Customer Reviews

Prophetic Thought in Postmodern Times (Beyond Eurocentrism and Multiculturalism, Vol. 1) (v. 1)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Cornel West's Beyond Eurocentrism and Multiculturalism is a great book for anyone who has retained a sense of hope and humanity despite the historical goings on in the world in which we live. As usual, Cornel West inspires his readers to sustain a sense of history in order to foster a feeling of hope when contemplating the past, present and future. I highly recommend this and all of West's other works for those pondering questions dealing with humanity.

Cornel West (born 1953) is a Professor at Princeton, a philosopher, magnificent speaker, best-selling author (e.g., Race Matters, Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism, The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism (Wisconsin Project on American Writers), Ethical Dimensions of Marxism, etc.), and preeminent "public intellectual."

This 1993 book is "Volume 1" (see Prophetic Reflections: Notes on Race and Power in America (Beyond Eurocentrism and Multiculturalism)). West writes in the Introduction, "My aim in these two volumes is to present in clear, succinct and primarily SPOKEN language a prophetic vision of what is worth fighting and dying for as this century comes to a close. I accent the ORAL character of these pieces not simply because most of them are uncut speeches and interviews, but also because they are efforts to connect in a more intimate way with fellow citizens in a conversational mode---much like a prophetic black preacher soliciting critical response from an open-minded yet suspicious congregation."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"Jesse Jackson himself ... (is) still part of that old messianic tradition. There is just one Negro out there. Head Negro in charge. No self-criticism. No accountability to the organization. Come in town, gone in 10 minutes, no infrastructure and institution left to keep things going. That's gone too. Takes courage to do it. I admire Jesse Jackson in his own way but he is part of a tradition that has to be called into question. We are talking about trying to get black action going again." (Pg. 73)
"I think, in fact, one way of reading rap music is as an attempt by certain highly talented cultural artists to socialize a generation in the light of the shattered institutions of black civil society; the families no longer do it, the schools can't do it... And so they listen to Salt-N-Pepa who provide some moral guidelines as to how to relate to other people. They used to get it in Sunday school thirty years ago." (Pg. 92)
"In my worldliness, it means you acknowledge quite explicitly the partisan, partial, engaged character of one's own work." (Pg. 145)
"Now whether it's conspiratorial or not there's no doubt that black communities have fundamentally changed. For the first time we have the disintegration of the transclass character of black communities in which different classes live together. So the attempt to sustain the basic institutions of black civil society ... that used to be in place and served as the infrastructure that transmitted the values and sensibilities to notions of self-respect and self-esteem still had some possibility of distribution across the black community could take place." (Pg. 149)
"(W)e have no serious economic or business class for the most part. Instead, our businesses tend to be locked within the lower echelons of the entrepreneurial sector of the economy in which the multinational corporate sector is the major controller of resources. So to talk about black businesses in this way is ridiculous." (Pg. 154)