Fact: Not only does Cornell West have a role in The Matrix: Reloaded, 
Sunday, April 1, 2007
,
Brother West, the man.
In Democracy Matters West writes that:
The most frightening feature of America [and Canada for that matter] is the insidious growth of deadening nihilisms across political lines, nihilisms that have been suffocating the deep democratic energies in America…psychic depression, personal worthlessness, and social despair are widespread in America as a whole. The vast majority of citizens struggling to preserve a livelihood, raise children, and live decent lives-are disillusioned with social forces that seem beyond their control…the market forces in American life generates a market morality that undermines a sense of meaning and larger purpose. The dogma of free-market fundamentalism [brother West loves to alliterate] has run amok, and the pursuit of profits by any legal (or illegal) [moral or immoral] means –with little or no public accountability-guides the behavior of the most powerful and influential institutions in our lives: transnational corporations. The perception of pervasive corruption at the top seems to many to justify the unprincipled quest to succeed at any cost in their own lives, and the widespread cheating in our culture reflects this sad truth. The oppressive effect of the prevailing market moralities leads to a form of sleepwalking from womb to tomb [and the rhyme] , with the majority of citizens content to focus on private careers and be distracted with stimulating amusements. They have given up any real hope of shaping the collective destiny of the nation. Sour cynicism, political apathy, and cultural escapism become the pervasive options.
ni·hil·ism (nī'ə-lĭz'əm, nē'-)
1. Philosophy
a. An extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence.
b. A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.
2. Rejection of all distinctions in moral or religious value and a willingness to repudiate all previous theories of morality or religious belief.
3. The belief that destruction of existing political or social institutions is necessary for future improvement.
What Dr.West says about Nihilism has gotten into me. Me, who deconstructs everything constructive, who am aware of the flip side to most every philanthropy; every reason why it doesn’t work; the extent to which a closed system is corrupted; the degree of difficulty which seems like the impossibility of change. Me who, for this reason and with this excuse, though I’m educated to be aware that there is such thing as better and worse within a corrupt system, don’t bother to boycott Walmart, justifying that “they’re all corrupt anyway, so what’s the difference?”
But if we do not believe there is a difference, a possibility of change, if we the ones who know better don’t choose to deconstruct our deconstructions, and out of our education construct something which, though be it necessarily oversimplified, is strategically, effectively, change-makedly so, then surely things are as hopeless as they seem.
P.S. Someone once told me they told Cornell they didn’t have this one rap album, and he was like “Oh Brother you got to have that,” and gave him 20 dollars to go buy it: Cornell West, the man.
The most frightening feature of America [and Canada for that matter] is the insidious growth of deadening nihilisms across political lines, nihilisms that have been suffocating the deep democratic energies in America…psychic depression, personal worthlessness, and social despair are widespread in America as a whole. The vast majority of citizens struggling to preserve a livelihood, raise children, and live decent lives-are disillusioned with social forces that seem beyond their control…the market forces in American life generates a market morality that undermines a sense of meaning and larger purpose. The dogma of free-market fundamentalism [brother West loves to alliterate] has run amok, and the pursuit of profits by any legal (or illegal) [moral or immoral] means –with little or no public accountability-guides the behavior of the most powerful and influential institutions in our lives: transnational corporations. The perception of pervasive corruption at the top seems to many to justify the unprincipled quest to succeed at any cost in their own lives, and the widespread cheating in our culture reflects this sad truth. The oppressive effect of the prevailing market moralities leads to a form of sleepwalking from womb to tomb [and the rhyme] , with the majority of citizens content to focus on private careers and be distracted with stimulating amusements. They have given up any real hope of shaping the collective destiny of the nation. Sour cynicism, political apathy, and cultural escapism become the pervasive options.
ni·hil·ism (nī'ə-lĭz'əm, nē'-)
1. Philosophy
a. An extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence.
b. A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.
2. Rejection of all distinctions in moral or religious value and a willingness to repudiate all previous theories of morality or religious belief.
3. The belief that destruction of existing political or social institutions is necessary for future improvement.
What Dr.West says about Nihilism has gotten into me. Me, who deconstructs everything constructive, who am aware of the flip side to most every philanthropy; every reason why it doesn’t work; the extent to which a closed system is corrupted; the degree of difficulty which seems like the impossibility of change. Me who, for this reason and with this excuse, though I’m educated to be aware that there is such thing as better and worse within a corrupt system, don’t bother to boycott Walmart, justifying that “they’re all corrupt anyway, so what’s the difference?”
But if we do not believe there is a difference, a possibility of change, if we the ones who know better don’t choose to deconstruct our deconstructions, and out of our education construct something which, though be it necessarily oversimplified, is strategically, effectively, change-makedly so, then surely things are as hopeless as they seem.
P.S. Someone once told me they told Cornell they didn’t have this one rap album, and he was like “Oh Brother you got to have that,” and gave him 20 dollars to go buy it: Cornell West, the man.
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