Pearl River Having been to one or two events at the Clinton Presidential Center over the years, I get their regular emails on events of one kind or another. Having recently read, Terry Brandon’s Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope: A Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement, I was reminded how important the perspective of Dr. Cornel West has been in counterpointing the gaslighting romantic version of the civil rights and where the US and the world stand on race. The Center was touting a lecture or dialogue of some kind between West and a very conservative Princeton professor named Robert P. George.
Admittedly, it was an odd couple pairing. It turned out that they had co-taught a course at Princeton years ago when West was also a professor there, rather than being with Union Theological Seminary now. George shared a Catholic sensibility on some issues and West spoke more universally as a Baptist Protestant. From the sound of it, they had taken this show on the road together not infrequently over the years. Their basic theme might be boiled down to “let’s listen to each other with an open mind, and see if we can find common ground or at the least maintain a civil discourse about our society and government.” Not a surprise that the Clinton Center would gravitate in this direction.
The discussion was moderated by Walter Hussman, the owner and publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, where the editorial policy would never be confused as comfortable with progressives in general or West in particular, though they were all very well-mannered and behaved in the discussion. Hussman almost got in trouble in the beginning by asking George something that might have labeled him as close to classic liberalism, worthy of conservatives of the ilk that dominate The Economist. George bridled at being anywhere near having to identify with any stance that included the word “liberal,” but they got back on track quickly.
Cornel West continues to be a riveting speaker and audience spellbinder, even when voicing positions uncomfortable to this panel and its audience. He deprecatingly would refer to himself as a “cracked vessel” and sinner. He called civic education, which is being eliminated, downgraded, or repurposed in many states, like Arkansas, as “soul craft.” Hussman and George tried to plump Martin Luther King, Jr’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” as perhaps the seminal letter of the 20th century and suggested it should be mandatory reading in schools. West was having none of that, and didn’t think it should be required, nor would it be in countries “organized by greed and cruelty.” He instead called on people to “bear witness” and “speak against the grain” calling himself “a redeemed sinner with gangster proclivities.” He wasn’t willing to give Socrates and Plato much slack because “love” lacked a prominent place in their dialogues. His own perspective flowed from an understanding of suffering as well, arguing that people “had to learn how to die” so that “they could learn how to live.” He also didn’t give a break to Luther, Calvin and other religious reformers, saying they had installed similar features in their own protestant religious that they opposed in Catholicism.
The best argument George made, joined by West, was President John Adams decision to leave the office when beaten for a second term by Thomas Jefferson, even as many, including his own party, demanded that he remain in office despite the loss. This was a thinly veiled criticism of Trump and his efforts in January 6th and ongoing claims that Joe Biden didn’t win the 2020 election. Despite being a fierce anti-abortion advocate, he was a “never Trumper” based on Trump’s lack of character.
West gave a shoutout to Wendell Griffin, a former judge and pastor of New Millenium Church in Little Rock, and a stonecold progressive, who is also a member of the Arkansas Broadcasting Foundation’s board. He applauded his passionate advocacy from the pulpit and in civil society.
Even as both of these scholars called for open-minded dialogue seeking to find common ground, I wonder whether any of these themes really hit home? Maybe people just felt better getting out of the cold and ice and being together where they could shake each other’s hands, pat each other’s back and feel self-satisfied that they had been there, and then go back out in the cold without a moment’s reflection about their own views and the need, as West demanded, for them “to witness?” We’ll see soon enough.