There is certainly nothing wrong with CW writing popular books or even doing rap albums with his nephew, but I kind of think that Summers did have a germ of point with him. When CW was starting out back in Princeton he wrote some quite decent philosophy books like his "The American Evasion of Philosophy," concerning American pragmatism or or "The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought." There is no reason why he shouldn't still be writing stuff like that now.
Jim F.
---------- Original Message ---------- From: shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Decline of the West Date: Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:30:26 -0500
At 11:01 AM 12/2/2009, Sean Andrews wrote:
>It's a shame because he is very good on talk shows; I wish there was more
>steak in his sizzle--and that he didn't sound like such a pompous ass.
>
>s
I have never read West at length -- some excerpt in an anthology maybe -- so couldn't judge, and have only seen him on the state of the black union. In those engagements, it's very clear that West sees himself as a performer. I wasn't sure I understood what McLemee's problem was. so? maybe he's tapped out and much more interested in making some dough without a lot of exertion.
But more, I thought one criticism of the article was a good point, at least in principle. I don't know whether West has simply chosen to speak to people outside the academy or if he even does it well. Or, again, maybe he realized he could make a buck, like Maya Angelou's Helen Steiner Rice routine. But the point Theresa makes is important. I remember being taught that it would be a bad bad thing to write a popular book. There were certain exceptions, certain niches where it would work out, but for most people, being a popular writer as an academic was the death-knell for an academic career.
If he's popular, good on him. Why should he lose professorship? Why does he have to write books that other academics want to read?
shag
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
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