On Perceptions of Moral Conscience, a Tendency to Blame the Messenger for Giving Notice that We Have Gone Badly Astray — the Abuse Heaped on Professor Cornell West for Eloquently Illuminating President Obama’s Broken Promises and the Resulting Moral Failures of His Administration

25 May 2011

First, my bias — I am partial to outspoken truth-tellers

You won’t find me in a mob of wool-to-wool sheep.

I have always admired outspoken African-American truth-tellers. The more honestly confrontational, the better.

Hundreds of years of oppression give a People the soul-based authority to speak Reality’s name, without thoughtless and unprovoked censure from those of us who glided through comparatively pampered lives.

Take Professor Cornell West, as an example

I was temporarily puzzled when Princeton’s Professor Cornell West was immediately attacked for being an over-emotional egomaniac, when he recently took President Obama to task for his long string of broken campaign promises.

Objectively speaking, it is difficult to argue that the President’s record entitles him to names other than the accurately bestowed King Barack G. W. Bush-Bama — Preserver of the Perpetual War-Making Imperium and Heavy Treader Upon the Common Man and Woman.

Consequently, truth being the gold standard, something else had to account for the rash of over-emotional trashings of the thoughtfully outspoken university teacher.

“Okay, Pete, what mysterious force accounted for the criticism of Professor West?”

Denial.

It’s difficult for the President’s supporters to admit that the hopes of 2007 and 2008 have been dashed by our first African-American president, who, by the color of skin and the gliding rhetoric of his exhortations, many assumed would have an ethical core less plutocratic and less gun-slinging than his predecessor.

It turned out not to be so.

And now we’re stuck with a guy who’s pretty much just like all the other corporate toadies the White House has housed.

So much for African-Americanism being a silver-spooned entry to the People’s authentic hearts.

It is, apparently, psychologically easier for most of our culture to trash (the obviously African-American) Professor West for displaying a justified outrage with a (not so obviously African-American) president.

West’s eloquent truth is no match for deliberate denial.

What Professor West said

Writer Chris Hedges quoted West, who defined his perspective on contemporary political life:

“And even at this moment, when the empire is in deep decline, the culture is in deep decay, the political system is broken, where nearly everyone is up for sale, you say all I have is the subversive memory of those who came before, personal integrity, trying to live a decent life, and a willingness to live and die for the love of folk who are catching hell.

“This means civil disobedience, going to jail, supporting progressive forums of social unrest if they in fact awaken the conscience, whatever conscience is left, of the nation. And that’s where I find myself now.

“I have to take some responsibility,” he admits of his support for Obama as we sit in his book-lined office. “I could have been reading into it more than was there.”

The professor pointed the finger at the President

Right on the money, I think:

“This was maybe America’s last chance to fight back against the greed of the Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats, to generate some serious discussion about public interest and common good that sustains any democratic experiment,” West laments.

“We are squeezing out all of the democratic juices we have. The escalation of the class war against the poor and the working class is intense. More and more working people are beaten down. They are world-weary. They are into self-medication. They are turning on each other.

“They are scapegoating the most vulnerable rather than confronting the most powerful. It is a profoundly human response to panic and catastrophe.

“I thought Barack Obama could have provided some way out. But he lacks backbone.”

West’s comments about the President’s lack of genuine African-Americanism are also true

West’s comments about the President’s failure to connect with more authentic African-Americans are, in my view, accurate. As a former street cop, I had (early on) noticed exactly the same cultural divorce on the President’s part.

(You can read what West said about this, here.)

The standard criticism of West’s cultural perspective on President Obama is that being dark-skinned should not make the President responsible for demonstrating a kinship with his heritage.

But that misses the point. The President campaigned on promises that explicitly supported political stances that are part-and-parcel of the generalized African-American political perspective.

West would not have criticized the President, had Obama not repeatedly lied about his intentions. In retrospect, it is clear that the President knowingly pretended to be what he was not.

And the President obviously knows this. He has said that people’s perspective regarding him indicates more about themselves than him. He is a self-called Rorschach inkblot test.

Consequently, it has become clear that President Obama deliberately manipulates his rhetoric, so as to appeal to voters, manipulating them into misconstruing his actual intentions.

The man is, like virtually all politicians, a shrewd liar. One who, in his case, used his appearance and origins to trick people, who thought he was like them, into voting for him.

No wonder Professor West is angry.

Critics took West to task for making his criticisms personal and emotional

Anything really important is personal and emotional. And anything personal can be (usually illegitimately) criticized for being ego-based.

Those criticisms of West’s delivery pointedly overlook the truth of what he was saying. Liberal commentator (MSNBC) Dylan Ratigan summed the problem well:

What West showed is that defining the problem as outcome-based is extremely painful.

What last week's attacks on West's character instead of the content of his message is that Obama's supporters do not want to acknowledge that they may be Hooked on Hope instead of Eager for Evidence.

It is far easier to believe that Cornel West is some deranged egomaniac upset that he didn't get tickets to a party, than to acknowledge our own disempowerment.

So, we’re stuck on the losing end of a rhetorically-gifted liar’s intentional deceptions

From liberals’ perspective, we have a president who is not quite as bad as his predecessor, but (now) obviously not very good, either.

For African-Americans, we have a president who obviously ain’t one, in any culturally meaningful street sense.

From my politically centrist perspective, we have a president who is a confirmed and grandiose liar and one who has no apparent intention of moving the nation onto a less plutocratically elite course.

In sum, except for the Fat Cats, we all lose.

That’s why Professor West is angry and feels betrayed.

The moral? — Denial hinders our ability to save our democracy

Denial prevents us from seeing truth. Without seeing clearly, we have no hope of making the changes we need.

Attacking Professor West abuses the messenger who carries clear-eyed news of our distress.

PeteFree.com

On Perceptions of Moral Conscience, a Tendency to Blame the Messenger for Giving Notice that We Have Gone Badly Astray — the Abuse Heaped on Professor Cornell West for Eloquently Illuminating President Obama’s Broken Promises and the Resulting Moral Failures of His Administration