I’m struck by the ways in which recent discussion of Cornel West seems to turn on who he’s supposed to be (particularly as an academic) and the evident incompatibility of his own-funky-trumpet-blowing persona with this imago. I rather admire what West seems to be doing here. It’s more humble than you might think to expose yourself to ridicule in the way he has, to make your own innate ridiculousness part of a performance which also aims at the sublime. Self-regard always looks preposterous when its content (the things one believes or would like to believe about oneself; the stories one tells oneself about one’s origins and travails) is spoken out loud; and nobody learns better than academics the social necessity of caution in affirming one’s own shameful person. The great trombone-slides of West’s monologue (in reality a voicing of several traditions of self-revealing public speech) are a careless and impudent interruption of all the habits of discretion and politeness by which what West calls “the funk” gets cleaned up and shunted out of view. No doubt he makes himself look an absolute tit, but I really like him for trying it on.

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