Re: CORNEL WEST VS RICHARD WRIGHT

[Ralph Dumain <rdumain@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Is the problem of "Black philosophy" not, in some sense, an
>arcetype of the revolutionary man ?

The problem is avoiding the consequences of ghettoization.  This
problem applies to more than one (ethnic) group?  Need I name
names?

>One lives in, and draws sense of self and soul nourishment from
>a society that loves and despises one.  The love comes from
>the immediate culture of parents, schoolmates, church, "pop"
>icons with which identifies.

What if one is stifled and one's inner self violated by one's
parents, schoolmates, church?

>Yet the immediate culture, and the individual are despised by
>the larger culture of which they are integrally part.

And because this culture within a culture is despised, it too
develops certain negative elements which it inflicts on the
individuals within it.

>The individual in these circumstances must live a dual life and
>have a dual mind.

Perhaps a triple life and a triple mind?  I could write a book.

>Socialism creates a similar condition.  By identifying the
>flawed logic of social relations as the culprit, we absolve the
>exploiter but hate his exploitation.

A difficult discipline to be sure.  And how about the
self-abolition of the proletariat?  And here too is the problem of
ghettoization, especially in the USA.

>This is, of course why the African-American (i.e., Wright and
>Ellison) is so unique in his ability to contribute to the
>revolutionary discourse.

To deal with this topic adequately requires a whole dissertation.
There is so much more to it.

>He is the truly "conscious partisan of the modern, industrial,
>and scientific"  because his blinders have been off before the
>modern, industrial, and scientific even were.

Is this not the topic of Paul Gilroy's THE BLACK ATLANTIC?


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