Scan barcode
djoshuva's review against another edition
4.0
"The fundamental argument of this book is that the evasion of epistemology-centered philosophy—from Emerson to Rorty— results in a conception of philosophy as a form of cultural criticism in which the meaning of America is put forward by intellectuals in response to distinct social and cultural crises. In this sense, American pragmatism is less a philosophical tradition putting forward solutions to perennial problems in the western philosophical conversation initiated by Plato and more a continuous cultural commentary or set of interpretations that attempts to explain America to itself at a particular historical moment."
blackoxford's review against another edition
5.0
American Jihad
Cornel West conceives of the philosophy of Pragmatism as the American Mind trying to make sense of itself. This is a productive perspective, among other reasons because it helps to explain both the sources and historical trajectory of American philosophy. It is also a perspective which reveals the intellectual and moral perils of self-analysis. In particular the rationalisation of one’s interests becomes inevitable; and one’s actions, no matter how cruel or absurd, are justified.
West places the origin of Pragmatism with Emerson. This is reasonable. But of course Emerson is in turn the product of an established culture which is unique and contains its own embedded contradictions. The most profound of these is found in Emerson’s brand of New England Unitarianism, a theism which bizarrely emerged from the strict Calvinism of its 17th century immigrants. Barely Christian in its theology, this Universalism was not a religion of passivity but of what Emerson called ‘conversion.’ We know this better as Jihad, the struggle to overcome moral corruption in both America and the world.
Emerson’s Pelagian theology of conversion is the foundation of Pragmatism: “... that the only sin is limitation, [i.e., constraints on power] that sin is overcomable; and that it is beautiful and good that sin should exist to be overcome.” This is the modern good news that America is meant to proclaim throughout the world, if necessary through violence. In West’s judgment: “Conversion of the world and moral regeneration for individuals are related to conquest and violence not solely because Emerson devalues those peoples associated with virgin lands, cheap labor, and the wilderness-e.g., Indians, Negroes, women-but also because for Emerson land, labor, and the wilderness signify unlimited possibilities and unprecedented opportunities for moral development.”
Importantly sin, for Emerson, is the intellectual conceit that anyone could know the truth: “There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and holds it fluid... People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.” But such relativism does not imply a hopeless epistemology for Emerson. There is a fixed point for him: “We must trust the perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that what-ever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy.”
In short, what Emerson promotes is a militant faith with which any radical Islamist as well as St. Paul might identify. This militancy is directed not toward any specified evil but rather toward the way things are in general. Emerson’s is a philosophy of continuous disruption, a call for contrarianism by individuals who refuse to conform. The primary target of such disruption is the state itself: “Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. What satire on government can equal the severity of censure conveyed in the word politic, which now for ages has signified cunning, intimating that the State is a trick?” The real nation, therefore, is that collective of individuals which mistrusts and harasses the political entity in which it finds itself.
The line between what might be called ‘continuous reform’ in Emerson and outright nihilism is paper thin. West cites Henry James Sr. about his effect on American thought: “He was an American John the Baptist, proclaiming tidings of great joy to the American Israel; but, like John the Baptist, he could so little foretell the form in which the predicted good was to appear, that when you went to him he was always uncertain whether you were he who should come, or another.” What has come is not a nation of self-sacrificing people building a city on the hill but “... the concrete nihilism in working-class and underclass American communities-the pervasive drug addiction, suicides, alcoholism, male violence against women, white violence against black, yellow, and brown people, and the black criminality against others, especially other black people.”And, of course, Donald Trump and his evangelical enablers.
I was brought up in the traditions of Pragmatism. Emerson is part of my intellectual DNA. Charles Sanders Peirce has been my hero of thought for half a century. I have attempted to live my professional life according to the principles of increasing inclusion of interests and points of view. So it comes as a great shock to read West’s deconstruction of the framework of my thought-world. I would like to call my experience enlightening, but for the moment I am in a place of almost complete darkness. This is not a bad thing.
Cornel West conceives of the philosophy of Pragmatism as the American Mind trying to make sense of itself. This is a productive perspective, among other reasons because it helps to explain both the sources and historical trajectory of American philosophy. It is also a perspective which reveals the intellectual and moral perils of self-analysis. In particular the rationalisation of one’s interests becomes inevitable; and one’s actions, no matter how cruel or absurd, are justified.
West places the origin of Pragmatism with Emerson. This is reasonable. But of course Emerson is in turn the product of an established culture which is unique and contains its own embedded contradictions. The most profound of these is found in Emerson’s brand of New England Unitarianism, a theism which bizarrely emerged from the strict Calvinism of its 17th century immigrants. Barely Christian in its theology, this Universalism was not a religion of passivity but of what Emerson called ‘conversion.’ We know this better as Jihad, the struggle to overcome moral corruption in both America and the world.
Emerson’s Pelagian theology of conversion is the foundation of Pragmatism: “... that the only sin is limitation, [i.e., constraints on power] that sin is overcomable; and that it is beautiful and good that sin should exist to be overcome.” This is the modern good news that America is meant to proclaim throughout the world, if necessary through violence. In West’s judgment: “Conversion of the world and moral regeneration for individuals are related to conquest and violence not solely because Emerson devalues those peoples associated with virgin lands, cheap labor, and the wilderness-e.g., Indians, Negroes, women-but also because for Emerson land, labor, and the wilderness signify unlimited possibilities and unprecedented opportunities for moral development.”
Importantly sin, for Emerson, is the intellectual conceit that anyone could know the truth: “There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and holds it fluid... People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.” But such relativism does not imply a hopeless epistemology for Emerson. There is a fixed point for him: “We must trust the perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that what-ever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy.”
In short, what Emerson promotes is a militant faith with which any radical Islamist as well as St. Paul might identify. This militancy is directed not toward any specified evil but rather toward the way things are in general. Emerson’s is a philosophy of continuous disruption, a call for contrarianism by individuals who refuse to conform. The primary target of such disruption is the state itself: “Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. What satire on government can equal the severity of censure conveyed in the word politic, which now for ages has signified cunning, intimating that the State is a trick?” The real nation, therefore, is that collective of individuals which mistrusts and harasses the political entity in which it finds itself.
The line between what might be called ‘continuous reform’ in Emerson and outright nihilism is paper thin. West cites Henry James Sr. about his effect on American thought: “He was an American John the Baptist, proclaiming tidings of great joy to the American Israel; but, like John the Baptist, he could so little foretell the form in which the predicted good was to appear, that when you went to him he was always uncertain whether you were he who should come, or another.” What has come is not a nation of self-sacrificing people building a city on the hill but “... the concrete nihilism in working-class and underclass American communities-the pervasive drug addiction, suicides, alcoholism, male violence against women, white violence against black, yellow, and brown people, and the black criminality against others, especially other black people.”And, of course, Donald Trump and his evangelical enablers.
I was brought up in the traditions of Pragmatism. Emerson is part of my intellectual DNA. Charles Sanders Peirce has been my hero of thought for half a century. I have attempted to live my professional life according to the principles of increasing inclusion of interests and points of view. So it comes as a great shock to read West’s deconstruction of the framework of my thought-world. I would like to call my experience enlightening, but for the moment I am in a place of almost complete darkness. This is not a bad thing.
More...