrines, but questions others.  However, he emphatically rejects the trashing of Marxism by the U.S. liberal academy.
     West serves as honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America which he describes as ". . .the first multiracial, socialist organization close enough to my politics that I could join."
     Regarding the recent phenomenon known as the Occupy Wall Street movement, West actively supports it.  In October 2011 he participated in the Occupy protest on the steps of the Supreme Court and was arrested for violating a law against protest signs at that location.  He later participated in an Occupy protest in Norfolk, Virginia.
     At the Auraria conference he described the Occupy movement as "the deep democratic awakening in America."  Last Fall during an interview with Amy Goodman on her Democracy Now television and radio program, he responded to those critics who contend that the movement lacks a clear and unified message.  "It's impossible to translate the issue of the greed of Wall Street into one demand, or two demands.  We're talking about a democratic awakening. . .you're talking about raising political consciousness so it spills over all parts of the country, so people can begin to see what's going on through a set of different lens, and then you begin to highlight what the more detailed demands would be.  Because in the end we're really talking about what Martin Luther King would call a revolution.  A transfer of power from oligarchs to everyday people of all colors.  And that is a step-by-step process."
     West cautions against the temptations of our market-driven, materialistic society in which people yield to the frivolous and superficial rather than to serious matters.  "It is easy to become indifferent to evil and to other people's suffering," he said during the Auraria lecture.  “Indifference is more evil than evil itself.”
     He also warned against confusing philanthropy with justice.  "We want to create a society in which charity is not needed," he said.    
     There has been some controversy about West's comments about President Barack Obama.  In 2008 he publicly supported Obama and addressed a crowd of 1000 people at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York.  However, he has been critical especially of the President's war policy.  In his talk at Auraria he pointed out that under President George Bush there were 44 drone attacks and under President Obama there have been 239.  He is also critical of increasing military spending while cutting the budget for housing, health and education.
     "I support principles, not individuals nor some of Obama's policies," West said.  He also called the Democratic Party "spineless" on many issues and characterized Obama as a liberal.
     Cornel West remains in the struggle.  He and Tavis Smiley have co-authored a new book entitled The Rich and The Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto.