Cornel West is among the most original philosophical voices in America. He has written a ton of books and taught for over 40 years at faculties like Princeton, Harvard, and now on the Union Theological Seminary.
West is what I’d name a public-facing thinker, which is to say he’s not a cloistered educational. He’s continuously partaking the general public and his thought is at all times in dialogue with poetry and music and literature. (If you happen to’ve ever seen one of his lectures, you recognize what I imply.)
That civic-mindedness is a product of his roots in a college of thought referred to as pragmatism. America doesn’t have an particularly deep custom of philosophy, but when we’re identified for anybody custom, it’s pragmatism.
Pragmatism emerged within the US within the late 1800s as a response to the Enlightenment push for absolute reality. The pragmatists — individuals like William James and John Dewey — had been much less concerned with certainty and extra involved with fast expertise. They merely needed to know what labored for strange human beings in on a regular basis life.
For West, pragmatism is actually the philosophy of democracy; it’s a manner of figuring out and doing that places the common human being on the middle. So I reached out to West for a latest episode of Vox Conversations to speak in regards to the story of American pragmatism, how his views are formed by his devotion to the blues and his Christian religion, and the way pragmatism can revitalize our method to democracy at this time.
Under is an excerpt, edited for size and readability. As at all times, there’s way more within the full podcast, so hear and comply with Vox Conversations on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you take heed to podcasts.
Sean Illing
Pragmatism is a toddler of America and in some ways it feels prefer it may solely have emerged right here. Why is that?
Cornel West
I feel the optimistic function of American pragmatism, similar to the optimistic function of the American mission, was a extremely Socratic suspicion of authorities prior to now. However the weak spot is to suppose that you simply’re not going to be in some way linked to custom, as a result of traditions are inescapable. The query is at all times: Which custom? Each novel breakthrough just isn’t wholly novel, as a result of it’s at all times primarily based on one thing prior.
However it’s that vitality of the brand new that I need to stress. For pragmatism, it’s about sustaining this vitality to creativity as a result of the world is incomplete, it’s unfinished and unpredictable. And subsequently there’s at all times chance.
Now the worst of that’s that for those who wipe the slate clear, and you don’t have any previous, then you definately’re beginning with innocence and you’ll’t be taught from the previous. The suspicion of traditions of the previous means it’s important to then create new dynamic traditions with mechanisms of accountability and accountability. And that’s pragmatism at its greatest, that’s America at its greatest.
Sean Illing
One of many issues I really like about pragmatism is that this want to keep away from all of those navel-gazing debates within the historical past of philosophy and simply give attention to what works for the strange human being in on a regular basis life. The extra eliminated philosophy is from the on a regular basis world, the much less related it’s. And I really feel just like the pragmatists actually understood this. Is that why they centered a lot on fast expertise?
Cornel West
Completely. There’s a democratizing of voices raised. There’s a democratizing of vital intelligence. There’s a democratizing of philosophia, a love of knowledge. And it’s discovered, as Emerson says time and again, within the quotidian, within the on daily basis. That’s the democratizing impulse of pragmatism.
Now whenever you say pragmatism focuses on “what works,” in some ways in which obscures greater than it illuminates as a result of the query turns into, How do you identify what we perceive “working” to be? As a result of pragmatism isn’t merely utilitarian or consequentialist. Pragmatism has a really robust ethical dimension, and it’s not reducible to only any penalties in any respect.
We are able to go all the way in which again to Plato’s Republic, one of many founding texts of Western philosophy. There we see the battles happening between Thrasymachus and Socrates. Thrasymachus represents energy, the concept that “would possibly makes proper.” And the youthful technology seems to be to Socrates and says, is that this true? Is it true that historical past is nothing however a slaughterhouse, as Hegel stated, is it true that it’s nearly would possibly and energy and domination? And Socrates says, no. Justice has to do with mental integrity. It has to do with philosophical inquiry. It has to do with some ethical and even non secular dimensions that aren’t reducible to would possibly and energy.
And that’s the uncooked stuff for democracy, proper? As a result of democracy says, In fact there’s at all times financial and political and navy energy, however there’s obtained to be ethical and non secular dimensions rooted within the consent of on a regular basis individuals. That’s what self-government is all about.
Sean Illing
Richard Rorty — an ideal American pragmatist and a former instructor of yours — referred to as pragmatism a philosophy of solidarity. And he truly considered pragmatism as a test towards nihilism. In different phrases, we don’t should discard our beliefs in regards to the world, or our ethical and political values, simply because we realized that we made them up, that they weren’t found. However lots of people draw the other conclusion from that realization —
Cornel West
Properly, that’s a part of that self-fashioning and self-creation that goes again to Emerson. That’s shot by way of pragmatism and Rorty’s thought. As William James stated, pragmatism is a home with many rooms. And there’s a Rortian room. And that Rortian room is that of a Chilly Struggle liberal who’s involved about getting past the subjectivism and the solipsism of Descartes. It’s all a couple of transfer towards neighborhood. And neighborhood for him was all about solidarity. We start with a “we,” not an “I.” That’s pragmatism, that’s neighborhood, and that’s how you start.
Sean Illing
There’s something essentially democratic about how we get alongside on the earth, and this leads again to John Dewey, the good defender of democracy and one of the influential American pragmatists. As you recognize, Dewey was famously engaged in a long debate with Walter Lippmann, a superb media theorist and author within the early twentieth century.
Lippmann gave up on democracy. He didn’t imagine that strange residents had been able to understanding the world, or not less than he didn’t imagine they had been able to understanding the world given their circumstances. He thought they needed to be managed by a technocratic elite. Why did Dewey reject that so strongly?
Cornel West
The early Walter Lippmann was a democratic socialist, very very similar to Dewey. After World Struggle I, he loses his religion within the demos. I imply, he virtually agrees with Plato that each democracy is finally shattered by unruly passions and pervasive ignorance, and subsequently democracies at all times lead towards a tyrant and therefore the necessity for the philosopher-king.
So the early Lippmamn had this religion in democracy, after which he loses it. He says we should have the specialists. We should have these people who actually know what they’re doing and know one thing in regards to the world, as a result of the demos will at all times be ignorant and gullible.
And Dewey comes alongside and says, “Walter, I perceive your pilgrimage and your journey. I perceive why you’ve misplaced religion within the demos.” I imply, Dewey will get that it’s a problem. He will get that the demos can go fascist. They’re writing within the ’20s, in spite of everything. Mussolini’s on the way in which. That gangster Hitler is rising because of the wounded German empire. However Dewey holds on to his democratic religion and the result’s this highly effective dialogue between the technocratic Lippmann and the democratic Dewey.
Sean Illing
Is it honest to say that Dewey, in missing that tragic sensibility, was perhaps a bit of too optimistic?
Cornel West
That’s a very good question, man. Dewey’s difficult on this matter. You learn his poetry when his spouse dies and it’s fairly dim stuff. So it’s not as if he didn’t have any sense of the tragic. It’s simply that he believed that human beings had been so obsessive about their limits that they needed to be launched from that obsession, and acknowledge these limits being contingent and provisional slightly than everlasting and common.
I do resonate with that, as a result of lots of instances what individuals suppose are limits will not be limits in any respect. They’ll say, properly, there’s no manner we may actually present help for the poor as a result of the market-driven economists inform us that that is the one manner we are able to prepare society. However I say no, you simply don’t have sufficient creativeness or sufficient empathy. And we prefer to rationalize domination and oppression. Dewey’s proper about all that.
Sean Illing
As a lot as I really like Dewey, I feel even he realized in the long run that he by no means fairly provided up an actual political technique for attaining his ideally suited democratic life. And we stay in such a polarized time the place the probabilities of dialogue throughout teams appears fleeting, to place it kindly. How on the earth will we transfer towards the pragmatic democratic neighborhood that you simply and Dewey need to see on the earth?
Cornel West
I feel Dewey was at all times in a position to take severely that Socratic humility we’ve been speaking about. None of us possesses a monopoly on reality or goodness and wonder. However Dewey’s religion was tied to what he referred to as a “pure piety.” And by piety, he didn’t imply uncritical deference to dogma or blind obedience to doctrine. He meant a virtuous acknowledgement of the sources of excellent in our lives. You might be by no means, in and of your self, the only real supply for good. You’re at all times depending on dad and mom. You don’t educate your self a language. All of the discuss being “self-made” in America, as for those who gave delivery to your self, as for those who cultivated your personal virtues — that’s the other of Dewey. And realizing that is the uncooked stuff of democracy.
However I don’t suppose Dewey would name himself an optimist. I feel that he would fall again on hope. He had hope in society. That’s the farthest we are able to go. And Rorty is the richest, self-styled footnote to John Dewey that now we have. He’s so authentic and inventive in constructing on the Deweyan mission.
The explanation why I maintain Dewey a bit of bit at arm’s size, as a lot as I’m a part of his custom, is that whenever you inject the blues and Chekhov into any critical discuss democracy, then you definately do have the tragicomic. And the tragicomic is not only the boundaries, however how are you coming to phrases with the boundaries? And naturally blues is tragicomic. To. The. Core. Bear in mind the 1937 Robert Johnson music “Hellhound on My Trail”? He says I’ve obtained to maintain shifting trigger the blues is falling down like H-A-I-L, life worrying me a lot, there’s hellhounds on my path. I obtained to maintain shifting. That’s the dynamism. That’s the sense of movement. That’s the blues.
Sean Illing
So you continue to think about America?
Cornel West
Oh sure! It’s not a glib religion, although. It’s an earned religion. Similar to that pricey grace that the good Dietrich Bonhoeffer talked about. It’s not an inexpensive grace, it’s an earned religion. And a really, very earned sense of grace.
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