Re: Criticizing Cornell By Kendall Clark

>>>>> "david" == David Freels <[email protected]> writes:

  >> It should be no surprise that Harvard's new president, Lawrence
  >> Summers, recently asked Professor Cornel West to get serious
  >> about his scholarship.

  david> Didn't Summers tell all Harvard faculty members to spend more
  david> time teaching and publishing? My understanding is that he did
  david> not single out Cornell West.

First, his name is "Cornel", despite the fact that someone at
BlackElectorate mistyped the title as "Cornell" West.

And, no, you're understanding is wrong. West was singled out by
Summers for criticism. Even if West is the one who made that critcism
public, my claims against Summers' are that he singled out West, not
that he did so publicly.

Besides, surely you'll concede that what a worker does or does not do
during a medical leave from her or his place of employment is, for the
most part, none of her or his employer's business.

West is on leave to recover from *cancer*, for god's sake. What he
does during his medical leave is, as long as it's legal, none of Larry
Summers' business.

Have you even listened to the CD that West made, which Summers'
criticizes him for? Since it's full of the kind of work (in popular
form) Harvard pays West for, what possible reason could Summers' have
for attacking West? That it's in a popular art form? A popular form
created and patronized by African Americans?

You have so much concern about and censure for how, in your view, West
is ruining the standards at Harvard -- though you show very little
understanding of how a place like Harvard works; and forget that it's
*Harvard*, since it runs, in relevant ways, more or less like *every*
major university -- but you don't say *a single word* about the
disgusting policies Summers' was urging as a Treasury bigwig?

  >> Though the word seems to have originated, according to Thomas
  >> Wolfe's reportage, anyway, among African American activists of
  >> the 1960s, it's only used now by Whites to denigrate African
  >> Americans who struggle politically.
  >>

  david> If all faculty members were being asked to return to the
  david> classroom 

They weren't. That's nonsensical on its face; the vast majority of
Harvard faculty -- as at every other university -- spend most of their
employment time *teaching* or preparing to teach.

         and Cornell West esacaped that return with cries of
  david> racism, then the "mau-mau" description seems accurate.

You don't really understand very much about how universities are run,
do you? The amount that West is required to teach, like *every other
professor*, is a function of an employment contract. Unless West is
*violating* that contract, which he clearly isn't, (since, if he were,
that's what Harvard would be saying about West to shut him up), what
he does in his own time is his own business. Just like what *you* do
in *your* own time is none of your boss's business.

  >> one of the goals of becoming an academic star

  david> The goal of most academics is to engage in serious
  david> scholarship. 

Yes and no. Many of them just want to teach. Others want to do
research. Still others want to do administrative stuff.

Besides, I was specifying the subset of all academics who are "stars",
that is, very well known inside and outside the university.

         If Mr. West is more interested in becoming a
  david> star of popular culture, perhaps he should consider a
  david> different line of work.

You have simply no reason to assert that of West. It's clearly not
what *I* said. Your mistaken view rests on another mistaken view: that
popularizing a field of academic inquiry from within the university is
*not* an academic endeavor. But it clearly and demonstrably is.

  david> Perhaps that is Mr. Summers view as well as Harvard is not a
  david> manufacturing plant of popular culture but is instead (and
  david> always has been) an institution devoted to higher learning.

Heh, yeah, right. Tell that to Henry Kissinger!

  >> is so that you can teach less and do other stuff more? Every
  >> academic star of West's caliber

  david> Can you give three of four examples of other "academic
  david> stars"?

No, I can give 50 examples. But maybe 3 or 4 will suffice:

Thomas Sowell
Shelby Steele
Edward Said
Noam Chomsky
bell hooks
Allan Bloom (deceased now)
Lynn Cheney
William Bennett (at one time)
Leon Botstein (president of Bard, I may have his last name misspelled)

  david> Also, can you give three of four examples of other "academic
  david> stars of West's caliber"?

Well, some of the aforementioned, plus:

John Rawls
Catherine MacKinnon
Stephen Ambrose
Carl Sagan (deceased)
Richard Feynmann (deceased)
David Gelernter (or Gelertner...)
Ronald Dworkin
Stephen Hawking
Clifford Geertz
Harold Bloom
Stanley Fish
Frederic Jameson
Barbara Johnson
Henry Louis Gates
Jacques Derrida
Michel Foucault (deceased)
Richard Rorty

I don't know what your point is, but there you go.

  >> spends less time teaching than engaging in one or another of the
  >> many activities that constitute the university as a social
  >> institution: research, grant-seeking, program - or
  >> discipline-formation, interdisciplinary conferencing, book or
  >> journal editing and writing, dissertation supervising,
  >> administrative work, and so on.

  david> Is there any evidence that Mr. West has ever engaged in any
  david> of these activities?

Yes, there is. He's written or edited nearly 30 books! Do you think
that's somehow *unserious* or *unscholarly* or *easy*? If so, you're
either the most gifted writer working today or have never tried to
write.

  >>
  >> All of which is an ordinary expression of the standard university
  >> reward system.

  david> It is my understanding that Harvard is not a "standard
  david> university"/average university--but in fact Harvard sets the
  david> standards. 

Well, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Brown, Duke, University of Michigan,
University of Texas, Univeristy of Virginia, Berkeley would all
disagree.

Harvard doesn't set any standards that are relevant here.

Plus, you misread what I said: I didn't say Harvard was "standard", I
said Harvard, like every other place, uses or employs an informal but
fairly rigid professor-employee reward system in which teaching duties
are often traded for other more glamorous, more fun, more financially
rewarding, or whatever academic duties.

         Witness the Harvard Black Studies program itself,
  david> certainly one of the first. I think the new president just
  david> wants to maintain above-average standards.

I'm pretty sure it's the "African American Studies" program, and
whether Summers' wants to maintain high standards -- which is rather a
tautology, yes? I mean what university president wants to *lower*
standards? -- is not relevant.

Chasing away Gates and West, which Summers' may do if he's not
careful, is hardly *raising* the scholarly standard of the A-A dep't
at Harvard.

  >> why is Summers hounding him?

  david> I think the reverse is true. West has hounded Summers--in the
  david> media. He's been mau-mauing him.

West has certainly spoken up for himself, defended his record and
achievements, against what he (and others) takes to be Summers'
unjustified public attack.

Funny that no one every uses the verb "mau-mau" to describe a white
academic, and that black folks don't use the word to describe
themselves. That alone makes it suspect.

  >> West's work is neither technical nor obscure but is accessible
  >> and critical.

  david> It's vague, inconclusive, nonsensical, and thus
  david> nonintellectual.

Well, says you. For that to mean anything at all, you have to
demonstrate that his work is 'vague, inconclusive, nonsensical' rather
than merely assert it. Are you prepared to do that? I'd really love to
get in your response to this message a 2,000 to 5,000 essay backing up
your claims about West's work. It's just not possible to survey 30
published works and countless articles in less than that.

Put up or shut up.

  david> Of what relevance to anything are Al Sharpton and Cornell
  david> West?

Your ignorance of a fact doesn't mean it's not a fact. At the very
least Al Sharpton is of great political relevance to many people in
New York City and to others across the country. You may not know or
like the fact, but Sharpton has real political power, and that doesn't
flow from being irrelevant.

As for West, he's relevant enough at Harvard that Summers' decided to
pick him out for criticism. And he is one of the leading African
American intellectuals, not that I'd expect you to know or care much
about that, given your comments and tone in this message.

So, feel free to respond to any or all of the above, but you really
*must* either substantiate your claim West's work is "vague,
inconclusive, and nonsensical" or you recant. Oh, by the way, if the
best you can do is point to Leon Wieseltier's hit piece on West in TNR
a few years ago, don't bother. I've read it and was wholly
unconvinced.

Kendall Clark