In a message dated 6/8/2007 8:13:14 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
_http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/baldwin1.html_ (http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/baldwin1.html) >> Final recap, on the relation between individual and collective. Was Baldwin too close to his people, or too distant? Too political, or too apolitical? Did Baldwin finally overindulge in pompous editorializing, sloganeering, prophesying, too preoccupied with redemption to think with political and sociological precision? Baldwin stated that he needed to remove himself from America to truly understand his Americanness. This perspective was gained in the 1950s. In the militant '60s the negotiation between individual and artistic perspective, and political and cultural loyalties, was particularly uncomfortable. The contrary pulls of the perspective of collective black cultural and social experience and an individual cum universalistic perspective are well-known, and perhaps better understood now. Any failure to synthesize these two perspectives is not an individual failure, but a social failure. In addition, it marks the historical bounds of a generational experience.<< Ralph, you actually call this insight? At least read Bladwin's "Evidence of Things Not Sense." But you choice to judge the man and not what was written across may decades. The relationship between the individual and collective . . . . ! Was Baldwin to close to his people or to distant . . . "In the militant '60s the negotiation between individual and artistic perspective, and political and cultural loyalties, was particularly uncomfortable . . ." Ralph the article "CORNEL WEST'S EVASION OF PHILOSOPHY, OR, RICHARD WRIGHT'S REVENGE by Ralph Dumain, claims to be a "[REVIEW OF: West, Cornel. "Philosophy and the Afro-American experience", The Philosophical Forum, vol. 9, nos. 2-3, winter-spring 1977-78, p. 117-148.]" You begin, "If one wants to see where a philosopher gets lost, one needs to go back to the root thought patterns that set the thinker in question in his misbegotten ways. This early essay by Cornel West proves instructive in this regard." You can't critique an author conception of the African American experience, without knowledge of that experience which anyone that reads the article cannot but be shocked by its notable absence. Ralph, do you live in America? ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
