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Nihilism is a natural consequence of a culture (or civilization) ruled and regulated by categories that mask manipulation, mastery and domination of peoples and nature.

Cornel West

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Cornel West
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: June 2
Actor
Critic
Philosopher
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Tulsa
Oklahoma
Cornel Ronald West
Cornel R. West
Culture
Domination
Nature
Mastery
Peoples
Categories
Mask
Nihilism
Consequence
Regulated
Civilization
Ruled
Natural
Manipulation

More quotes by Cornel West

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When you place a high value on truth, you have to think for yourself.
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Poor people can be greedy, too. It's just that they don't have any material resources. We need shaping of the souls as well as shaping of our institutions.
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For me the prophetic has to do with mustering the courage to love, to empathize, to exercise compassion, and to be committed to justice.
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There is something about boldness and fearlessness and being free enough to speak what is on one's mind that warrants freedom.
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I love the academy in terms of the life of the mind and the world of ideas. I also love the streets. I love the churches and mosques and synagogues. I love the trade union centers. I love the community centers. I speak regularly at prisons and so forth.
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You keep folks so intimidated. You can give them money, access, but they're still scared. And as long as you're scared, you're on the plantation.
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But black folks have never really been optimists. We've been prisoners of hope, and hope is qualitatively different from optimism in the way that there's a difference between The Blues and Lawrence Welk. The Blues and Jazz have to do with hope while the other is sugarcoated music which has to do with sentimental optimism.
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The black church often has reinforced certain self images that are damaging to black peoples' beauty, black peoples' confidence.
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The problem is that in America is that the nation state has been so weak when it comes to the history of big markets the history of big business in a way so we have a very weak welfare state compared to European nation states.
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Certainly Martin Luther King, in the mainstream perception of him, had a dream. Yes, he did. But the question becomes, what was that dream? It wasn't the American Dream. It was a dream that all human beings, especially poor and working people, be treated with dignity.
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When you are fundamentally committed to something that is right, you just decide to go down fighting. Period.
Cornel West
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Playboy has a long history of high-quality interviews along with the objectification of women, and so I think she does have a point there. I don't think that the words are necessarily nullified. It's just that that context is something you ought to be suspicious of.
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He who learns death unlearns slavery.
Cornel West
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None of us alone can save the nation or the world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so. (p. 109)
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Any great artist is wrestling with their sadness and loneliness, their fears, anxieties and securities, and they're transfiguring those into complicated forms of expression that affect our hearts, minds and souls and remind us of who we are as human beings, the fragility of our human status and the inevitability of death.
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Death is always a constant possibility and probability and of course an inevitability, as well.
Cornel West
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To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word.
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The women can always choose the patriarchal models, and you end up with a Margaret Thatcher.
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I think philosophy is all about lived experience, which is to say life in the streets, life in a variety of different contexts.
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I was a gangster when I was young. I had a Robin Hood mentality and tended to always want to support the weak against the strong, but sometimes it was cohesive and I really needed to fall in love with the power of education to find the right venue to express my rage. I still have a righteous indignation at injustice, no matter what form it takes.
Cornel West