The Chris Cuomo Project - Is Cornel West's Philosophy Too Radical for the Presidency?

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

Dr. Cornel West (philosopher, author, activist, and independent candidate for President) joins Chris Cuomo for an in-depth discussion about Dr. West's motivations for running for office, his philosophical outlook, and his vision for America. Touching upon spirituality, morality, justice, and catastrophe, Chris and Dr. West explore the role of philosophy in modern society and leadership, as well as how both philosophy and politics plays into the 2024 presidential race.  Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time to start thinking about who we are watching in the race for president. Have we ever wondered about what someone's philosophy is? I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. Boy, do I have a treat for you today. We're always talking politics about who's worse. When's the last time we've talked about philosophy? Oh, you mean like ancient history? No, I mean someone's why. Why are they running?

What do they want to bring about? What matters to them? Aren't these important questions, right? The debate has been so cheapened that maybe a philosopher can help change the game, and that's where Cornel West comes in. You know him just from his splendiferous do, his signature look, You know him just from his splendiferous do, his signature look, his cadence, his cogency, okay? A legend of the civil rights movement. He's seen so much of America's struggle to progress in such a key period, known as a professor, Ivy League credentials, and now he's decided to run for president of the United States. Is he just a spoiler, a disruptor?

No, he's a philosopher. And it's really important to discuss why he sees the need to be in this race. Why, for him, is it not about being practical or political, but philosophical? Here it is. The Chris Cuomo Project is supported by Cozy Earth. Why? Because I like their sheets. That's why. A lot of people don't get a good night's sleep for a lot of reasons. One of the ones that you can control is bedding. One out of three of us report being sleep deprived. you can control is bedding. One out of three of us report being sleep deprived. Okay, well, what is it? Well, it stresses all kinds of things, but the wrong sheets can make you hot,

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Thankfully, we now have HIMS, and it's changing the vibe by providing affordable access to ED treatment, and it's all online. HIMS is changing men's health care. Why? Because it's giving you access to affordable and discreet sexual health treatments, and you do it right from your couch. HIMS provides access to clinically proven generic alternatives to Viagra or Cialis or whatever. And it's up to like 95% cheaper. And there are options as low as two bucks a dose. HIMS has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers. So if ED is getting you down, it's time to pick it up. Start your free online visit today at HIMS.com slash CCP. H-I-M-S.com slash CCP. And you will get personalized ED treatment options. HIMS.com slash CCP. Prescriptions, you need an online consultation with a healthcare provider, and they will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply.

You see the website, you'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required. Plus, the price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. Cornell West, always a pleasure. Doctor and brother, appreciate you. Always a blessing, my dear brother, and happy new year to you and happy new year to your precious family. And you know, I always acknowledge your magnificent mother, Matilda, man. Thank you. And she appreciates it as do I and the rest of the family. Let's kind of dance back and forth, the urgent and the micro and the macro, let's say. And I would love to tap your mind on something people don't talk to you about enough,

which is the lesson and legacy of the fight for equality that you have been a part of for many decades and your understanding of the need and lack of application of philosophy in everyday life as the archetypal neo pragmatist that you are. So on the micro level, as a Harvard man, and we forgive you that here in the land of Bula Bula. You got that Yale connection. Yeah.

I'm praying for you. I'm praying for you. I'm a sore thumb for them, but I'm the exception, not the rule. So President Gay forced to resign, decided to resign, whatever the accommodation was. People claim that this was racist. Other people say this is an abuse of claims of racism and that what the president demonstrated at that hearing, as did other university presidents, was tone deaf at best and proof of a dark, progressive animus on campus, at worst, of wokeism gone awry. What is your take? You know, I begin with the notion that education is a very sacred activity.

And by sacred, I mean it transcends all politics, all ideology. It has to do with Socratic energy. How do we unsettle minds? How do we touch souls? How do we fortify persons in such a way that they can be the best that they can be relative to the choices they make. We're in a moment now in which more and more big money dictates educational policies at the heart, but just like raw policy too often dictates foreign policy. And that to me is just spiritually flat. It's morally empty.

And so first, let's begin with the congressional hearings. And I thought all three presidents were weak in response to the question about genocide, calling for genocide of Jews. Now, of course, the person raising the question, you know, she's supporting Brother Palo Dito, who's had some positive things to say about Hitler. So, I mean, we won't get into the sister who's raising the question. Her moral authority is lacking. But she has a right to raise the question. I thought all responses were weak, I think. But the sad thing is that our universities have become so commodified and corporatized, they begin to function as business enterprises. And so the kind of advice that the

president received was, and I know you trained lawyer, my brother, but it was lawyerly advice. They weren't speaking for their hearts and minds and souls. We need to have visionary leaders of universities who can speak with moral passion rather than loyally nuance about trying to stay on tight ropes and worried about ways in which they might be violating X or Y codes. You talk about a genocide of Jews or anybody else. It's wrong. It's unjust. It's barbaric. It's bestial. That's all they had to say. That would have let the world know we don't put up with this kind of devaluation and degradation of anybody beginning with Jews. They didn't say it. Understood. But that doesn't warrant their resignation. It does not. Why?

No, no, not at all. Because, you see, resignation has to do with the ways in which it proceeded. See, it's one thing to have a Socratic argument, even with the president. It's another thing to engage in vicious threats. It's another thing to engage in claims about we're going to withdraw funds. You see, that's not Socratic, but that's not dialogical at all. That's where the big money begins to dictate educational policy so that presidents can be weak and we have to be critical of them. But that doesn't mean they lose their jobs. And then, of course, you got the next move, which is a plagiaristic move. jobs. And then, of course, you got the next move, which is a plagiaristic move, where we're going to find something else. And we know that it's not as if Aikman or the other one,

wasn't it Ackerman or what? It's not as if- Bill Ackman, and now they are making allegations against his wife, which I believe is dirty pool, to be honest. Even with Representative Stefanik, I'm not saying that you don't have a lot to work with in terms of criticizing her, but these presidents made her look good. She asked a straight question. They couldn't give a straight answer. They couldn't give a straight answer. So they made her a hero to certain people and a villain to others. Ackman, same thing. He wants to pressure it. Now they come after his wife, whether they're right or wrong, that's our state of play. You say the consequence of resignation is wrong. I agree with a comma. I agree, comma, but if kids did things that violated their feelings about

gender or about any of their pet issues or priorities, they would get their ass tossed out of school. But that's wrong too. But it happens all the time. So why is it the rule for thee, but not for me? No, because one, there's different rules between wholesale plagiarism, and there's a difference between stealing words, stealing ideas, and so forth. Understood. Once you get into the business of code making, then it backfires on you because the code making means everybody's rendered so frightful, so afraid to speak their minds, to put forward their arguments, to lay bare their visions, that you no longer have a context in which genuine education can really take place. Now, that doesn't mean that it isn't taking place. There's still

some wonderful professors at Harvard and Penn and MIT and Columbia and Yale and Long Beach College. But there's an environment. That's right. You create an ambient and an atmosphere that is not Socratic. That's right. But that's not now. That is of their making for many years where increasingly they have been closed off to any ideas they don't like and indoctrinating a perverse sense of what some people are calling progressive.

I'm not comfortable with labels yet. And I'm careful about them. But the ideas of Harvard having a policy where written or unwritten, enforced or unenforced, guideline or directive that, hey, if somebody has their pronouns and you don't use them, you have absolute liability and the consequence is severe. Now, if that's going to be your standard, then this president should have been out of there immediately for not according the same respect to anti-Semitism as to anti-identity statements or anything that is contemptuous of that standard. So they have their standards. as to anti-identity statements or anything that is contemptuous of that standard.

So they have their standards. They have their likes and their dislikes. I remember when Ahmadinejad came and spoke at Columbia University, he had been the head of Iran, as of course you know, Cornell. But, and the universities were going crazy. He shouldn't speak, he shouldn't speak

because he did not espouse what they wanted. And Columbia was criticized. And I believe that these universities have been at the cutting edge of a cultural shift towards censorship. It is our ideas or none. It is don't give that person a platform. That word never existed for you and me in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010. Don't give him a platform, deplatforming. It's not just about social media. It's about, we don't allow ideas we don't like. I remember someone saying to me at CNN,

you are wrong to have these Trump supporters on your show. They are all liars. They are all bad. And being on CNN is a privilege. And I said, no. One, more voices, not less. More ideas, not less. You don't censor.

You expose. And you can therefore explode what is wrong. They have not been practicing that on campus. And why isn't this a well-earned comeuppance of being hoisted on their own petard, as the old French expression goes? They created the bomb, and now it blew them up by exposing their hypocrisy. Well, one, I think we have to proceed on the notion that any form of orthodoxy and narrow dogmatism and deference to any authority without criticism must be called into question. So you just have to be very clear about the overarching vision. Now, the vision is going to be different than the practice because we human beings always fall short

and we can't use our imperfections as a justification of disrespecting people. I think the universities underwent a process in the last 50 years. Because you know, there used to be bastions of mainly white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. They were anti-Catholic, they were anti-Jewish, they were anti-Black, they didn't have women.

When did Yale first have one? 1970 or something. Right. You know what I mean? So you've got those ugly forms of orthodoxy and dogmatism built into the history of so many of the universities. We're talking mainly about Ivy League right now. Now, once the vicious anti-Jewish quotas began to fall down, once they embraced the bringing Catholics from JFK to yourself and others in the Ivy League context, that was a hell of a battle. And that's still a battle.

I remember raising the question, how many Italians we got on the faculty at Harvard? Nobody raising it. Nobody. It was silence, man. Crickets. And they said, what is this black brother raising issue? Well, Giamatti means something to me. He was the one who hired me at Yale. That's where I first got tenure. And he and I had many discussions, even though we disagreed, because I went to jail and he took my tenure. But I still, I love my brother. We fought together all the time. So that's the

history of these institutions, right? So what happens is we say we need to respect everybody, trans, gay, lesbian, Catholic, Jewish, Black, Indigenous, Latino, or what have you. But then it becomes an orthodoxy after a while, and it makes it difficult for folk who are conservative or right-wing or whoever it is who deserve their voices to be heard, even as they must be accountable for their arguments. There must be answerable to the claims that they put forward. So that you're right, I think once you push it in such a way that it backfires on you, then the question becomes, who has the big money and raw power? And that's what's sad, though, brother. And even at Harvard,

the numbers are so gaudy. They have enough money to put people through that school for free for like, you know, two, three generations of you're in my family. Your family probably find qualified to go. I don't know how many if they have my genes in them. But, you know, I mean, there's just so much money. There's just so much money that they should be doing better. But this isn't about money. It's about priorities. And I want to take a step sideways to give people better understanding of your context of the idea of the evolution and need for change and the reality of change.

When you look back on your days with some of the towering figures. Yes. Other towering figures in our history who were fighting for civil rights, for equality, for people to be doing exactly what you're still discussing. What stands out as what was a moment where you looked around and said, I am part of something that is going to be remembered forever?

When you look at this brother right here, John Coltrane, Love Supreme, let's see. Then you think of Martin King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer. When you talk about W.B. Du Bois, you got to talk about Vito Marcantonio. He was the lawyer for Du Bois, the representative of Harlem, right?

That's the Italian brother. What was it about all of them? Well, they had their faults and faults because they looked at the world through a human lens. Anybody that looks at the world through a human lens is going to have some blindnesses. You know what I mean? The splinter in one's own eye is the biggest magnifying glass. That's what Adorno says. That's absolutely right.

That comes from Jesus himself with the mod and the beam in the eye. But what they did have was honesty, authenticity, integrity, courage, and willingness to live and die for what they believe. See, what has happened is not just the university. What has happened among the professional managerial class is the decline of authenticity, integrity, honesty, really wanting to pay a cost based on what you say and do. And what has become more visible and that which has tremendous weight is what is my brand? What is my market strategy? What can I pose and posture and say X and Y to help my career? Students come up to me all the time. What is your brand, Brother West? I don't have a motherhugging brand. I have a cause. The great figures of whatever color, it could be Rabbi Hesham, it could be Edward Zaid. What they have is a cause, but that has to do with morality and spirituality. That's being

pushed to the margin. So it's all about masking and masquerading and acting this way and posing this way and posturing this way. That's the whole market culture of spectacle and image. What your father had, authenticity. We know who brother Mario was. You agree with him, disagree with him. Even as a politician, we listen to his speech in San Francisco. That's coming from his heart, coming from his soul. That's who he is. That doesn't mean he's perfect. That doesn't mean he's pure, but he's for real. These days, not just in the university, among so many professionals as a whole, it's about career, money, status, and saying what needs to be said in order to move up. So even the professors, some of whom don't even believe sometimes in what they say, but they figure they have to say it

in order to move up. And this happens across the board. It happens in the right, left, center. up. And this happens across the board. It happens in the right, left, center. It happens in various religious circles. And you have to break loose. That's the difference between Socrates and Jesus when it comes to the orthodoxies of their day. What is the difference between Socrates and Jesus? Well, one is that Socrates is the exemplar of intellectual integrity, but he never cries, never sheds a tear. Anybody who's never cried has never loved anybody. So Socrates loves wisdom, but he doesn't love persons intensely. When I'm at my mama's funeral, when you at your father's funeral, you shed tears. How come? Because you loved them. What does Jesus do? Weep for Lazarus, weep for Jerusalem. Well, see, you need both. You need intellectual

integrity. Socrates is willing to die for his intellectual conscience, but he never sheds tears. He doesn't love people. Jesus loves human beings and is willing to live and die to give his all, every ounce of who he was on that cross with the blood dripping at the bottom of that cross, exemplifying, fleshifying love in its most concrete form. That's what love supreme is. And we know it's not just a Christian thing, but I speak as a Christian, so I got my own biases. I look at the whole world through the lens of the cross, the blood, the suffering, especially of the least of these. And we get that from our Jewish brothers and sisters, spreading that tested, that loving kindness to the orphan and widow and fatherless and motherless and oppressed. And when Amos said

that, and when God made that covenant with Jews, it wasn't just for one group. It was for humanity as a whole. And that's one of the great gifts of our Jewish brothers and sisters. And Jesus takes it to his own level as well. And we all fall short. But once we lose any serious commitment to that, though, brother, it's sliding down a slippery slope to organize greed and institutionalized hatred. And that's where we are now in America. We don't fake the funk here. And here's the real talk. Over 40 years of age, 52% of us experience some kind of ED between the ages of 40 and 70. I know it's taboo, it's embarrassing, but it shouldn't be. Thankfully, we now have HIMS.

And it's changing the vibe by providing affordable access to ED treatment. And it's all online. HIMS is changing men's health care. Why? Because it's giving you access to affordable and discreet sexual health treatments. And you do it right from your couch. HIMS provides access to clinically proven generic alternatives to Viagra or Cialis or whatever. And it's up to like 95%

cheaper. And there are options as low as two bucks a dose. HIMS has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers. So, if ED is getting you down, it's time to pick it up. Start your free

online visit today at HIMS.com slash CCP. H-I-M-S dot com slash CCP. And you will get personalized ED treatment options. HIMS.com slash CCP. Prescriptions? You need an online consultation with a healthcare provider, and they will determine if appropriate.

Restrictions apply. You see the website. You'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required. Plus, price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. So that takes us to a backstop as a lead up to a question of then versus now for you when it comes to what you've seen in terms of change. Where is philosophy in modern society when most people just see it as a study of ancient history, maybe? They see philosophy that way.

Or they see it just as perversely on the opposite end, and typical, if you will, of in the self-help world of quick, catchy things that open your eyes to self-satisfying truth. What do you think has happened to the role of philosophy with our leaders, with our culture, even in our individual lives? And what has that change created as a concern for you? Well, that's a profound question. Because nobody considers themselves a philosopher. If you ask a politician, what's your philosophy? They should say, on what? What do you mean on what? No, I mean like your philosophy. Like what do you follow? What is your lodestar? What is your guide? Oh, I'm a Christian. No, I understand that. That's your faith. But what is your philosophy in

terms of how you live your faith? The word doesn't land. They don't know why I'm asking, or they think you're asking something that's like, what is this, a gotcha? Or like, you know, you're gonna ask me what music I'm listening to next. They don't see it as relevant. And to me, especially when I got shit-canned by CNN and I had to go through this transition phase, it wasn't just, I lost a job, who am I?

You know, when I went through this kind of reckoning of like, what happened here? And how do I feel about it? And why do I feel that way? And what does it mean to me? I was reintroduced to something. And Cornell, of course, knows this. My father was profoundly philosophical and a student and a wrestler, nobody knows philosophy.

You read it and then you struggle with it in terms of how to apply it and what it means. And it changes you and it changes how you see it all the time. And I studied it in college and it was a passion pursuit for me. And it was something that I shared with my father. And then it went away as it often can.

I stopped seeing it that way. I started applying all the other metrics that you were identifying as almost some of the emblems of evil in our society. And now, then it came back to me with a thud. And I started to go back to first principles of what am I about and why, and what do I want want to be and what do I do when I fall short and what's the mechanism and what's the backstop and it's become everything for me in terms of my processing because nothing else made sense. Convenience didn't make sense. Professional satisfaction, appetites, none of it makes sense. There's nowhere for me to go. And it was very helpful. So I'm more aware of it now than I was before in terms of a mechanism.

And I ask people about it on the show all the time, and I had to stop because they have nothing to say. You'd never get a guy like, you know, neopragmatism. What the? They'll think that's like a new punk band, you know? So what does that mean to you? Do you agree? And why is that? And what does it cost us? Well, I just appreciate you raising the question because it's a fundamental question that needs to be wrestled with, especially in these moments of spiritual decay and moral decadence.

Now, I just happen to be preparing the Gifford Lectures that I'll be giving University of Edinburgh in Scotland the first two weeks of May. You know, the Gifford Lectures is like the Nobel Prize in Philosophy. William James' Variety of Religious Experience, Whiteheads, Process and Reality, John Dewey's Quest for Certain. Petty stuff.

Gabriel Marcel, the great Catholic philosopher, Mysteries of Being. We can go on and on. And my title is A Philosophy for Our Catastrophic Times from Socrates, the Coltrane. Oh, that's cool. And it's very important because I begin with Plato.

You see, Plato is at the core of this thing because Plato's raising the question in 607 B5 in Book 10 of the Republic, the traditional quarrel of philosophy and poetry. He's trying to displace Homer, push Homer out and bring in philosophy as the source of education, of paideia, of the shaping of the soul and the forms of cultivating critical consciousness and so forth. And my philosophy is one in which first it begins with Erasmus, praise the folly. Now, what does it mean to begin with Erasmus? It means you begin with humility and oftentimes the moments of absurdity. There's moments in which we know our reason has been shattered. We know that our arguments are weak as pre-Sweden Kool-Aid at the birth,

I mean, at the death of a child, six months, years old. What is the minister going to say? Well, God causes, no, you don't know what to do. Don't hush, be silent. Human beings are limited and we're wretched, but we're also wonderful. And we also can have some unbelievable possibility. So I begin with praise of folly. Now, why is that important? That's important because it situates us in our

humanity. Now, who's the next major figure? The second greatest Italian thinker in the history of the modern world, who is Vico. The greatest is Aqu Aquinas but he's pre-modern but it's Vico and what is Vico about in the New Science of 1725 he's about history and where does he begin with corpses in the grave and human beings begin with moans and cries of corpses in the grave to try to make sense of a world knowing they're headed to those graves and they don't want the grave to try to make sense of a world, knowing they're headed to those graves and they don't want to go to those graves with insignificance. So their move from womb to tomb goes beyond career. It goes beyond money. It goes beyond status. What kind of human being are you going to be? Thank you, Vico. Now, we talk about it in terms of Renaissance humanism and so forth. No,

I'm talking about a particular Italian from Naples. I'm smiling because my father was a big purveyor of his as another Italian from Naples. He used to go, his version was

slime to the sublime. When you say Thomas Aquinas, it like makes me nervous because my father was a huge Aquinas Merton. I mean, you know him. It's a very eclectic pursuit, obviously. So he was about a million people. But I remember like yesterday. Wow. He said to me, hey, I need you to do something quick.

And it was before this. So it wasn't like now where literally there's no reason to ask anybody a question ever. You got the answer. You don't need to ask me what it is. It's right there. Knock yourself out. He said, do me a favor. Just quickly, pal.

Aquinas, you took a look at this stuff? I said, yeah, yeah, pop, yeah, pop. He was always sending me like these papers of like, you know, read these nine photocopied papers, like his big thumb on the corner. Do me a favor, just run down for me real quick. What is the basic understanding and the application of radiosyncretization?

And I was like, the only reason that I knew the word was because it was the longest thing I had ever heard in my life. You know, before that, the longest word I'd ever used was mayonnaise. And, you know, he thought it was so important. And he said to me, and it was so foretelling. And by the way, as aside, to you listening and watching right now, where you're like, I don't understand this. Why aren't Cuomo and West dancing about why he's running and what about it means to the Democrats? First of all, you've heard him talk about all that.

This is more helpful to you. You gotta start looking at the people who wanna be your leaders through the lens of why. Why, what are they about? Because it's not like we're gonna have some policy payoff at the end of why. Why? What are they about? Because it's not like we're going to have some policy payoff at the end of the day. We don't even use the word record in politics anymore. Run on your record. When's the last time somebody said they were doing that? The point is, if you understand somebody's core, then you can see what's going to come. So this is actually more helpful to

you. And when he was doing it with me when I was younger, what he was preparing me for is where we are today, which is if you don't know your why. That's right. You can't go anywhere else. And we do see it. And here's the application of it, because I'm not about abstruse things. I'm not about recondite things. I'm about practical stuff. So you want to fix the border.

Why? Is it because it's unsafe? Okay. Is it because you need more and better workers? Okay. Is it because you see immigration as something that is good for America, you have to answer these questions first because it's going to dictate what you do. That's right. And we don't ever do that. We just point at the problems. And I see it in our leaders. You hear nobody say what they're about anymore.

I believe in America that strong. That's not philosophy. Even Trump, I don't, look, I would have bet that a lot of things that he's done that have worked wouldn't have worked. But America first is not a philosophy. It's a pursuit, but it is not a philosophy.

We don't know what people are following anymore in their judgments and in their ways. And I wonder why you don't use it more, Cornell. I know people have short attention span. I know the last thing they want to do is read or think when it comes to politics. What they want is for you to find some reason where everybody is worse than you are,

so they vote for you to find some reason where everybody is worse than you are, so they vote for you. But have you thought about, am I playing to my strength here? Who else is like me? I mean, forget about the color of your skin and that splendiferous head of hair. But have you thought about that no one else, the guy who's closest to you, I think, and please feel free to correct me, would be Bobby because people can not like his opinions or think he's lost it, as some in his family seem to believe. But he does believe that he's following a code of what matters and what doesn't. So I would put him as closest to you, although you guys are very,

very different. Have you thought about that? That, hey man, I'm a philosopher. Like, that's what I am. I know some white people think I'm a preacher, but no, that was my granddaddy. I'm a philosopher and a professor is what I am. Have you thought about that? And whether they're, I mean, Marcus Aurelius,

the last of the good emperors, was a philosopher. That's what he was. I do. And I should say, man, I'll never forget the wonderful conversation I had with your father, Mario, when he came to my class at Princeton and handed me his book on why Lincoln matters. He came to my lecture. I think I lectured on either Erasmus or maybe Montaigne right after. And he's got so deeply into the lecture that it was hard to even get to his book on Lincoln because he was reveling so as a thinker, as a philosopher, as a critical engager

wrestling with what it means to be human. And see, I begin all of my speeches on the road with Irene West, Clifton West, Shiloh Baptist Church, working with the Black Panther Party that wouldn't allow me in because they didn't allow Christians, but they were helping the poor. And I went to the prison program that I ran for three years. For what? To give people a sense of this is the kind of brother I am. I fall short. I'm a cracked vessel. I'm trying to love my crooked neighbor with my crooked heart. But I have a test, a connection with what philosophy is about, which is the love of wisdom. And wisdom is different than knowledge, even though we must have skills. But character is different than skills.

Integrity is different than sparkling personality. It cuts deeper than that. And why? And this is one of the things that I also talk about all the time. And this is where the blues come in, right? Because the blues is about catastrophe. Catastrophe lyrically expressed. That's what it is.

Ain't nothing but a good man feeling bad. That's right. Nobody loves me but my mama. She might be jiving too. See, that's Antigone. That's Sophocles' classic right there. All the forces in the world against you. You think you can depend on your mama? She might be jiving too. You in a catastrophic situation.

Just like the planet right now, just like maybe a nuclear catastrophe, economic catastrophe for not just the poor and working classes, 62% of Americans live in paycheck to paycheck. That's catastrophic if something happens to their family. Meaning what then? There's a philosophical framework to understand how we are fortified to wrestle with these catastrophes. Part of the problem of America right now is that our spiritual armor is so weak that when catastrophe hits, all we can do is strike out with revenge and hatred rather than love and justice. That's an educational, that is a philosophical, it's a spiritual issue. And because I come out of Christian tradition, there's a whole lot of

people been thinking about this, a whole lot of folk. And of course, I come out of Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy, so that I'm very explicit about that. And it also means what? You got to learn and listen from others who disagree with you. You got to learn and listen. But we're living in such a polarized, gangsterized moment though, brother. It's hard to have those kinds of conversations. Oh, it's worse. It's worse than that because we are living polarized. Absolutely. Any eyes eyes you want that's negative, you're right. But there's another layer. And I think about this stuff a lot because, you know, and it's not just practical, right? Because I'm trying to do something different.

I'm trying to be disruptive of media culture, not because I hate media culture, not because media is bad and all those other simple things to get people to click on your website, but because, well, why listen to me? I'm covering what other people are covering. Well, I can't not. I can't cover completely different things. You're outside the palette of interest. So why listen to me when you got all these other good minds and guests and everybody's moving around. So I think about this all the time and I know what the answer is. I just don't know the how. The answer is depth. People are desperate for depth

because we're not just negative and balkanized. It's not just that. It's not just a perversion and an extreme division and an appetite for animus. It's none of those things, though, you know, alliterative and satisfying to hear. It's that there is a cynicism within it where they know collectively the right things to pretend to be about. That they are not divisive. They're about ridding of the threat. They're about protection and safety. And they're about inclusion

and harnessing the power of diversity, which is the only advantage America truly has, although we have many. But they're not about those things. But they say them. And that is even worse than a straightforward menace. I agree.

And I've had you on. You have a platform. Welcome for you on my show at News Nation, wherever you want it, for the duration and beyond of your campaign as you see it. You've been very kind to me though, brother.

I appreciate that. No, listen, I think it's necessary. And people say, but he's gonna be the reason Joe Biden loses. I say, no, he's not. It's gonna be so tight. I said, but you gotta look at it from Cornell's perspective. I said, Cornell's a philosopher. And he has, as you've said to the listeners and watchers today, a cause.

Yeah, but what he wants is going to be gone if Biden wins. No, if he loses. No, in Cornell's mind, and I'm not speaking for you, you've said it many times. I read it at least six times today in getting ready for the interview. It's going to happen if either of them win. And not that they're the same. And not that Biden is going to try to destroy what Trump may try to destroy. But there are bigger concerns for someone who's a philosopher

about what we're about and what we're aiming all of our energies toward. And that that's the same whether it's Biden or whether it's Trump, even though they present different concerns. And so he's got to run because this is where he's arrived at. And this is the only thing he sees as the option. Now, the only good pushback I've gotten from somebody that I think is interesting for you is, yeah, but Cornel West has never wanted to be president of the United States. He's never wanted to run a government.

Yeah, but Cornel West has never wanted to be president of the United States. He's never wanted to run a government. And so I get that he wants to be heard on this and have a platform that's bigger than his usual one to make that message. But it's going to come at a price. Your response? My response is that I have always tried to be a fallible force for good. And therefore, I've tended to support various politicians who I thought were the best at that moment. That's why I've met my dear brother Andrew himself when he was running against Karl McCall. And that got me in a lot of trouble because why I'm not for the black candidate?

No, no. Brother Andrew was the best at that moment. And we had some golden moments. Same was true with Bill Bradley. Same was true with Ralph Nader. Same was true with Bernie Sanders and Bernie Sanders again. And so when I looked around this time, I didn't see any presidential candidates who was coming anywhere near the attempt to tell the truth and highlight justice for poor and working people, no matter what color, here and abroad, and most importantly, to try to elevate a discourse that is intense, but not talking about hatred and revenge. Now, I do talk about hatred because I hate injustice. I hate domination. I hate occupation. I don't care who it is. I don't care who it is. Black folk, oppression, white folk. I'm with the white folk. It ain't a tribal thing. It's a moral issue. If Palestinians are subjugating Israelis, I'm with the Israelis. When they're killed, Israelis, innocent Israelis are killed. That is immoral.

I'm with the Palestinians. This is a moral and spiritual issue. I don't see persons running for president with visibility raising those kinds of questions. And therefore, I felt I had to intervene. Now, you know, I'm not a spring chicken, no brother. I'm 70 years old, man. Hey, 70 is young by today's standard. And you got the hair. Well, that's true, too. That's true, too. But I but, you know, at 70, usually you're trying to kind of start coasting a little bit. and you got the hair. Well, that's true too. That's true too. But at 70, usually you're trying to kind of start coasting a little bit. Now I'm just moving into first gear at 70.

But it is an act of desperation what people are right about. We are in a deeply desperate situation, but it's not just desperation in politics. It's a desperation of spirit, of morality. And that to me, or the civic dimension of it, the public dimension in the language of John Dewey, you can talk about the pragmatists and so forth. And John Dewey is probably the greatest in terms of the public. I think William James is probably the greatest in

terms of wrestling with the tragic. But it's a very rich tradition. And of course, what this campaign and you and I have talked about is, I just want to reintroduce America to the best of itself. You see, when you got Brother Trump talking about America first, you say, which America you're talking about, brother? The Klan is American. Martin King's American. The anti-Catholic lead's American? The Knights are American? All of that's American. It's too abstract. What particular understanding of America do you have? Are you explicit about that? Because I come directly out of something that is profoundly American, which is the blues and jazz and Martin King and Toni Morrison and going on and on and on. Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. Man, that's not the blues in part two.

I don't know what it is. Dreams come true, but not free. You remember that line? Dreams come true, but not free. I say, Sondheim, brother, you spending time with Billie Holiday, man. That's a profound formulation. When you were watching those people, their energies and ambitions, how are they reflected on today? Should we be saddened? Should we be encouraged? Are we where you hoped?

Are you where you thought was possible? Or are we so far short of it or beyond it? What is your perspective on where we are today from when you were part of all of the drama and cataclysm of the early civil rights movement? Yeah, I'm going to see your brother Jesse in a couple of days in Chicago. Send my best. Yeah, absolutely. I give him a hug for you, though. He's still fighting. He's still fighting. Send my best. Yeah, absolutely. I give him a hug for you, though.

He's still fighting. He's still fighting. But no, I think that we are in a downward move. And it doesn't have to be downward. It's reversible. But we're in a downward move. I think the more hate, the more fear, the more revenge, the more greed, the more indifference to the suffering of the vulnerable, that's become more and more fashionable. And therefore, it's hard to believe that those who are against that are even credible. I mean, people, I mean, it's as if people who want to be for real,

people say, now, how could anybody really want to be real when everybody's not real? So that must be just another face. Well, that's not true for everybody. That's not true for everybody. Frank Sinatra was real. Who's his favorite singer? One of them was Billie Holiday. Real. Now, Frank just imitated. No, he wasn't an imitation. He was original. Billie wasn't an imitation. He was original. People said, oh, you're just getting nostalgic, brother. No, there is no Billy Holiday. There is no Frank Sinatra today.

There's no Curtis Mayfield today. There's no Martin King today. There's no, you can go on and on. And they say, well, there's no Beethoven and Mozart. That's true, too. That's true, too. There's no Dante and Shakespeare and Goethe. That's true, too.

There's no Nietzsche. That's true, too. So what? We know what the standards are, at least. And we won't forget those standards and we'll pass them on to the younger generation, not just in speech, but in example, brother. That's the difference. I hear you. And there's knitting for you on this that is very hard for me to get my hands around. You mentioned Nietzsche and he gave to Stoicism one of their most famous and commercial phrases today, the Latin of amor fati, to love everything that happens, which is very, very hard, very hard to do, especially in a culture

that takes advantage of the negative. But I do believe that we have to listen to people who have ideas and who've explored what we've learned about truth and wisdom and virtue over time as understood and understandable, whether practiced by the person telling you or not, it doesn't make it any less true. And that's why I burdened you with an invitation today, Cornel West, and I appreciate you taking it very much. And I know people are gonna benefit greatly

from understanding the why and what this is about and where you're coming from. And they'll make judgments as they want. That's not the concern. It's the basis that matters or should matter more. So thank you for the edification and the pleasure of conversation. But thank you, though, brother. It's a rare moment I get a chance to raise these philosophical issues, give elections and Biko and quietness.

Oh, my God. If we hadn't got Eugene O'Neill's Iceman coming, or T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, or the Love Supreme of the Four Movements, all of that rich stuff. But, brother, you stay strong, though, man. Indeed, indeed, indeed. I'm giving a hug to your whole family now, man. Your whole precious family, though, man. I appreciate you. I wish you well. And I look forward to speaking to you again about what matters in the state of play in the moment that we arrive at together in that moment.

So we will see each other again. And until then, I wish you well. Indeed. God bless you. Stay strong, my brother. Cornel West giving you his why. And even if it's not your political cup of tea, don't you think it helps to know where someone's coming from with what they do and why they do it? And I have to tell you, personally, philosophy can help make things clearer in your own life.

You should think about maybe looking a little deeper at your own why. Thank you for subscribing, following, right? Checking us out on News Nation, 8 and 11 P Eastern, every weekday night. Thank you. We're growing and it's showing. I appreciate you. And this is going to be a big year. We got to keep it straight.

We got to ask the right questions and we got to stay together. Let's get after it.