Well, I made myself sit through West's fifteen minute talk.
The address was loosely organized around the topic of "who or what are leftists." It turns out that leftists are those who look at the world through the eyes of the oppressed, the victims, and the disenfranchised. That they are courageous beings. That they would rather be free than comfortable. That they won't sell themselves. That while some have chosen comfort, the coming revolutions will be the revolutions of the young who have been radicalized through the radical popular art of the 60's through the present. Solidarity is also important: with the past, present, and future.
References to leftist saints: Martin Luther K., Benjamin, etc. were ritualistically invoked, and yet I would not say that this speech had any political content. It was a speech to make the audience feel good about themselves. Which is a very different thing from a speech to help the audience go forward or even to focus on the specifics to follow at the forum. I don't think the audience was "eating it up." The only moment of overflowing enthusiasm followed West's brief denunciation of Obama. Otherwise, I'd say reaction was this side of sedately cheerful.
He used a preaching style that was more style than substance. As one responder noted, there was nothing to disagree with and there was nothing that caused the least bit discomfort in the audience; whereas the preaching tradition he called upon depends precisely on balancing discomfort with the possibility of salvation, and with requiring the audience to take a very critical look at themselves. Not much squirm factor from West.
It is not really possible to talk in terms of "breaking unity with West;" it would be like saying that you've broken unity with a T.V. commercial.
I don't know who West communicates with. He came into his own during a time of radical chic, and he made the most of it. He describes his stance as follows: "I arrived at Harvard unashamed of my African, Christian, and militant de-colonized outlooks. More pointedly, I acknowledged and accented the empowerment of my black styles, mannerisms, and viewpoints, my Christian values of service, love, humility, and struggle, and my anti-colonial sense of self-determination for oppressed people and nations around the world." I will withhold comment on this nearly obscene statement, except to say that for some, adopting a posture is enough and for them, West is definitely a standard bearer. He is an academic rock star, kind of like Zizek, except that Zizek occasionally says something insightful or worth thinking about.
One other thing. Whether due to political paralysis or to the general disintegration of public life, the art of public speaking has largely been lost. What has been lost thereby is not just "style" but the basic idea that there is such a thing as public speech, a form of speech which creates a space where people can meet and where they can articulate their experience and form political projects that help to realize shared goals. This space is formed by what the speaker says, how he says it, how he relates to the audience, what use he makes of the flow of words as a political tool, etc. This is a deep and important topic and it has nothing to do with flowery rhetoric vs truth telling. I have seen men stand and take the audience in their hands and teach them to understand their place in the world and their relation to one another and how they might take the next step forward. In this regard, West and many others fail completely. It is not about being the most eloquent man in the room; it is about saying exactly what the occasion requires, and sometimes this might be a kind of raving, and sometimes a cold eloquence, and sometimes a lament, and sometimes a dispassionate articulation of the current status, and sometimes a love song.
In the aftermath of such a speech no one will talk of melodrama or theater, but they will step away having been touched and awakened. Drama flowers always in revolutionary times; this is not because "rhetoric" is artifice, but because both drama and public speech can transform the common space and enable it to become the crucible within which a new consciousness is stirred into being.
The "left" is fatally divided into the reformist and socialist camps. That's one reason it's hard to define. But given what is happening right now in the world, I would expect any one who gives the opening address at a Left Forum, to at least raise the question of direction and priority, rather than having a petit mal seizure over the solidarity we have with the past, present, and future.
Joanna