Dr. Cornel West, renowned political activist, philosopher, public intellectual, author and now independent presidential candidate, joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to give an update on his campaign and to highlight the critical issues that define his fight for justice and equality.
West's response to the last question was an incredibly powerful statement of what it means to be truly alive and how to live a meaningful life. Incredible.
I love Chris Hedges’s shining face when he lets his vulnerability to love and be loved show. I am thankful for his serious impassioned love of the good that threads through his keen recognition of darkness.
Gillen and Page 2014; only the oligarchs get what they want. So don't blame the rest of us. What do you expect us to do? West can't win. Neither could Bernie.
Do anything after collapsing and feeling like a victim. Stand and Do anything that serves what you view is just and true. No matter how from the outside it appears inconsequential . Inside you energy builds - especially after linking up with like minded others- and together drumming up more that serves. An unbalanced focus on the “them” is the road to lethargy and give upness. Signs of the conquest by the corporate/oligarchs. Instead, determine - and by determining willingly act in new ways, fierce ways. Find your tribe. You will recognize us.
I believe that the prevailing context under which modern civilization is functioning, a combination of left-brain domination and it’s offspring, rivalrous tribalism, is lead to an extinction crisis - which may include our species. I also believe that the only way to avoid that fate is to end the existing context and create an alternative in its place.
The creation of a new context requires a cultural transformation. Cultural transformations occur as a result of a critical mass of individual transformations. Individual transformations are based on personal epiphanies. And personal epiphanies are sparked by the insight derived from understanding.
I have been studying these subjects for 50 years. I wish to contribute my limited understanding of our circumstances to an open discussion which will lead to our shared understanding, epiphany, and salvation. Please consider my sense of things, improve it with your own, and pass it on in the service of that objective.
Context Dictates Content
Humankind is going extinct because we’ve been living a lie and it’s caught up with us. It’s a lie we tell ourselves, that being Godlike we possess the capacity, through abstraction, language, and reasoning, to know what’s going on here on Planet Earth and how to conduct ourselves in accordance with that reality.
But are we qualified to do that? Consider language. What do you suppose happened when our species, armed with the capacity to abstract, began to represent the abstractions with signals, then sounds and spoken words. Three of the things that happened fairly quickly as a result of language were specialization, authority, and hierarchy.
The classic film “Gone with the Wind” begins with slaves working in a field. When one calls out, “Quittin time,” another responds, “You don’t call quittin time. I call quittin time. Quittin time!” All achieved with language. The guys in charge got to dictate what was said, when it could be said, and who got to say it and who would be guided by it.
Some may recall President Reagan naming the terrorist Contras “freedom fighters” to justify financing their campaign to overthrow the democratically elected Sandinistas of El Salvador.
A hundred years ago, when he created the field of General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski identified the underlying lie in language. He noted that “What you say a thing is, it isn’t.” The knowable symbol is not the incomprehensible thing being symbolized; the map is not the territory.
Korzybski pointed out three ways in which language misleads us. First, language treats happenings as things, verbs as nouns. Slaughtering women and children becomes “war.”
Second, language places unique things together into categories and classes, suggesting that the things should be considered the same and dealt with in the same way. Unique individuals become “Gringos,” “Nips,” and “Ragheads.”
And third, language asserts that we can know and say everything that is relevant about things – when, in fact, our abstractions are highly reductionist and the intended meaning is limited and biased.
There are those who have always understood what Korzybski taught, but did our leadership hierarchies note the problems with language as they were using it to control and organize us? Even today, do the capitalists advertising to us and politicians begging for our vote remind us of the problems? The academicians lecturing and publishing for prestige and stature? The sermonizers seeking subservience? Or does the achievement of our leaders’ true goals require them to keep us deluded?
Linguists tell us that all language is assertion with intention. I would further assert (with the intention that you’ll consider my assertion), that we are both unclear about what we’re asserting and unsure of our true motive for asserting it. When was the last time some authority figure addressing you prefaced his assertion with a coherent explanation of his true intent? Have you noticed that the more authority we grant our leaders, the less explanation we require from them. How about trust? Do you suppose our desire to trust our leaders has anything to do with our failure to hold them accountable?
So, is my group or culture controlling what I imagine and, if so, how are they doing it and to what end? Consider your assumptions. Do you assume that America has a two-party system? How about that free markets lead to free people? Or that reducing corporate taxes increases investment?
Let’s consider your deeper knowledge, such things as that we’re trained from birth to rely on external authority and we continue doing it all our lives. Did those teaching you to conform and obey ever explain that we have to have the faith in ourselves in order to make the choice to accept external authority? That by definition, internal authority precedes and allows external authority? Did anyone teach you that? Or were you taught to deny your faith in yourself and go along to get along? The fact is, we’re all trained to betray ourselves by blindly accepting external authority, from crossing guards to presidents.
Denial ain’t a river in Egypt. We’ve been pretending that we can ascertain, render, share and achieve consensus about truth. (For the record, I do not claim to know the truth. You’re on your own.) We’re told we’re rational beings so we can be held accountable to our leaders’ rational rules and laws. Perhaps it would behoove us to remind ourselves that we’re limited by language as to what we can know, and then manipulated and coerced into denying it. “Nothing to see here. Move right along.”
Neuroscientists also contend that the vast majority of our brain functions, perhaps 95%, is unconscious. If that’s the case, it’s reasonable to assume that the 95% that’s unconscious is influencing the 5% that’s conscious in ways we’re unconscious of. And if that’s the case, how can we be sure of anything? The external authorities don’t want you to go there, either. “I don’t know why I did it” is not an acceptable defense.
Now mix the above with our social circumstances. For the past 500+ years the ruling elites have orchestrated all manner of
technological breakthroughs. Beginning with the printing press and banking and ending with the breakthroughs of the past 75-80 years, e.g. atomic weapons, computers, cell phones, mass communication technology, psycology, AI, transhumanism and robotics, it has been nothing short of mind boggling.
Since the late 1930s, the world has been increasingly run by a male-led neoliberal oligarchy. Since the 1970s, in addition to the above, that oligarchy has developed great sophistication in psychology. As they’ve done so they’ve created immense power and wealth for themselves.
The oligarchy is run by a cabal of wizards hiding behind a curtain but exercising their will through the frontmen we all see and know, people like the Bushes, the Clintons, Barak Obama, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu and, lest we forget, Klaus Schwab. Not a lot of Gandhi’s, Kennedy’s, Havel’s and Schweitzer’s in the club. Those hooligans objective is to steal all our money and take over the world. Consider how you’d feel if Klaus Schwab sat down with your family in your living room and announced, “You will own nothing, and you will be happy.”
The sociobiologist E.O. Wilson said that the context for human behavior is rivalrous tribalism. He went on to say that if we don’t end rivalrous tribalism, it will surely end us. Well, the sociopaths have formed the ultimate rivalrous tribe in the New World Order. If Wilson’s prognosis pertains, the leaders will vanquish the led and then, assuming they avoid the temptation to kill us all with nuclear weapons, start in on one another. We’re talking denouement with a capital D!
It's time we chose to face the truth about our nature and circumstances. It’s time we reclaimed our faith in ourselves – which we never lost, just became dissuaded from believing in, and chose to take charge of our systems and future. Because look around you, the oligarchy’s enslavement and genocide programs are building momentum. Plus, the oligarchy has mastered the dialectic and imposed their duopolies all across the world. It’s time for us individuals to acknowledge our faith in ourselves and start taking responsibility for our interpretations, choices, and actions, leading to our personal transformation. It’s time to stand up, declare, and be accountable to yourselves!
Oh no...not this tired intellectual canard of "tribalism" yet again! Notice who's considered "tribal": uncivilized semi-humans like sub-Saharan Africans, the indigenous peoples of the Americas and of Australia. While Europeans and their descendants are termed "ethnic." Civilized.
Furthermore, consider the actual traditions of indigenes versus the behavior of colonists. As well as the history of the entire western world. Also the implications of John Ralston Saul's book //Voltaire's Bastards (The Dictatorship of Reason in the West)//. Saul also wrote a recent book about the re-emerging cultural influence of Canadian First Nations.
BTW, the authority on the neurological processing differences of the human brain's hemispheres is Dr. Iain McGilchrist. His 2022 two vol. magnum opus is //The Matter with Things (Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World.)//
So you see, some of us who are BIPOC ("tribal",) LGBTQ, and working class, as I am, can read, write, and think. QED.
I've read Korzybski, too. You Euros, especially western Euro and descendants, need to find an accurate and appropriate label for your own group's behavior. Quit projecting onto us. English Prime indeed; General Semantics seems forgotten in practice.
This western WA state low income senior voted for Dr. West. Speak the Truth, brother! By that, I mean both in the religious sense and as we union people do. Like my logger grandfather the Wobbly (IWW,) I'm certain "An Injury To One Is An Injury To All."
The neolib oligarchy excludes devastation of human and natural resources as externalities. These econopaths say competitive aggression is the way of the world. Yet, for example, trees grow in obligate symbiosis with fungus on their roots, the mycorrhizosphere. That alone makes cooperation the dominant mode of life and there are many, many other symbioses.
The neocon order now running the Biden Dept. of State and certain to be running Harris's or Cheney wouldn't have endorsed her, is a nightmare. They believe they should rule a unipolar world, empire requiring endless wars to maintain the illusion. Thus no $$$ for crumbling infrastructure, healthcare, or much of anything that doesn't fit their battle plans. We workers can see that.
So I disagree strenuously that "people are gullible." Some of us blue collar types can read, write, and think. Some of us know the D party elite abandoned us in the late '70s. Some of us realize that H. Clinton's haughty denigration "a basket of deplorables" was aimed at the entire working class.
Consider what it means when someone with a family to care for loses a job. Especially when there is little support for anyone who stands up to the system. Best not to look too closely, even though you know how unfair the econ system is and what suck-ups and idiots most of your bosses are. As you, Chris and Cornel, know about people without connections caught up in mass incarceration, many are intelligent and aware. So are many who are caught up in the econopathic system.
The ideal of democracy means a certain faith in the people.
and yet, to my dismay, "the people" are ... how shall i put it? ... strange enough to vote against their own interests time and again, and i wonder: do they lack insight, self-interest or just the courage to wrest what's theirs from the immensely pitiless + powerful pack of insatiables?
Is this another justification for condemning us as stupid, of failing to recognize and submit to our intellectual betters? What, exactly, have they ever offered us? Notice, for example, you say "their interests," implying your interests differ from the majority working class.
In the early '70s, I was trained by people who'd been union organizers in the 1930s. Actual leftists, not tepid centrists. They told me: "liberals are the ones who leave the room when the fight starts." And they did.
In the '80s, as a rank and file blue collar union activist, I was at a gathering for a D candidate where close to everyone else was a professional. An attorney and a PhD scientist confronted me, both wanting to know why we worker types should get good wages just because we were in a union. Their hostility and condescension made obvious by tone of voice and body language. Do you think they cared about the Rust Belt? Does their non-care qualify as "acting (voting) against their own interests"? It sure was in the long run as percentage of voters fell and eventually the declasse' invisibles had nothing but rage or voting for Trump.
Which, BTW, isn't even true of the majority. Another myth along with the supposed prejudice. What I say may be considered anecdotal; read Les Leopold's 2024 book //Wall Street's War on Workers (How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do about It.)// Many years of research and the stats that confirm my claims. Or go to his blog site; he posts more every few days. So does Jim Hightower, one of the few remaining classical Populists.
@rafi: exactly. unions are a case in point. relatively strong in the 1980s, let's hope they regain even greater strength now. you also provide a good example for how corporate power despises those who deserve a fair share of the gains they help their masters make.
as to "stupid": if s./o. lacks insight, s/he’s not necessarily stupid. they might be ill-informed and could change that. i just fail to comprehend why 'middle and lower class' voters keep perpetuating a system in which the handful of ultra-rich wage war against the poor. remember war_ren buffet: „we started it“, he said, „and we’re winning that war, too“, grinning at the fact that he pays much less taxes than his secretary.
i know, it's not just about casting the right vote. systemic violence and suppression play a role in all this, too - as is very obvious, these days. still, votes might matter, after all [given that a general STRIKE - which i'd so like to see in my EU home country, as well, won't happen].
I have always respected you Chris but I am very surprised you were talking with West. To me he is a fake who can't stop from banging on about "White Supremacy" every second sentence. I kind of wonder if the democrats put him up to it. Will he apply the term to all the white homeless who live under almost every urban bridge in the USA. I understand he is pretty comfortably off! By the way my wife is Sri Lankan before that pejorative is applied to me!
what a strong statement to make about cornel west.
have you read any of his books? have you studied US history from its inception? are you aware that it started with a genocide, then continued on the backs of millions of african slaves, with their masters then spreading violence and wars to neighboring countries and faraway lands as well - to this very day, by the way? white supremacy at its worst.
dr. west may be a controversial figure, but he reminds us of our lack of empathy and support for our fellow wo/men, at home and abroad. [indifference to homelessness is a case in point.]
re. white people being homeless, here's what he aims to achieve: "... because in the end we're really talking about what martin king would call a revolution: a transfer of power from oligarchs to everyday people of all colors."
In the late 1800's and the turn of the 20th century there were many immigrants to the US from south and east Europe who endured tremendous prejudice, and they were white. Working Your Way Toward Whiteness is an excellent book that puts all of it in perspective.
Ever hear of the 11 Italians lynched by a mob in New Orleans in 1891 although none were found guilty of the crime of killing New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy? Here's how the NY Times, under different ownership back then, had to say about the lynching of these innocent men, "These sneaking and cowardly Sicilians, the descendants of bandits and assassins, who have transported to this country the lawless passions, the cut-throat practices, and the oath-bound societies of their native country, are to us a pest without mitigations…These men of the Mafia killed Chief Hennessy in circumstances of peculiar atrocity…Lynch law was the only course open to the people of New Orleans to stay the issue of a new license to the Mafia to continue its bloody practices.”
Those who orchestrated and carried out the lynching went free, causing a diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and the Italian government..
None of those involved in their deaths were held accountable. However lots of bad blood between Italy and the US, and so President Harrison solved the problem by giving the Italians Columbus Day, and as you probably know he never set foot in what became America.
P. S. The present NY Times is certainly on it's way down hill, as well.
Interesting that whites who also experienced prejudice in America are lost in this kind of discussion, and for the most part this aspect of history is not taught in our schools, or even known to most Americans. You would think that providing an overall perspective would give people a better and more wholistic and compassionate understanding of this issue.
British economist and social critic sounds a lot like Chris.
Nobody wanted this future.
So how did we arrive here? This is what happens when we don’t make tough choices together, act wisely, and instead, assign the levers of power to those who prefer paralysis and inaction and the lowest-common-denominator over shared ownership of a better tomorrow. This future was made for us, not by us, even if we didn’t choose the right leaders. Because the ones we did choose, or were limited to choosing between, still should have done a better job than this.
So here we are, in the place nobody wanted to be. Watching this dismal shit unfold. Kamala vs Trump! Nation versus nation. Clan versus clan. Watching it all stagnate, fall apart, come undone. Soul against soul, life against life.
Our challenge has always been a shared one. Life against death. When we are reduced to fighting each other, when it’s life against life—my friends, then is when we are truly in the valley in the shadow of death.
This place we’re in, this future, feels this way, all these things, bad, creepy, weird, unsettling, disturbing, disappointing, grief-inducing, laughable, pathetic, for a reason.
It’s the one nobody wanted, except of course, the very worst among us, and they made it for the rest of us, through inaction on anything that matters, and a kind of insane obsession with everything that doesn’t, like lining their own pockets. Until that changes, my friends, prepare yourselves. ...
Thank you Chris. I’m writing you in Cornel. Best interview I’ve heard in so long. Blues & jazz is the greatest thing America ever produced. How about Muddy Waters, or Big Mama Thornton..too many great artists to mention. 🙏
Rot doesn’t need any help with dismantling, Rot is a Self Deprecating Process, known as Rotting ! Once it starts and underway, it starts accelerating, I mean the Rot feed itself and crumbles and falls apart and disappears without a trace that is the Magic of Rot !
Sad to see, specially in its advanced stages like stage 4+ cancer.., doctors normally feel confident to number in Days for the Finale !
Then, that’s it !
80 years old man is saying, I have seen the Rot destroying the whole thing from head to toe !
West's response to the last question was an incredibly powerful statement of what it means to be truly alive and how to live a meaningful life. Incredible.
I love Chris Hedges’s shining face when he lets his vulnerability to love and be loved show. I am thankful for his serious impassioned love of the good that threads through his keen recognition of darkness.
Gillen and Page 2014; only the oligarchs get what they want. So don't blame the rest of us. What do you expect us to do? West can't win. Neither could Bernie.
Do anything after collapsing and feeling like a victim. Stand and Do anything that serves what you view is just and true. No matter how from the outside it appears inconsequential . Inside you energy builds - especially after linking up with like minded others- and together drumming up more that serves. An unbalanced focus on the “them” is the road to lethargy and give upness. Signs of the conquest by the corporate/oligarchs. Instead, determine - and by determining willingly act in new ways, fierce ways. Find your tribe. You will recognize us.
Yes!
Robert Leaver
Alexrobinedith@verizon.net
774 283-2759
Preface
I believe that the prevailing context under which modern civilization is functioning, a combination of left-brain domination and it’s offspring, rivalrous tribalism, is lead to an extinction crisis - which may include our species. I also believe that the only way to avoid that fate is to end the existing context and create an alternative in its place.
The creation of a new context requires a cultural transformation. Cultural transformations occur as a result of a critical mass of individual transformations. Individual transformations are based on personal epiphanies. And personal epiphanies are sparked by the insight derived from understanding.
I have been studying these subjects for 50 years. I wish to contribute my limited understanding of our circumstances to an open discussion which will lead to our shared understanding, epiphany, and salvation. Please consider my sense of things, improve it with your own, and pass it on in the service of that objective.
Context Dictates Content
Humankind is going extinct because we’ve been living a lie and it’s caught up with us. It’s a lie we tell ourselves, that being Godlike we possess the capacity, through abstraction, language, and reasoning, to know what’s going on here on Planet Earth and how to conduct ourselves in accordance with that reality.
But are we qualified to do that? Consider language. What do you suppose happened when our species, armed with the capacity to abstract, began to represent the abstractions with signals, then sounds and spoken words. Three of the things that happened fairly quickly as a result of language were specialization, authority, and hierarchy.
The classic film “Gone with the Wind” begins with slaves working in a field. When one calls out, “Quittin time,” another responds, “You don’t call quittin time. I call quittin time. Quittin time!” All achieved with language. The guys in charge got to dictate what was said, when it could be said, and who got to say it and who would be guided by it.
Some may recall President Reagan naming the terrorist Contras “freedom fighters” to justify financing their campaign to overthrow the democratically elected Sandinistas of El Salvador.
A hundred years ago, when he created the field of General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski identified the underlying lie in language. He noted that “What you say a thing is, it isn’t.” The knowable symbol is not the incomprehensible thing being symbolized; the map is not the territory.
Korzybski pointed out three ways in which language misleads us. First, language treats happenings as things, verbs as nouns. Slaughtering women and children becomes “war.”
Second, language places unique things together into categories and classes, suggesting that the things should be considered the same and dealt with in the same way. Unique individuals become “Gringos,” “Nips,” and “Ragheads.”
And third, language asserts that we can know and say everything that is relevant about things – when, in fact, our abstractions are highly reductionist and the intended meaning is limited and biased.
There are those who have always understood what Korzybski taught, but did our leadership hierarchies note the problems with language as they were using it to control and organize us? Even today, do the capitalists advertising to us and politicians begging for our vote remind us of the problems? The academicians lecturing and publishing for prestige and stature? The sermonizers seeking subservience? Or does the achievement of our leaders’ true goals require them to keep us deluded?
Linguists tell us that all language is assertion with intention. I would further assert (with the intention that you’ll consider my assertion), that we are both unclear about what we’re asserting and unsure of our true motive for asserting it. When was the last time some authority figure addressing you prefaced his assertion with a coherent explanation of his true intent? Have you noticed that the more authority we grant our leaders, the less explanation we require from them. How about trust? Do you suppose our desire to trust our leaders has anything to do with our failure to hold them accountable?
So, is my group or culture controlling what I imagine and, if so, how are they doing it and to what end? Consider your assumptions. Do you assume that America has a two-party system? How about that free markets lead to free people? Or that reducing corporate taxes increases investment?
Let’s consider your deeper knowledge, such things as that we’re trained from birth to rely on external authority and we continue doing it all our lives. Did those teaching you to conform and obey ever explain that we have to have the faith in ourselves in order to make the choice to accept external authority? That by definition, internal authority precedes and allows external authority? Did anyone teach you that? Or were you taught to deny your faith in yourself and go along to get along? The fact is, we’re all trained to betray ourselves by blindly accepting external authority, from crossing guards to presidents.
Denial ain’t a river in Egypt. We’ve been pretending that we can ascertain, render, share and achieve consensus about truth. (For the record, I do not claim to know the truth. You’re on your own.) We’re told we’re rational beings so we can be held accountable to our leaders’ rational rules and laws. Perhaps it would behoove us to remind ourselves that we’re limited by language as to what we can know, and then manipulated and coerced into denying it. “Nothing to see here. Move right along.”
Neuroscientists also contend that the vast majority of our brain functions, perhaps 95%, is unconscious. If that’s the case, it’s reasonable to assume that the 95% that’s unconscious is influencing the 5% that’s conscious in ways we’re unconscious of. And if that’s the case, how can we be sure of anything? The external authorities don’t want you to go there, either. “I don’t know why I did it” is not an acceptable defense.
Now mix the above with our social circumstances. For the past 500+ years the ruling elites have orchestrated all manner of
technological breakthroughs. Beginning with the printing press and banking and ending with the breakthroughs of the past 75-80 years, e.g. atomic weapons, computers, cell phones, mass communication technology, psycology, AI, transhumanism and robotics, it has been nothing short of mind boggling.
Since the late 1930s, the world has been increasingly run by a male-led neoliberal oligarchy. Since the 1970s, in addition to the above, that oligarchy has developed great sophistication in psychology. As they’ve done so they’ve created immense power and wealth for themselves.
The oligarchy is run by a cabal of wizards hiding behind a curtain but exercising their will through the frontmen we all see and know, people like the Bushes, the Clintons, Barak Obama, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu and, lest we forget, Klaus Schwab. Not a lot of Gandhi’s, Kennedy’s, Havel’s and Schweitzer’s in the club. Those hooligans objective is to steal all our money and take over the world. Consider how you’d feel if Klaus Schwab sat down with your family in your living room and announced, “You will own nothing, and you will be happy.”
The sociobiologist E.O. Wilson said that the context for human behavior is rivalrous tribalism. He went on to say that if we don’t end rivalrous tribalism, it will surely end us. Well, the sociopaths have formed the ultimate rivalrous tribe in the New World Order. If Wilson’s prognosis pertains, the leaders will vanquish the led and then, assuming they avoid the temptation to kill us all with nuclear weapons, start in on one another. We’re talking denouement with a capital D!
It's time we chose to face the truth about our nature and circumstances. It’s time we reclaimed our faith in ourselves – which we never lost, just became dissuaded from believing in, and chose to take charge of our systems and future. Because look around you, the oligarchy’s enslavement and genocide programs are building momentum. Plus, the oligarchy has mastered the dialectic and imposed their duopolies all across the world. It’s time for us individuals to acknowledge our faith in ourselves and start taking responsibility for our interpretations, choices, and actions, leading to our personal transformation. It’s time to stand up, declare, and be accountable to yourselves!
May we all have the strength to search for, adhere to and fight for the truth. 🙏
Oh no...not this tired intellectual canard of "tribalism" yet again! Notice who's considered "tribal": uncivilized semi-humans like sub-Saharan Africans, the indigenous peoples of the Americas and of Australia. While Europeans and their descendants are termed "ethnic." Civilized.
Furthermore, consider the actual traditions of indigenes versus the behavior of colonists. As well as the history of the entire western world. Also the implications of John Ralston Saul's book //Voltaire's Bastards (The Dictatorship of Reason in the West)//. Saul also wrote a recent book about the re-emerging cultural influence of Canadian First Nations.
BTW, the authority on the neurological processing differences of the human brain's hemispheres is Dr. Iain McGilchrist. His 2022 two vol. magnum opus is //The Matter with Things (Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World.)//
So you see, some of us who are BIPOC ("tribal",) LGBTQ, and working class, as I am, can read, write, and think. QED.
I've read Korzybski, too. You Euros, especially western Euro and descendants, need to find an accurate and appropriate label for your own group's behavior. Quit projecting onto us. English Prime indeed; General Semantics seems forgotten in practice.
This western WA state low income senior voted for Dr. West. Speak the Truth, brother! By that, I mean both in the religious sense and as we union people do. Like my logger grandfather the Wobbly (IWW,) I'm certain "An Injury To One Is An Injury To All."
The neolib oligarchy excludes devastation of human and natural resources as externalities. These econopaths say competitive aggression is the way of the world. Yet, for example, trees grow in obligate symbiosis with fungus on their roots, the mycorrhizosphere. That alone makes cooperation the dominant mode of life and there are many, many other symbioses.
The neocon order now running the Biden Dept. of State and certain to be running Harris's or Cheney wouldn't have endorsed her, is a nightmare. They believe they should rule a unipolar world, empire requiring endless wars to maintain the illusion. Thus no $$$ for crumbling infrastructure, healthcare, or much of anything that doesn't fit their battle plans. We workers can see that.
So I disagree strenuously that "people are gullible." Some of us blue collar types can read, write, and think. Some of us know the D party elite abandoned us in the late '70s. Some of us realize that H. Clinton's haughty denigration "a basket of deplorables" was aimed at the entire working class.
Consider what it means when someone with a family to care for loses a job. Especially when there is little support for anyone who stands up to the system. Best not to look too closely, even though you know how unfair the econ system is and what suck-ups and idiots most of your bosses are. As you, Chris and Cornel, know about people without connections caught up in mass incarceration, many are intelligent and aware. So are many who are caught up in the econopathic system.
The ideal of democracy means a certain faith in the people.
@rafi:
and yet, to my dismay, "the people" are ... how shall i put it? ... strange enough to vote against their own interests time and again, and i wonder: do they lack insight, self-interest or just the courage to wrest what's theirs from the immensely pitiless + powerful pack of insatiables?
Is this another justification for condemning us as stupid, of failing to recognize and submit to our intellectual betters? What, exactly, have they ever offered us? Notice, for example, you say "their interests," implying your interests differ from the majority working class.
In the early '70s, I was trained by people who'd been union organizers in the 1930s. Actual leftists, not tepid centrists. They told me: "liberals are the ones who leave the room when the fight starts." And they did.
In the '80s, as a rank and file blue collar union activist, I was at a gathering for a D candidate where close to everyone else was a professional. An attorney and a PhD scientist confronted me, both wanting to know why we worker types should get good wages just because we were in a union. Their hostility and condescension made obvious by tone of voice and body language. Do you think they cared about the Rust Belt? Does their non-care qualify as "acting (voting) against their own interests"? It sure was in the long run as percentage of voters fell and eventually the declasse' invisibles had nothing but rage or voting for Trump.
Which, BTW, isn't even true of the majority. Another myth along with the supposed prejudice. What I say may be considered anecdotal; read Les Leopold's 2024 book //Wall Street's War on Workers (How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do about It.)// Many years of research and the stats that confirm my claims. Or go to his blog site; he posts more every few days. So does Jim Hightower, one of the few remaining classical Populists.
@rafi: exactly. unions are a case in point. relatively strong in the 1980s, let's hope they regain even greater strength now. you also provide a good example for how corporate power despises those who deserve a fair share of the gains they help their masters make.
as to "stupid": if s./o. lacks insight, s/he’s not necessarily stupid. they might be ill-informed and could change that. i just fail to comprehend why 'middle and lower class' voters keep perpetuating a system in which the handful of ultra-rich wage war against the poor. remember war_ren buffet: „we started it“, he said, „and we’re winning that war, too“, grinning at the fact that he pays much less taxes than his secretary.
i know, it's not just about casting the right vote. systemic violence and suppression play a role in all this, too - as is very obvious, these days. still, votes might matter, after all [given that a general STRIKE - which i'd so like to see in my EU home country, as well, won't happen].
Cornel is on a roll here.
I donated to his campaign after watching this interview.
I have always respected you Chris but I am very surprised you were talking with West. To me he is a fake who can't stop from banging on about "White Supremacy" every second sentence. I kind of wonder if the democrats put him up to it. Will he apply the term to all the white homeless who live under almost every urban bridge in the USA. I understand he is pretty comfortably off! By the way my wife is Sri Lankan before that pejorative is applied to me!
@blair jones:
what a strong statement to make about cornel west.
have you read any of his books? have you studied US history from its inception? are you aware that it started with a genocide, then continued on the backs of millions of african slaves, with their masters then spreading violence and wars to neighboring countries and faraway lands as well - to this very day, by the way? white supremacy at its worst.
dr. west may be a controversial figure, but he reminds us of our lack of empathy and support for our fellow wo/men, at home and abroad. [indifference to homelessness is a case in point.]
re. white people being homeless, here's what he aims to achieve: "... because in the end we're really talking about what martin king would call a revolution: a transfer of power from oligarchs to everyday people of all colors."
In the late 1800's and the turn of the 20th century there were many immigrants to the US from south and east Europe who endured tremendous prejudice, and they were white. Working Your Way Toward Whiteness is an excellent book that puts all of it in perspective.
Ever hear of the 11 Italians lynched by a mob in New Orleans in 1891 although none were found guilty of the crime of killing New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy? Here's how the NY Times, under different ownership back then, had to say about the lynching of these innocent men, "These sneaking and cowardly Sicilians, the descendants of bandits and assassins, who have transported to this country the lawless passions, the cut-throat practices, and the oath-bound societies of their native country, are to us a pest without mitigations…These men of the Mafia killed Chief Hennessy in circumstances of peculiar atrocity…Lynch law was the only course open to the people of New Orleans to stay the issue of a new license to the Mafia to continue its bloody practices.”
Those who orchestrated and carried out the lynching went free, causing a diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and the Italian government..
None of those involved in their deaths were held accountable. However lots of bad blood between Italy and the US, and so President Harrison solved the problem by giving the Italians Columbus Day, and as you probably know he never set foot in what became America.
P. S. The present NY Times is certainly on it's way down hill, as well.
Interesting that whites who also experienced prejudice in America are lost in this kind of discussion, and for the most part this aspect of history is not taught in our schools, or even known to most Americans. You would think that providing an overall perspective would give people a better and more wholistic and compassionate understanding of this issue.
I saw Cornel West the last time he was on Jimmy Dore's show. Jimmy is completely finished with him. I trust Jimmy more than any other media!
Thank you for this incredible interview Chris . Dr West has inspired me as have you. Speak the truth. 🙏🏼
British economist and social critic sounds a lot like Chris.
Nobody wanted this future.
So how did we arrive here? This is what happens when we don’t make tough choices together, act wisely, and instead, assign the levers of power to those who prefer paralysis and inaction and the lowest-common-denominator over shared ownership of a better tomorrow. This future was made for us, not by us, even if we didn’t choose the right leaders. Because the ones we did choose, or were limited to choosing between, still should have done a better job than this.
So here we are, in the place nobody wanted to be. Watching this dismal shit unfold. Kamala vs Trump! Nation versus nation. Clan versus clan. Watching it all stagnate, fall apart, come undone. Soul against soul, life against life.
Our challenge has always been a shared one. Life against death. When we are reduced to fighting each other, when it’s life against life—my friends, then is when we are truly in the valley in the shadow of death.
This place we’re in, this future, feels this way, all these things, bad, creepy, weird, unsettling, disturbing, disappointing, grief-inducing, laughable, pathetic, for a reason.
It’s the one nobody wanted, except of course, the very worst among us, and they made it for the rest of us, through inaction on anything that matters, and a kind of insane obsession with everything that doesn’t, like lining their own pockets. Until that changes, my friends, prepare yourselves. ...
https://www.theissue.io/the-futures-been-decided-for-us/?ref=the-issue-newsletter
Great interview Chris & Cornel. I could listen to Cornel orate for the longest time, he is so full of passion!
Thank you Chris. I’m writing you in Cornel. Best interview I’ve heard in so long. Blues & jazz is the greatest thing America ever produced. How about Muddy Waters, or Big Mama Thornton..too many great artists to mention. 🙏
Rot doesn’t need any help with dismantling, Rot is a Self Deprecating Process, known as Rotting ! Once it starts and underway, it starts accelerating, I mean the Rot feed itself and crumbles and falls apart and disappears without a trace that is the Magic of Rot !
Sad to see, specially in its advanced stages like stage 4+ cancer.., doctors normally feel confident to number in Days for the Finale !
Then, that’s it !
80 years old man is saying, I have seen the Rot destroying the whole thing from head to toe !