Joe Rogan Experience #1325 - Dr. Cornel West

Joe Rogan 0:04 Boom, and we're live. How are you, sir?

Dr. Cornel West 0:06 Oh, brother, I'm so blessed to be here, man. I want to salute you, the work that you do, and the fact that you are one hell of an artist, man. I'm telling you.

Joe Rogan 0:14 Well, thank you very much, coming from-

Dr. Cornel West 0:15 I saw your stand up comedy night.

Joe Rogan 0:16 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 0:16 (laughs) Whoo, it's strange times. Whoo-wee, the swing from the political, the personal, from the (laughs) animals onto the, uh, the visionary. It's just a beautiful thing to behold, my brother.

Joe Rogan 0:28 Thank you. From you, that is an honor. I've been a huge fan of you for a long time.

Dr. Cornel West 0:32 Well, you're very kind-

Joe Rogan 0:32 So for you to say that-

Dr. Cornel West 0:34 ...very kind.

Joe Rogan 0:34 ...to me means, it means the world.

Dr. Cornel West 0:35 Oh, it's a deep thing, and I can see your love for Richard Pryor, man. I walk into your space and I'm just transformed by the geist, the spirit, the esprit of this place, man.

Joe Rogan 0:44 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 0:45 Hendricks here, Pryor here. Then when you tell me you worked with the great Richard Pryor.

Joe Rogan 0:50 I did.

Dr. Cornel West 0:50 I said, "Oh my God."

Joe Rogan 0:52 For five weeks, I followed him-

Dr. Cornel West 0:54 Wow.

Joe Rogan 0:54 ...when I was a young comedian at The Comedy Store. I went on right after him every night he performed.

Dr. Cornel West 0:59 What was that like, though, brother?

Joe Rogan 1:01 It was strange just to be in the room with him because, uh, when I was a 14-year-old boy, my parents took me to see him live at the Sunset Strip, and I could not believe-

Dr. Cornel West 1:10 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:10 ...that anybody could be so funny just talking. That was my first experience with stand-up comedy. Other than that-

Dr. Cornel West 1:16 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:16 ...I'd seen, like, I'd seen people perform on The Tonight Show and things along those lines.

Dr. Cornel West 1:20 With Bob Hope and-

Joe Rogan 1:21 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:21 ...so many others, they highly talented.

Joe Rogan 1:23 But it's just, it was like, "Ha, ha, ha." It was okay. You know what I mean?

Dr. Cornel West 1:26 Yeah, ha, ha.

Joe Rogan 1:26 But when you see Richard in concert in a movie theater, I couldn't believe-

Dr. Cornel West 1:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:31 ...how funny it was. It didn't make sense. I had seen funny movies before, like, you know, uh, comedy movies that were, made you laugh, but nothing, nothing like that. I'm like, "This guy's-

Dr. Cornel West 1:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:39 ...just talking."

Dr. Cornel West 1:40 It had to be before.

Joe Rogan 1:41 It changed my life.

Dr. Cornel West 1:42 That's, that's, that's something. But you can see the power of art-

Joe Rogan 1:44 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:45 ...and it's connected to freedom 'cause I've always viewed Richard Pryor as the freest man in the 20th century, certainly the freest Black man, along with Muhammad Ali. He's the freest Black man in the 20th century. He is so self-determining. He had the choices that he makes, has to do with w- his own sense of self. He doesn't care what other people think. He doesn't have other k- looking for other people's approval or recognition. He's gonna be who he is, and he pays a major cost for that, of course, I mean-

Joe Rogan 2:12 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 2:12 ...anytime you that free in a world of such, uh, uh, such unfreedom, you're gonna pay a major, major cost to be that free.

Joe Rogan 2:19 Well, he had spectacular honesty, and he took... I, I feel like what happened was Lenny Bruce opened the art form up and then Richard Pryor-

Dr. Cornel West 2:25 Yes.

Joe Rogan 2:25 ...took it to a new place. That's-

Dr. Cornel West 2:27 That's true. That's, that's exactly right.

Joe Rogan 2:28 ...in, when, in terms of the, the origins, the real greats.

Dr. Cornel West 2:31 That's exact... But then George.

Joe Rogan 2:33 Oh, yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 2:33 Oh, George Carlin. Oh...

Joe Rogan 2:35 Well, he was the most prolific.

Dr. Cornel West 2:36 ...Lord, have mercy.

Joe Rogan 2:36 He did an hour special every year till he died. Every year, he did a new hour.

Dr. Cornel West 2:40 And they different, each one different and...

Joe Rogan 2:43 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 2:43 But all three, but I tell, but you are in that tradition. I was saying, man, when, when I saw you doing the, uh, the dogs and the cats-

Joe Rogan 2:50 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 2:52 ... (exhales deeply) and getting inside of their souls. I mean, you know-

Joe Rogan 2:56 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 2:57 ...how profound that is, though, man, as an artist and as a human being to do that. I said, "Oh my Go..." And it reminded me of Pryor that. And so when I walk in and I see your connection, I said, "I'll be."

Joe Rogan 3:10 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 3:10 "I'll be." I shouldn't be surprised.

Joe Rogan 3:14 Well, i- it was, just being in the room with him was strange. I just couldn't believe it was real. You know, I was in my 20s.

Dr. Cornel West 3:19 Now, you were in your 20s, he was in his...

Joe Rogan 3:22 He was at the end, and, uh, like I said, uh, he couldn't walk anymore. They used to have to carry him to the stage. And, uh, but-

Dr. Cornel West 3:29 He, he performed-

Joe Rogan 3:30 Sold out every night.

Dr. Cornel West 3:31 ...s- s- sitting in the chair?

Joe Rogan 3:32 Yeah, sat in the chair. Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 3:34 Really?

Joe Rogan 3:34 Yeah, yeah. But it was sold out every night. People couldn't even-

Dr. Cornel West 3:36 Did they ever get tapes of that?

Joe Rogan 3:37 ...couldn't believe they were there.

Dr. Cornel West 3:38 I've never seen that before.

Joe Rogan 3:39 I don't believe there's tapes of it. I don't believe anybody recorded it. If they did record it, nobody released it. It was ju- this was in the 90s, and-

Dr. Cornel West 3:46 Wow.

Joe Rogan 3:46 ...um, this was, again, this was the end of his life. He was-

Dr. Cornel West 3:50 He did that stuff.

Joe Rogan 3:50 Yeah, he had just decided, you know, he was dying, and he's decided he'd go back to his, his love.

Dr. Cornel West 3:55 This is how he wanted to go out.

Joe Rogan 3:56 He wanted to go back doing standup and...

Dr. Cornel West 3:57 'Cause you got, you all got that picture. January 1st, 1963, Brother Pryor, my brother just broke down all the information-

Joe Rogan 4:05 Yeah, Jamie, so tell us what-

Dr. Cornel West 4:06 ...my brother Jamie broke down the information.

Joe Rogan 4:06 ...what, what did he get? 'Cause I didn't even know what he got arrested for.

Dr. Cornel West 4:08 35 days in jail, man.

Narrator 4:12 He, he had a woman that he knew. He moved to Pittsburgh, apparently, which is when he was about 22 years old. Uh, let me switch that. In there.

Joe Rogan 4:21 Pryor conviction, there it is. There's the mugshot. Wow.

Dr. Cornel West 4:23 What, what you got up again? Let's see this.

Narrator 4:24 So (clears throat) he had a f- a friend of his, which is a woman that was singing in clubs, her father was a cop, and in his autobiography, he wrote that, among other things, that he or she paid him or she gave him money. He admitted to beating her ass.

Joe Rogan 4:39 (laughs)

Narrator 4:39 "I said I beat her ass first. Didn't think about hitting the woman as much as I thought about my own survival." That led him to being arrested, uh, sentenced to 90 days. He served 35 of them.

Joe Rogan 4:49 Wow.

Narrator 4:50 And, uh, had a $7 fine.

Joe Rogan 4:52 He had a crazy life, man. He grew up in a brothel.

Dr. Cornel West 4:54 Yeah, right there in Peoria.

Joe Rogan 4:55 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 4:56 Peoria, Illinois.

Joe Rogan 4:57 Peoria, Illinois. Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 4:58 No, but the violence against, uh, any sister is wrong, but Pryor though, my man, he, uh, he was wild, free, cruel, tender, genius-

Joe Rogan 5:10 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 5:10 ...crazy, wrong as he could be, right as he could be.

Joe Rogan 5:14 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 5:14 He's a human being. He's a complicated human being though, yeah. I never met him before, but, uh, he is, his spirit means the world to me.

Joe Rogan 5:23 Me as well.

Dr. Cornel West 5:24 I tell you.

Joe Rogan 5:25 Well, I think every comic, I've never met a single comic that doesn't think he's one of the most important figures in the history of the art.Probably the most important.

Dr. Cornel West 5:32 Wow.

Joe Rogan 5:32 It's like him and Lenny Bruce, in my opinion, and then Keneson later. But Keneson for a much, much shorter time.

Dr. Cornel West 5:37 Who would be the greatest female, uh, comic artist you think?

Joe Rogan 5:40 I think Roseanne Barr.

Dr. Cornel West 5:42 Roseanne?

Joe Rogan 5:42 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 5:43 Roseanne is profoundly talented.

Joe Rogan 5:44 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 5:45 There's no doubt about it.

Joe Rogan 5:46 She, she doesn't get the credit she deserves 'cause she's legitimately mentally ill, and that's one of the things I had on the podcast to highlight with her.

Dr. Cornel West 5:54 Legitimately mentally ill?

Joe Rogan 5:55 She was hit by a car when she was 15, and she-

Dr. Cornel West 5:57 I didn't know that.

Joe Rogan 5:57 ... she spent nine months in a mental hospital.

Dr. Cornel West 6:00 Really?

Joe Rogan 6:00 Yeah. She lost her ability to count. She was very good at mathematics before that, and then after the car accident, the severe head injury-

Dr. Cornel West 6:09 Oh, my God. Bless her heart.

Joe Rogan 6:09 ... changed her personality.

Dr. Cornel West 6:10 Really?

Joe Rogan 6:11 Yeah. Same with Keneson. Keneson was hit by a car when he was young as well and changed his personality radically too. Head injuries make people-

Dr. Cornel West 6:19 Wow.

Joe Rogan 6:19 ... very impulsive, very wild and impulsive, and oftentimes-

Dr. Cornel West 6:23 Wow.

Joe Rogan 6:23 ... a slave to their own impulses. And I think, uh-

Dr. Cornel West 6:26 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 6:26 ... Keneson was a big example of that, as was Roseanne.

Dr. Cornel West 6:28 Oh, no.

Joe Rogan 6:28 But Roseanne was the first really loud, brash, almost male female comedian who could kill like a man.

Dr. Cornel West 6:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 6:37 You know? She was fat and proud.

Dr. Cornel West 6:38 But what about the Joan, Joan Rivers and the, uh, Phyllis Dillers-

Joe Rogan 6:42 Oh, yeah. She was great too.

Dr. Cornel West 6:42 ... and so ... Well, I love Mo'Nique.

Joe Rogan 6:43 They were great.

Dr. Cornel West 6:43 Uh, Mo'Nique gets to me. She, she, she touches my soul every time she's on stage.

Joe Rogan 6:48 Have you ever seen Ms. Pat?

Dr. Cornel West 6:50 No.

Joe Rogan 6:50 Ms. Pat's a monster.

Dr. Cornel West 6:51 Really?

Joe Rogan 6:52 She's a monster, and she's had a crazy life. She's been on this podcast a couple times.

Dr. Cornel West 6:56 Oh.

Joe Rogan 6:57 Her life was insane. I mean, she was selling crack when she was 14. She had a baby when she was 14, or was it 13? She was pre- pregnant at 13 with a married man, had a couple kids with him. Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 7:10 Jesus.

Joe Rogan 7:10 She's, she, and she is so-

Dr. Cornel West 7:12 God bless her too.

Joe Rogan 7:13 ... funny. She's so wild-

Dr. Cornel West 7:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:15 ... and funny. Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 7:16 But there's something about the, um ... And goes back to Aristophanes, you know? It goes back to, um, uh, um, those early comics in the history of the West who were willing to tell the truth, especially as it related to the everyday experiences of ordinary people. You know, the first ... Plato's text itself, you know, the Republic, was grounded in an imitation of the comic writers who were the first to really delve into everyday people's experiences, not the well-to-do. That was tragedy. Tragedy only had to do with the, with the nobility and the aristocracy. But it was comedy that delved into the lives of everyday people. Then Plato takes the whole form and shifts it into the dialogue and makes Socrates, of course, the grand, the grand hero. But it was Aristophanes, at least in the West, who initiated this with the clouds and, and frogs and so on. And it goes all the way through from Jonathan Swift, to Mark Twain-

Joe Rogan 8:16 Hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 8:16 ... to Nathaniel West, to, uh, uh, um, old f- the brother Ishmael Reed. I mean, these are the great American comic writers. Twain, West, Reed. And see, comic writers are different than the tragic ones.

Joe Rogan 8:31 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 8:32 Or Dostoevsky and, uh, and Kal- Kafka's comic in its own deep way too. The greatest, of course, is Chekhov though. Anton Chekhov, brother. I know you check out Chekhov, right?

Joe Rogan 8:41 No.

Dr. Cornel West 8:41 Oh, brother, you, you haven't fully lived-

Joe Rogan 8:44 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 8:44 ... until you read some Anton Chekhov.

Joe Rogan 8:46 Yeah?

Dr. Cornel West 8:47 Oh, you read Three Sisters of Uncle Vanya, you read The Cherry Orchard, any of the short stories. He's had over 6,000 characters in his short stories, man.

Joe Rogan 8:57 Whoa.

Dr. Cornel West 8:57 The Beach Rost and, and, and, and, and into the, um ... in, in The Ravine or even Misery, man. The greatest one is called The Student. It's only two and a half pages.

Joe Rogan 9:09 Really?

Dr. Cornel West 9:09 It's his favorite short story. Oh, you read that tonight, it'll blow your ni- mind.

Joe Rogan 9:13 Wow.

Dr. Cornel West 9:13 You listen to the ... You, you read that tonight, listen to a little Curtis Mayfield.

Joe Rogan 9:17 Okay.

Dr. Cornel West 9:17 Listen to a little Stephen Sondheim.

Joe Rogan 9:19 Okay.

Dr. Cornel West 9:20 Stephen Hot- Sondheim, No More, Into the Woods, Curtis Mayfield, I Loved And I Lost, and then The Student Chekhov. Oh, man, you be ready for some serious, serious cognac. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 9:36 (laughs) On your recommendation, that's what I want.

Dr. Cornel West 9:38 Oh, no, no, 'cause I know you, you a serious, uh, intellectual too. You, you do your homework. But I'm just saying this in terms of just enhancing, you know, all of our lives. I mean, the comic writers, the c- comedians, uh, various sorts, be they on the stage or be they on the page, are, uh, I think the vanguards of the species in a very deep way, you know, because we as a species have to objectify our grief and our pain and our sadness and our sorrow. And it begins with moans and groans, and you transfigure those moans and groans first into song, but song then moves into language. And the language is not rational language of philosophy and dialectic, but it's a language of stories, especially the stories that are self-critical, that we laugh at ourselves, not at others. We laugh with others rather than just at others. So it's not that sudden glory that Hobbes talks about in regard to the comic, where you're looking down and condescending, you see. That's an aristocratic conception of the comic. You laughing at the ordinary people who are so dirty and filthy. It's profoundly anti-democratic, right?

Joe Rogan 10:43 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 10:43 As if, you know, well-to-do folk don't fart-

Joe Rogan 10:46 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 10:46 ... don't essay t- d- don't, don't, don't, don't do number one and number two and fall in and out of love and act a fool and live lives of con- ins- inconsistency, right?

Joe Rogan 10:54 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 10:55 But back when you get these democratic forms of the comic, (inhales deeply) see, that's you and Pryor and Roseanne and Mo'Nique and George Carlin and all of that. That's free spirit though, brother. In most of our lives, you see, we're dealing with a whole history of a species, of structures of domination, oppression. That's the history of the species for the most part. And there's moments in which there's breakthroughs-

Joe Rogan 11:19 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 11:19 ... in which there's a freedom of spirit, and then you have some institutionalization of that, which is democracy. That's why democracies are so fragile and usually don't last that long, because it cuts so radic- radically against the sense of really wanting to be free. I mean, Dostoevsky's right. Most people really are afraid of freedom.They want to defer to authority, they want to conform. And when they're introduced to freedom and they really catches hold, they say, "Oh my God, it's tremendous cost to be paid, but I like that."

Joe Rogan 11:51 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 11:51 "There's something about that." And they th- They can hear it in the music, they can see it in your comic art or priors and others. And it allows these effects and consequences of people's lives to really enrich their lives before they die.

Joe Rogan 12:06 Why do you think people are afraid of freedom?

Dr. Cornel West 12:08 Well, uh, it's, it's courage. I mean, c- c- there is no freedom without unbelievable, unprecedented, unstoppable courage. And courage is not widely distributed i- in the species, man. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:20 (laughs) That's a very charitable way of looking at people.

Dr. Cornel West 12:23 No, it's true, man.

Joe Rogan 12:24 But the way you su- (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 12:25 Most people would rather conform, they're complacent, they're complicitous-

Joe Rogan 12:28 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 12:28 ... they're cowardly.

Joe Rogan 12:29 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 12:30 They well-adjusted to injustice and want to smile and walk around as peacocks, rather than cut against the grain and have to bear witness.

Joe Rogan 12:37 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 12:37 And therefore, end up on a cross, or like Socrates, condemned. I mean, most of the great figures that we know-

Joe Rogan 12:44 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 12:45 ... end up-

Joe Rogan 12:45 Well, it seems there's more consequences for that now than ever.

Dr. Cornel West 12:47 Oh, oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:48 Cancel culture.

Dr. Cornel West 12:49 That's exactly right.

Joe Rogan 12:50 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 12:51 Oh, it's true. It's very, very true. But I mean, we live in a culture that's so corporatized, commercialized, marketized, um, it's all about money, money, money, status, status, status, and you lose any deep sense of honor, of character. It's all about what appears to be the case. It's the culture of superficial spectacle, so it's all about image-

Joe Rogan 13:13 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 13:14 ... you see?

Joe Rogan 13:14 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 13:15 And image is just some s- uh, surface phenomena.

Joe Rogan 13:21 Well, I, I can't recommend your book-

Dr. Cornel West 13:23 Get to the deep.

Joe Rogan 13:24 ... Race Matters enough, and one of the reasons is because of your analysis of that. Your, your, your understanding of this, this superficial aspect of the pursuit that so many people are locked into from cradle to the grave. And you just, y- you, you encapsulated that so well. And, and the way you worded it and the way you phrased it, it's, it's so, it resonates so well. And I-

Dr. Cornel West 13:49 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 13:49 I, I really admire this lifelong pursuit that you have for not just understanding these things, but explaining them in such a succinct way where it's absorbable. Like, the-

Dr. Cornel West 14:02 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 14:02 That book, it's, in the 25th anniversary, I wanted to talk to you about it, because th- that's the one I read. And it's so strange when you read something that's so, i- i- i- it's so current, even though it's 25 years old, it rings true. And does that, sometimes, does that feel futile, where you, you, you have the same issues for, that you spoke on 25 years ago and there's very little change in those 25 years?

Dr. Cornel West 14:30 Hm, no, it's a wonderful, deep question though, man. I appreciate the times that you spent, uh, reading, uh, Race Matters. But no, it's never futile though, man. Uh, it's never futile, because you have a conception of victory that is not messianic or salvific. You're not trying to save people, you're not trying to be a messiah to bring some kind of grand, uh, uh, gospel to people. You're simply trying to touch people's lives. So when you enrich and enable a person's life, the way in which you've talked about that right there, you're already talking about the ways in which you were touched.

Joe Rogan 15:05 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 15:07 That means there was no futility at all.

Joe Rogan 15:09 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 15:09 You know, there's-

Joe Rogan 15:10 Oh, it's certainly not futility to me, yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 15:11 There's, there's, it becomes the, it becomes the fecundity of it. And, and so all, all we can do, you know, a- as human beings is to try to inspire one another and encourage one another and enable one another, ennoble one another. And that, in and of itself, is what the great John Coltrane called a force for good. How do I become, based on A Love Supreme, a force for good in a cold and cruel world?

Joe Rogan 15:40 Based on Love Supreme.

Dr. Cornel West 15:41 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 15:42 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 15:43 Absolutely. And love supreme is not love in the abstract, right? It's a love of beauty in its concrete forms, it's a love of goodness in its concrete forms, it's a love of truth in its concrete forms. Now, I'm a Christian, revolutionary Christian, so I got a love of God mediated through a Palestinian Jew named Jesus, but that's tied to a justice that comes out of prophetic Judaism, right? And we know Judaism, Christianity, Islam, all of these religions for me, uh, uh, have no wholesale monopoly on how we understand the world, because they all emerge at various historical moments. But when it comes to this love that allows us to persist in a world in which cruelty and, and envy, contempt, manipulation, dishonesty, and that's shot through all of us.

Joe Rogan 16:36 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 16:36 So we're not finger-pointing and name-calling.

Joe Rogan 16:38 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 16:39 Oh, no. You know, I've, uh, I, I've called, uh, brother Donald Trump a gangster over and over again. And I, I, and I say that because there's a gangster inside of me I got to reconquer it every day.

Joe Rogan 16:49 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 16:49 So I know gangsters when I see him. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:51 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 16:51 Oh, boy. And gangster is not a subjective expression, it's a objective condition.

Joe Rogan 16:56 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 16:57 If you grabbing a woman's parts, that's gangster.

Joe Rogan 16:59 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 16:59 You stealing somebody's oil in another country, that's gangster.

Joe Rogan 17:02 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 17:03 You lying, saying these people have said that America is garbage, quit lying. That's gangster. They got a critique of America. You did too in American carnage in your inauguration, you said-

Joe Rogan 17:12 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 17:13 Or you're talking about the full sisters in Congress saying, "Well, uh, uh, uh, evil Jews..." No. They hadn't said, "Evil Jews," they said, "Evil doings of Israel." Every nation state-

Joe Rogan 17:24 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 17:24 ... has done some evil things, right? If there's a Palestinian state, which I hope there is, they're gonna do some evil things.

Joe Rogan 17:31 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 17:32 Every nation state has to be accountable. US, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Israel, China, and so forth and so on. And every nation state has been associated with certain forms of barbarism, we know that. But there are some good things.... some wonderful things about Israel, some wonderful things about Palestinians and the formation of creating a state. There's wonderful things about America. I mean, a lot of people say ... Uh, e- even brother Trump, "Oh, they hate America." No, they love American comics. They love American music. You ask Sister Talib, you ask Sister Priestly, "Y'all love Aretha?" "Oh, Aretha Franklin means the world to me." "What about Mary J?" "Mary J means the world." Mary J and Aretha are as American as Donald Trump, even more in some ways-

Joe Rogan 18:18 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 18:18 ... because they've been here longer. Them people been-

Joe Rogan 18:20 (laughs) .

Dr. Cornel West 18:20 ... there 10 generations.

Joe Rogan 18:22 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 18:22 Donald Trump's grandfather just arrived. His mother, straight from Scotland, precious Mary Anne. 1930, she arrived, right? And so in that sense, you say, "Wait, wait, wh- well, q- quit lying." Let's just be honest and candid, just like the comics. Let's just be honest and candid, and recognize, 'cause what is the definition of comedy? It is first drama, which is conflict emotionally felt and re- critically reflected upon, but it's that conflict that's rooted in incongruity. Things don't fit. So there's the possibility of hypocrisy, right? And we know hypocrisy is the tribute of vice to virtue, so that there're standards and you fall short, so you can laugh at it. Now when it's really deep comedy, it's talking about the human condition. See, that's a deeper thing. Now, see, that's when you get Chekhov and Shakespeare and Joyce and the blues, because deep comedy is the recognition of limits and incongruity at the highest levels of the mind, heart and soul. That's a different thing. So I mean, you can start with comedy with, uh, you know, the clown who's, who walk around slipping on bananas or the sophisticated professor who doesn't realize that he got a banana hanging out the back of his pocket when he's lecturing with the students. Everybody laughing, he don't know what's going on. Well, that's bodily based comedy.

Joe Rogan 19:50 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 19:50 You know, farts and bananas and so forth.

Joe Rogan 19:53 (laughs) .

Dr. Cornel West 19:54 And it, it's, it's important.

Joe Rogan 19:55 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 19:55 But high comedy is the highest levels of human dignity, love, thought, music, mathematics, metaphysics, and then recognize all of those are incongruous, they're broken, they're fractured. There's dramatic conflict of incongruity at the highest levels of who we are as a species. Now, that's deep stuff.

Joe Rogan 20:25 That is deep stuff (laughs) .

Dr. Cornel West 20:26 Oh, Lord, Lord. And, and one of the most fundamental questions of Western civilization is, how come Socrates never cries and Jesus never laughs?

Joe Rogan 20:37 Ooh.

Dr. Cornel West 20:39 And that's the question Thomas More was wrestling with in the Tower of London before he was executed in his Dialogues on Tribulation. Socrates never sheds a tear. What does that mean? The founder of philosophy in the modern West has a love of wisdom, but he never loves people, because it's impossible to love human beings and not shed tears.

Joe Rogan 21:01 Wow.

Dr. Cornel West 21:01 You go to your mama's funeral and you're not shedding tears and you're c- committed to the Socratic ideal of self-mastery and self-control, you need to get off the crack pipe.

Joe Rogan 21:11 (laughs) .

Dr. Cornel West 21:11 Get off. Show her the depths of your love for her through being outside of your self-mastery, the tears will flow.

Joe Rogan 21:20 Oh, yes.

Dr. Cornel West 21:20 You see it? And it's f- could stay either way. It's like your daughter, this precious thing that you got when we walk in for your daughter, you see?

Joe Rogan 21:25 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 21:26 When she graduates, you and your wife are gonna have tears of joy. That ain't the moment for self m- mastery. That's not the moment to be Socratic.

Joe Rogan 21:34 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 21:34 And so when Socrates is dying, his wife walks in, Z- Xanthippe, and she's crying. He said, "Get her off. Get her away. Get her ... I can't stand tears." So that's a problem.

Joe Rogan 21:41 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 21:42 That's a problem. See, I come from Black folk, we start with tears.

Joe Rogan 21:44 (laughs) .

Dr. Cornel West 21:45 All the mess we had (laughs) to come to terms with, you know what I mean? Cries and so forth. The Hebrew scripture begins with the cries of oppressed people too, right? But then Jesus never laughs. Ooh, now see, that's a deep one.

Joe Rogan 21:55 That is a deep one.

Dr. Cornel West 21:56 That's G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton said, "Jesus turns over the tables of the money changers. He does not conceal his rage." Crucial. Jesus does weep. That's one of the most profound verses in the, in, in, in the Christian Bible, right? Jesus wept.

Joe Rogan 22:18 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 22:19 Unlike Socrates. Why did Jesus weep? He wept for Jerusalem. He wept for Lazarus. He left ... Wept for his friends. But Jesus hides and conceals his mirth. That's what Chesterton says.

Joe Rogan 22:30 Is there any laughter in the Bible?

Dr. Cornel West 22:32 Well, Isaac means laughter. Uh, when you think of the joke of an older Sarah giving birth to, to a young person in a older age and so forth. But it's hard to catch Jesus laughing. Uh, none of the, uh, Synoptic Gop- gospels have Jesus laughing. Some people thought they discerned a grin somewhere, 'cause he turned wine into water, he probably had a little-

Joe Rogan 22:54 (laughs) .

Dr. Cornel West 22:54 ... grin on (laughs) you get a-

Joe Rogan 22:55 A subtle grin.

Dr. Cornel West 22:56 (laughs) A little subtle grin, exactly.

Joe Rogan 22:58 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 22:58 Exactly. But, uh, but you can never get the full scale and variety of the human condition in any one tradition. I mean that-

Joe Rogan 23:08 I think one of the beauties of what you're saying here, one of the beautiful things about what you're saying here is the complexity of human beings.

Dr. Cornel West 23:15 Yes.

Joe Rogan 23:15 And when you're dealing with the situation between these girls that call themselves The Squad and Donald Trump, and you deal with these very simplistic things like these chants of, "Send her back," or, "Lock her up," or, "They hate America." Or, you know-

Dr. Cornel West 23:30 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 23:31 ... this, this is simplifying things, is, is so attractive to some people and so attractive during political discourse, right? During these-

Dr. Cornel West 23:40 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 23:40 ... these times when you're trying to rally up a campaign and get, get, get the audience behind you.

Dr. Cornel West 23:45 That's right.

Joe Rogan 23:45 This is when these simplistic things resonate.

Dr. Cornel West 23:47 Definitely.

Joe Rogan 23:47 But as a human being, we know that, uh, things like ... I don't, I don't, e- e- y- these ... I don't subscribe to this idea that human beings are good or bad. I think there's-

Dr. Cornel West 23:59 Can go either way.

Joe Rogan 24:00 Yeah. There's ... I'm, I'm sure ... Like, the way Donald Trump loves his family, I'm sure there's love in that guy. I'm sure there is.

Dr. Cornel West 24:07 I mean, he's, he's had some, you know, relations to his mother and his brothers and sisters that were not ones of sheer manipulation and domination. There's no doubt, as a human being, it's important to keep track of his humanity.... uh, but at the same time, what happens is the dominant patterns of behavior... This is what-

Joe Rogan 24:25 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 24:25 ... worries me about Brother Trump, especially the fact that he's head of the American empire and, and head of the government, you see. That when you have dominant patterns of behavior that are completely u- unaccountable... See, for so long, he's been able to get away with things with no accountability at all.

Joe Rogan 24:44 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 24:44 That's what makes him a kind of a Peter Pan-like figure. He's pe-

Joe Rogan 24:49 Up until he became president, right.

Dr. Cornel West 24:51 Rich, he's powerful.

Joe Rogan 24:52 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 24:52 But he hasn't grown up. But even as president, he hasn't grown up. People w- would, had thought that he would grow into the office. No, he just hasn't grown up. You know, he's still Peter Pan, like. You know?

Joe Rogan 25:01 But he's u- uniquely tried to manipulate the office position to change to, to be what he is.

Dr. Cornel West 25:05 That's right.

Joe Rogan 25:06 And I think people love that. There's certain people that that resonates with them. They think that's so attractive. They love it.

Dr. Cornel West 25:13 Well, they, I think they love it in the-

Joe Rogan 25:16 'Cause it's exciting.

Dr. Cornel West 25:17 ... sense that... I mean, w- the first thing that, you know, Trump was able to do was to expose the pre-packaged commodities that we call politicians.

Joe Rogan 25:28 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 25:28 That he came across as somebody who was just himself.

Joe Rogan 25:32 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 25:33 You see? Just gangster that he is.

Joe Rogan 25:35 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 25:36 And he'd just tell the truth. "Oh, I was a close friend of Hillary's. I was, been at the same weddings and so forth," 'cause that's how the elites circulate-

Joe Rogan 25:43 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 25:44 ... in, in, in, in, in, in American empire. But then when they discovered, lo and behold, he's, now he's posing himself as some kind of oppositional figure, and yet, he's tied to big money, tied to big military. When he gets in, he brings in the old school militarist people. He's still dropping bombs on the nine countries that have been dropping bombs for the last-

Joe Rogan 26:06 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 26:06 ... number of years. The tax cuts sound exactly the same that Mitch and, and, uh, McConnell and others wanted. We thought we had something different here, you see? And it has to do with the... Well, I mean, it's a larger story that we have to be honest about this that, um ... See, we live in both a very fragile and precious experiment in democracy, and we live in an empire that is experiencing profound decline, decay, and deterioration, simultaneous. See, 'cause from the very beginning, United States was really, in some ways, uh, much more tied to gold and resources and land. And so, this very crucial democratic experiment is predicated on the monstrous crime against indigenous peoples that we've never come to terms with. So you get a lot of neoliberal chatter about America's original sin is slavery. That's a lie. The original sin was we had to decide whether we were going to co-exist with indigenous peoples or dominate them, and the decision was, for the most part, genocidal effect in terms of domination. So it's a settler colonial society, a colony of Britain, you see? Then we enslaved the Africans who become the basis of our economy, and th- the vast majority of profits made w- were actually tied to slavery. That's why so many of the presidents, first presidents in America, were slaveholders and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court were slaveholders and so forth. That, that doesn't mean that certain democratic practices were not being enacted, but it was enacted for white brothers with property. The white brothers who had no property, they couldn't vote at all. The women, of course, couldn't vote until 1920, and so they had domestic households in which they had to find some sense of fulfillment. That's what b- history of patriarchy and misogyny in part are connected. And then tremendous efforts come to expanding it. Expanding it. And this is why even when, uh, Brother Trump talks about socialism, see, he doesn't realize the Pledge of Allegiance was written by F- Francis Bellamy, who was a socialist. The song American the Beautiful, which is one of the most beautiful songs... Ray Charles sang that song. It'll take you to a different place.

Joe Rogan 28:36 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 28:37 I mean, he's seeing things that we can't see and you know he's blind. You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 28:41 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 28:41 American the Beautiful.

Joe Rogan 28:42 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 28:42 Elizabeth Lee Bates, socialist.

Joe Rogan 28:44 Ah.

Dr. Cornel West 28:44 Professor, Wellesley. Who was our greatest poet? Walt Whitman. Deep ties to socialism. Who was our greatest philosopher? John Dewey. Democratic socialist his whole life. Helen Keller, deaf, mute, blind, graduate of Radcliffe, socialist.

Joe Rogan 29:05 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 29:06 Reinhold Niebuhr, the greatest Christian thinker of the 20th century, democratic socialist, moral man in a moral society. Martin Luther King, Jr., democratic soc- Ella Baker, democrat- Democratic socialism is as American as apple pie. But with the communists and the communist threat and the Soviet Union and all of its repression and regimentation and violation of liberties and killing of the kulaks and so forth. In the American mind, socialism becomes associated with communism.

Joe Rogan 29:42 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 29:42 And so you saw Brother Lindsey the other day, right?

Joe Rogan 29:44 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 29:44 He looked like a cartoonist version of, of, of Joseph McCarthy. "They're all communists, they're all communists." And you see, what happens is, in a neo-fascist discourse, it's true anywhere around the world, if you can define a community as pure and then characterize those on the outside who are threatened as impure and then view yourself as those coming to the rescue to preserve the purity, it can be based on race, it can be based on religion, it can be based on politics, preserve that purity. We saw it in the '50s with the hysteria.

Joe Rogan 30:20 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 30:21 Communists were what? Smith Act, they're deported.... or they're taken to jail. I mean, the first, the first city councilman from Harlem, Benjamin Davis, went to jail because he was a Communist, you see? Because they were the impure.

Joe Rogan 30:34 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 30:35 You see? Now, communism needs to be radically called into question in terms of its dominating forms, like the Soviet Union and China on the Mao, and so forth and so on. But at the same time, when you look at Karl Marx and his critique of capitalism, he... This is prior to Lenin, prior to Stalin, prior. He says, "Capitalism is tied to this obsession with profit that puts profit before people."

Joe Rogan 31:00 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 31:00 "And it will generate oligopolies in which there will be grotesque levels of wealth inequality, and the only way that poor and working people will be able to gain access to any resources is through organizing and mobilizing." Now, you can accept that Marxist insight without being a Marxist.

Joe Rogan 31:17 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 31:17 He's just telling the truth.

Joe Rogan 31:19 So do you think that socialism just hasn't been implemented correctly? Is that what you think? Because, like, the, the, the argument has always been show me a socialist economy or socialist government that ever worked.

Dr. Cornel West 31:30 Right, right, right.

Joe Rogan 31:31 But there's so many people that find the idea of socialism attractive because it, it combines this idea of a community with a nation, and that we're all tied together. And we ha- we obviously have some socialist aspects to our civilization-

Dr. Cornel West 31:46 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 31:46 ... in terms of, like, utilities and taking care of the roads.

Dr. Cornel West 31:50 Military. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 31:50 The military.

Dr. Cornel West 31:50 See, we're not gonna, we're not gonna outsource the military.

Joe Rogan 31:52 Firefighters, police officers.

Dr. Cornel West 31:53 Firefighters, police.

Joe Rogan 31:54 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 31:54 There has to be some kind of-

Joe Rogan 31:56 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 31:56 ... uh, governmental control. But the, uh, the problem is this, that, uh, if w- we have to view democratic socialism as a moment in the larger movement of democracy. My dear brother Jeff Stout is one of the great, uh, philosophers and, uh, uh, thinkers of democracy, calls them egalitarian freedom traditions.

Joe Rogan 32:20 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 32:20 And that's simply a way of saying that if you look at the world through the lens of the masses of people who are poor and working people, what are the conditions under which they can have security from domination? What are the conditions under which they can have dignity by holding forms of oppression at arm's length, you see? And for me, it's not an -ism. You see?

Joe Rogan 32:49 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 32:49 If capitalism vis-à-vis feudalism can generate liberties and freedoms, I'm for it.

Joe Rogan 32:56 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 32:57 And that's precisely what the middle classes did when they broke from feudalism in Europe, or broke from feudalism in other parts of the world, right? You had to overthrow kings and queens in the name of personal liberties. But those personal liberties were confined too often to white brothers with property.

Joe Rogan 33:15 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 33:16 And the white brothers with no property, they're either trying to hold onto their whiteness so they become like the white brothers with property, or they made moral choices and said, "I wanna be a person of integrity. I wanna fight with the folk who are being excluded." And this is one of the problems in talking about race and white supremacy in America, because you see, we think too often in monolithic categories. There's never been a white supremacy without fighting against white supremacy, and that includes white brothers and sisters. There's a tradition from Anne Braden, from Myles Horton, you know, of Highlander Center. You've got that wonderful picture of Rosa Parks. She was at Highlander Center four months before she was arrested, before she sat down on a bus in order to stand up for justice, right there at Highlander Center under Myles Horton. Who was Myles Horton? A white brother who brought Black folk and white folk together, went to Union Seminary, trained under Reinhold Niebuhr. He had cousins in the Ku Klux Klan.

Joe Rogan 34:19 Wow.

Dr. Cornel West 34:19 So his Thanksgiving dinners were very complicated.

Joe Rogan 34:22 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 34:23 (laughs) But that's true for a whole lot of white brothers and sisters-

Joe Rogan 34:25 Yeah. (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 34:25 ... who fight against white supremacy.

Joe Rogan 34:27 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 34:27 Anne Braden, uh, uh, uh, Rabbi Abraham Joshua, Ahab- ............................ Edward Said. You have a whole tradition of white brothers and sisters who've been fighting against white supremacy. You get it in the music. Bex Beiderbecke, he's sitting at the feet of Louis Armstrong, and he's a great artist. Louis is genius of geniuses, right? And that middle-class brother from Iowa, you ask him about white supremacy, you ask Brubeck about white supremacy, you ask any of the... Pa- Paul Desmet, all of these folk who are connected to traditions in which Black humanity, Brown humanity is seen and affirmed.

Joe Rogan 35:07 You had a point in the book Race Matters that resonated with me that I never really thought of before.

Dr. Cornel West 35:12 Hm.

Joe Rogan 35:12 And what you said was that because of the fact that the United States has this deep history of slavery and the slavery of African Americans, that white people became white people instead of Polish and German and Italian. Instead of it being like most other countries where they, the Italians think of themselves as Italians, and the Greeks are the Greeks-

Dr. Cornel West 35:35 Gotcha.

Joe Rogan 35:35 ... those were white people. They're all quote, "They combine as white people." I never thought about that before.

Dr. Cornel West 35:42 Know what I mean? You've got these scholars of American studies, uh, um, I mean, Nell Payne is one of the towering ones, but it goes all the way back to Brother Alexander and, and David, d- d- David Roediger and some others who've been talking about the way in which whiteness was created. Take, for example, an Irish brother who goes to Ellis Island. His people been dealing with 800 years of vicious British colonialism and imperialism, vicious ta- tax-

Joe Rogan 36:08 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 36:08 ... various famines that w- in some ways created or at least enabled and so on. They get to New York and they're told that they're white, and they say, "No, no, because we know the British are white, and we're not British."

Joe Rogan 36:22 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 36:22 At all.

Joe Rogan 36:24 At all.

Dr. Cornel West 36:24 But then they say, "Yes, you are." Look at Brother West, look at Jamal, look at Leticia.Mm-hmm. Where you gonna go on the Jim Crow bus? (laughs) You just get off the boat from Ireland. Right. If you go to the front, you with the vanilla folk. (laughs) You go to the back, you with the chocolate folk. What you gonna do? And for our precious Jewish brothers and sisters, it was e- even more complicated. More complicated, right, 'cause it's a race and a religion. 'Cause they get there and they say, "No, we're not with the goy and we not with the Gentiles. Y'all been oppressing us for 2,000 years." (exhales) . Pogroms, ghettos, Holocaust, vicious attacks, and so on. But then they get there and say, "Well, are we gonna be in the back with the Black folk?" Some of 'em did. You see? Yeah. 'Cause you got a rich tradition of progressive Jews. You see? Noam Chomsky would've got back there. Stanley Aronowitz would've got back there with the Black folk. You see what I mean? But you got some other Jewish folk, like any other group, "Well, we kinda lukewarm. Let's just kinda move back and forth." And then someone want to assimilate completely, especially the highbrow German Jews, "We're actually White as well as the Gentiles." Hm. "You're in America now. Get beyond that old world prejudice." Mm-hmm. You say, "Well, you better check yourself." (laughs) . 'Cause every Christian civilization we know is shot through with Jewish hatred. Mm. Don't, don't believe the hype. Sooner or later, it's gonna be manifest. You see what I mean? And so in that way, you can see the d- the discourse of Whiteness, Blackness, brownness, redness, and so forth, becomes so, so deeply rooted in American law, American structures, American perceptions. And this is why the arts are so crucial, because it's primarily in the music and in the arts where the breakdown of White supremacy begins to take place in the country. It's not the politicians. It really isn't. It really isn't. There's no accident that the first massive form of entertainment in the United States is what? The minstrels and Black face. Mm. And you say, "Well, what was going on with Black face" where Eric Lott and others have talked about the love and theft. On the one hand, there's a fear of Black freedom, 'cause Black freedom somehow means less freedom for Whites. There's a fear of Black creativity, 'cause that means, "Oh, maybe White supremacy is a lie. Maybe they're human just like us. Maybe they're just as creative, imaginative and talented just like us." Then they hear the music and they say, "Ooh, they got something going on in the Black side of town that we don't know." It's like you going to see Pryor, right? Mm-hmm. If somebody had told you, "Oh, Brother Joe, White supremacy America tells you that Black creativity, Black intelligence, Black genius doesn't exist," and you go see Pryor with your parents, and you go away thinking, "This Negro's a genius." (laughs) "Somebody lied to me." (laughs) "I got to recognize that." And then you recognize, oh, there's a whole tradition of Pryor, and we can go on and on from the Cole train, the Sarah Vaughan and the... On and on and on, right? And so people can th- begin to think, especially White brothers and sisters, "Our parents have been lying to us when it comes to Black intelligence, imagination and genius and humanity." And yet the structures make it difficult for us to come together. We're talking about up until 1960. That's a long time though. Mm-hmm. 1776 to 1964 and '5, that's a long time for both slavery and neo-slavery to be in place. And here we are now, 54 years later, trying to create a multiracial democracy, which is a beautiful, beautiful thing. And, uh, it's already been enacted in the, uh, (smacks lips) in, in the jazz groups, Sly Stone's bands, multiracial, the comedies. Uh, th- the studying of the comedies that you all have. You sit down with comics, y'all talk about the genius across race and gen- gen- uh, gen- uh, and, and, and gender as if it's a natural thing. That already shatters the White supremacists, and, and that's, and male supremacists categories of Whiteness, Blackness, all in different silos. But it's so hard to do it on the ground. See, part of the problem with talking about race in America, and this is why I've been very critical of a number of, uh, contemporary Black intellectuals, because White supremacy cuts so deep in the culture, people begin to think it has magical powers and somehow it, it, it, it just floats above American history as if it's just part of our DNA in a biological way. But all conceptions of race in the modern world are grounded in predatory capitalism, so that the talk about Whiteness and Blackness becomes a way of rationalizing social structures like slavery and Jim Crow. And it has to do with trying to extract labor resources. It's an attack on their humanity and identity, but it's tied to economic structure. So to talk only about race means we hide and conceal the social structures that are generating unbelievable suffering for everybody. Mm. Everybody, you see? And so, uh, the, the last thing you want is to talk about race. I'd say the same thing about gender in a way. Gender's much more complicated because gender's been around for so, so long, every culture that we know almost. But in modern conceptions of race are tied to modern conceptions of predatory capitalism, here and abroad, which includes imperialism, which includes empires. So the United States comes out of the British Empire. We engage in a heroic, courageous revolt against the British Empire. It was a magnificent struggle. That's what I like about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, 'cause I'm an anti-imperialist. They were anti-imperialists. Now, they're urban guerrillas. They're picking up guns. They fighting. (laughs) . I don't go that far, but they're also White supremacists. Mm-hmm. You see? Right. So as soon as they overthrow or push back the British Empire, what do you get in the Declaration of Independence? Beautiful words about equality, but you also get savages. We gotta take they land. And you get an empire of liberty. This is where the comics come in. Yeah. What does an empire of liberty look like?... who's not in on the liberty? It's a whole lot of people not in on it.

Joe Rogan 42:43 Oh, that was Carlin, right? Carlin had this bit about, this country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free.

Dr. Cornel West 42:49 That's right.

Joe Rogan 42:49 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 42:49 And talk about the American dream, you got to be-

Joe Rogan 42:51 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 42:52 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:52 You gotta be dreaming to believe it.

Dr. Cornel West 42:54 You got, y- y- y- you gotta, you gotta be asleep. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:58 Do you think that-

Dr. Cornel West 42:58 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 42:58 ... much like this country is an experiment in self-democracy, a very recent experiment when you look at human history, right?

Dr. Cornel West 43:04 Absolutely, absolutely.

Joe Rogan 43:05 The hundreds of thousands of years that we've been human, there's really only been a couple of years, uh, 100 years of this.

Dr. Cornel West 43:10 That's exactly right.

Joe Rogan 43:10 Do you, do you think that that's maybe the lens that we should look at something like democratic socialism through? Not that it can't work, but that it hasn't been implemented correctly before.

Dr. Cornel West 43:21 That's exactly... That's why we gotta get beyond the ism. You're absolutely right. See, what makes, uh, uh, not just the United States, there's been democratic experiments all around the world in various circumstances. We become central stage because we become a world power that understands itself as a democracy, with all the contradictions that go ha- hand in hand with that. Began as a settler colonial enterprise, still got slavery, patriarchy. Workers don't have the right to engage in collective bargaining in the United States until the 1930s.

Joe Rogan 43:54 Hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 43:54 Argentina had it in the 1830s. Argentina is not known for being on the cutting edge for social justice.

Joe Rogan 43:59 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 44:00 Love you down there in Argentine.

Joe Rogan 44:02 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 44:02 But they know that.

Joe Rogan 44:02 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 44:02 But they had collective bargaining. Why? Because our robber barons and our power elites were so powerful.

Joe Rogan 44:09 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 44:10 You see, Rockefeller & Company had private militias that were bigger than a lot of public armies.

Joe Rogan 44:14 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 44:15 To make sure workers were not able to engage in collective bargaining.

Joe Rogan 44:18 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 44:18 I was in San Francisco just yesterday at the Commonwealth Club, which is now lodged in, in the Longshoremen's Association, which is fascinating. Commonwealth is well-to-do, ruling class, Harry Bridges, longshoremen, strong unions. Jack London, another great socialist there in Oakland, right? And what were they trying to do? They were just trying to ensure that ordinary people gained access to jobs with a living wage.

Joe Rogan 44:44 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 44:45 Decent education. This is one reason why I, I, I spend so much time with my dear brother Bernie Sanders, right?

Joe Rogan 44:50 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 44:50 Because it's a democratic project that simply says, how come poor children can't have access to some of the things that the children of the well-to-do have? They have the same value, and of course, as a Christian for me, they have exactly the same value, right? So how will they get it? Well, here comes socialist movements that say, first thing they want to do is, "We're against child labor laws." That's, that's the jungle. That's Upton Sinclair.

Joe Rogan 45:18 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 45:18 He's a socialist, tried to be Governor of California, right? And what were they doing? What were, what, what were these, these capitalists doing? They're hiring these kids at six years old, seven years old. They were dying at 30. There were no laws against child labor. And they're working seven days a week, so the labor movement brought us the weekend. And I'm not talking about the singer from Canada.

Joe Rogan 45:40 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 45:41 God bless him (laughs) . I'm talking about the two days we have off, because if we didn't have that from the socialist movement and the labor movement, they'd have been working young kids-

Joe Rogan 45:50 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 45:50 ... seven days. They did that year after year, decade after decade. That's greed.

Joe Rogan 45:56 Right. That's, that's-

Dr. Cornel West 45:57 That's, that's greed. There's no accountability, you see?

Joe Rogan 45:59 That's where that whole idea of the let the market decide falls apart.

Dr. Cornel West 46:03 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 46:04 Because the market just wants profit, right?

Dr. Cornel West 46:06 Absolutely. And that doesn't mean that markets cannot be used in democratic ways.

Joe Rogan 46:11 But they need to be ethical.

Dr. Cornel West 46:12 But they gotta be ethical, you got to have some accountability-

Joe Rogan 46:16 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 46:16 ... and regulation. And child labor laws were very important at, uh, uh, breakthroughs at that time, but there are other... You, you had c- You, you need to have laws to make sure the water was clean and the food was regulated and clean and so forth.

Joe Rogan 46:28 There's a narrative that you get from, uh, uh, poor people often, or people that are lower middle class, that are against the concept of socialism because they equate it with people that want a free ride.

Dr. Cornel West 46:40 That's right.

Joe Rogan 46:40 They, they equate it with people that don't want to work hard.

Dr. Cornel West 46:43 That's right.

Joe Rogan 46:43 And w- how... That, that's a, it's a strange narrative when you consider all the things we talked about already, like the, what we need with the fire department and the police department and all the-

Dr. Cornel West 46:54 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 46:54 ... different ways that socialism does form... Utilities and all the different ways that socialism does form-

Dr. Cornel West 47:00 That's right.

Joe Rogan 47:00 ... uh, uh, a part of our cu- our culture and our community. Why do you think that that is this narrative, and how d- how does that narrative get reshaped? Because that narrative of that the only reason why people want socialism is because they want a free ride.

Dr. Cornel West 47:13 Right, right. Ooh, that's a wonderful question. Well, the one is that, um, you have to... First, we have to listen very closely to our right-wing brothers and sisters, and conservatives and middlers, because oftentimes, I mean, they're human beings like anybody else, and they've had their own arguments. I don't think they have strong ones, but they have their own arguments.

Joe Rogan 47:35 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 47:35 So the first thing you'd say about that is, "What makes you think that the well-to-do don't have free rides?" What is inheriting wealth all about? What-

Joe Rogan 47:48 Oh, inheriting wealth is free ride.

Dr. Cornel West 47:50 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 47:50 It's all it is.

Dr. Cornel West 47:51 What is free... The connections of getting into the prep schools-

Joe Rogan 47:56 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 47:56 ... and the Ivy League schools and so forth? Even though they work, it's still a kind of free ride.

Joe Rogan 48:01 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 48:01 So if they're preoccupied with this issue of being free ride, you, you, you, we, we tell them, "Let's make sure that people do work hard..."

Joe Rogan 48:10 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 48:10 "... and sacrifice, and therefore, in some way, deserve what they have." Now, if just based on that principle, the upper echelons of American society would be indicted.

Joe Rogan 48:23 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 48:24 Deeply indicted. And it's not a matter of hating the rich, because I don't believe in hating anybody individually. I hate greed.

Joe Rogan 48:30 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 48:31 I hate injustice. I hate White supremacy. I hate anti-Jewish prejudice. I hate anti-Palestinian prejudice. I hate patriarchy and so forth. But the human beings, where these ideologies filter through-

Joe Rogan 48:42 Hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 48:43 ... are still human beings.

Joe Rogan 48:44 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 48:44 You see what I mean? So that's the beginning of it. Now, of course, part of the question here is, has to do with, uh, they'll say, "Well, we wasted this money on the poor." You say, "Well, wait a minute."Donald Trump just passed a $750 billion military budget. Democrats voted for it, too. How much waste is in the military? Why is 60 cent of every $1.00 coming out of the federal bullet- budget tied to the military? Why is it no close oversight and accountability of it? How come American people don't know about the four countries that we're bombing or assisting other countries in bombing? And we can go right down, Pakistan, Afghanistan-

Joe Rogan 49:32 Yemen.

Dr. Cornel West 49:32 ... Yemen, absolutely. Mali, Niger, Somalia, uh, um, Iraq. I mean, we can go on and on and on.

Joe Rogan 49:40 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 49:41 How come we don't know about the 4,800 military units, 587 around the world? We got US Special Operations in 128 countries. There's only 197 in the world, right? What about the soldiers who die? Hardly any talk about it. What about the innocent people we kill? Hardly any talk about it. What about the drones that-

Joe Rogan 50:03 Mmm.

Dr. Cornel West 50:03 ... we're still dropping? And not always on military combatants, but innocent people, children.

Joe Rogan 50:10 Almost primarily on innocent people.

Dr. Cornel West 50:12 And it go, sometimes, even disproportionately. Those are precious people, too.

Joe Rogan 50:17 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 50:18 And they have the same value as anybody in Ethiopia, America, Chicago, and so forth.

Joe Rogan 50:23 Do you feel that drones, drones are particularly insidious because it doesn't even seem like it's really happening because it's a robot doing it?

Dr. Cornel West 50:29 Exactly. Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 50:30 And it's done remotely.

Dr. Cornel West 50:31 Long distance-

Joe Rogan 50:32 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 50:32 ... remotely.

Joe Rogan 50:33 You don't see it.

Dr. Cornel West 50:33 No human sensitivity at all.

Joe Rogan 50:36 Yeah. Apparently, the PTSD that's suffered by those re- remote drone operators is pretty profound, too.

Dr. Cornel West 50:41 You can understand that.

Joe Rogan 50:42 Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 50:43 You can deeply under- And yet, no serious public conversation about it in the country.

Joe Rogan 50:48 Very little.

Dr. Cornel West 50:48 I tell you, I was on the plane the other day and, uh, (smacks lips) the pilot says, uh, "I hope you all are able to take a few minutes of your time because we got a family outside waiting for the body of someone just killed in Afghanistan." It was an Italian family in Chicago. One of the saddest things you ever wanna see in your life, man is a family lined up and they bringing the body out. And you say to yourself, "How come there's no public spotlight on that?" And you see, when I was growing up in the '60s, Walter Cronkite and Vietnam, we saw the bodies.

Joe Rogan 51:26 Well, during the Bush administration, they made it illegal to take photographs of flag-draped coffins.

Dr. Cornel West 51:32 That's exactly right.

Joe Rogan 51:33 Which is unbelievably insane.

Dr. Cornel West 51:35 That's exactly right. And continued under Obama and company.

Joe Rogan 51:39 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 51:39 You know? And you say, "Well, wait a minute. They, they're paying this ultimate cost and the, uh..."

Joe Rogan 51:46 They changed the narrative.

Dr. Cornel West 51:47 And the tears of the, the families and they can't even put a public spotlight on it.

Joe Rogan 51:53 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 51:53 My God. And then, of course, they lie to us as was, "Well, our drones are not in any way killing civilians," and they end up killing an American, and they have a press conference the same day and economic compensation for the family the rest of their life. I agree with that. But what about the drones that are killing folk in Yemen and Somalia and Pakistan and Afghanistan? Oh, they deny they're even killing them.

Joe Rogan 52:17 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 52:17 You say, "Quit lying." That's John Brennan and company. He's in both Bush and Obama administration.

Joe Rogan 52:23 Mmm.

Dr. Cornel West 52:23 You see? How do we keep track of those in the name of what? Democratic accountability.

Joe Rogan 52:29 Oh, yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 52:29 That's not socialism. Socialism is democratic accountability, but there's been socialism without democratic accountability, and what do you get? Tyranny. That's Soviet Union and company. But when you get capitalism with no democratic accountability, what do you get? You get a predatory capitalism with gross wealth inequality and everyday people, the masses of poor and working people, fighting for crumbs.

Joe Rogan 52:54 And there's also this denial of it amongst the most patriotic. They don't wanna consider it. They don't wanna, like, factor it in to what we think of when we think of America the great.

Dr. Cornel West 53:04 That's true.

Joe Rogan 53:04 You don't, you want, you don't wanna factor in those innocent people, which I... When was the last time we checked it was in the 90%, right? Of people that are, that are killed by drones are actually innocent.

Dr. Cornel West 53:15 It, it, it's, it's a sad thing.

Joe Rogan 53:16 Some insane number. It's-

Dr. Cornel West 53:17 But we have to have voices. That's part of the problem, though.

Joe Rogan 53:21 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 53:21 You have to have voices that say, "I don't give a damn for popularity. I'm trying to be wedded to integrity. I wanna put a smile on my grandmama's face in the grave." And she told me as a Christian that if the kingdom of God is within you, then everywhere you go, you oughta leave a little heaven behind. And heaven takes the form of laying bare the humanity of each and every one of us, especially the least of these. That's the 25th chapter of Matthew, right? What you do to the least of these, you do unto me. Who are the least of these? The orphan, the widow, the poor, the children, the elderly, the workers, the gays, the lesbians, the trans, especially the trans these days. They just trash like I don't know what. But the Black folk, the Brown folk, the white poor, the Indigenous peoples, not just here, but around the world.

Joe Rogan 54:17 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 54:18 And what does that mean? That means that you have a, um, a certain kinda calling that will always pit you over against those who are well-adjusted to injustice-

Joe Rogan 54:30 Hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 54:31 ... no matter what color they are.

Joe Rogan 54:33 Well-adjusted to injustice is a very-

Dr. Cornel West 54:36 Well-adjusted to injustice.

Joe Rogan 54:36 ... very beautiful way of putting it.

Dr. Cornel West 54:39 No, it's, uh, that's, that's part of the, uh, see, part, part of the problem with the American dream, it doesn't go far enough.

Joe Rogan 54:45 Mmm.

Dr. Cornel West 54:45 See, American, the American dream says, "I'm gonna work hard, sacrifice, and get mine and live large in some vanilla suburb, maybe with a trophy spouse and feel good about myself."

Joe Rogan 54:57 (laughs) Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 54:58 You say, "Nothing wrong."... with wanting to gain ancestor resources, nothing wrong with working hard, nothing wrong with living where you want to live. But then the question becomes now you're successful, but you're not great. Greatness has to do with he or she who uses their success for something bigger than them.

Joe Rogan 55:15 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 55:16 Service to others, service to the least of these. So that the great ones, like the Richard Pryors, you see? Not a matter of how much money he made, it's a matter of his soul in his comedy and the love that he left in his legacy. Martin Luther King Junior died basically a broke man, gave every penny that he won from the Nobel Prize to the movement. Malcolm X only, only had $150 in his pocket. Who cares about the richest Black person in 1968 and 1965? That's ephemera. We talking about deep joy, deep love. We will remember those who raised their voices and said, "In the name of something bigger than my ego and my narcissism and my hedonism." And we all have it. We all have it, so you know, we have to always be self-critical in that regard. We all fall short. You know, the great Samuel Beckett, another great, another great comic writer, "Try again, fail again, fail better."

Joe Rogan 56:12 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 56:13 That's the story of our lives.

Joe Rogan 56:14 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 56:14 Try again, fail again, fail better. But even in failing better, we can at least raise our voices and try to con- connect it to movements and, and organizations and structures. And thank God, we still do have a, uh, a significant number of decent people in the American empire, they just feel powerless.

Joe Rogan 56:34 Well, there's this conversation-

Dr. Cornel West 56:35 They feel helpless.

Joe Rogan 56:35 ... that's happening now, right? And th- this is a conversation that's based on the information, uh, of, uh, recognizing the fact that so many people have wasted deep aspects of their lives, long, long lives-

Dr. Cornel West 56:47 It's true.

Joe Rogan 56:47 ... pursuing meaningless things.

Dr. Cornel West 56:49 That's true. That is very true.

Joe Rogan 56:50 And, and recognizing that th- there is a lot of injustice in this world, and that people are afraid of admitting that injustice, because then they would somehow or another be complicit in the enactment of that injustice. I think it's one of those things that people are terrified of when you talk about doing something to reinvigorate poor and disenfranchised communities.

Dr. Cornel West 57:11 That's right. That's right.

Joe Rogan 57:12 They, they start talking about the welfare state or, "Well, this is not how things should be done, and people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps," not recognizing that everybody doesn't start at the same starting line.

Dr. Cornel West 57:22 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 57:23 There's a concept that I've been talking about, that if you really cared about America, you would want less losers. Like, what is the best way-

Dr. Cornel West 57:30 That's a nice way of putting it.

Joe Rogan 57:30 What's the best way to love America? Well, you'd want more winners. You'd want everybody to be a winner.

Dr. Cornel West 57:35 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 57:36 Like, if we have these disenfranchised parts of this country that have been that way forever ... There was a guy that's been on this podcast who was a police officer in Baltimore, his name is Michael Wood. And, uh, he, uh, talked about how when he was a police officer, he recognized the systemic racism and how, how crippling it was. And one of the things that he recognized was, they found a piece of paper that was a blotter report of, uh, all the different various crimes that were committed from the 1970s. It was a, a, a, some year in 1970. It was the exact same crimes in the exact same communities-

Dr. Cornel West 58:08 Wow.

Joe Rogan 58:08 ... that he was dealing with then. And he was-

Dr. Cornel West 58:10 Generation after generation.

Joe Rogan 58:11 ... recognizing the redlining, about the fact that there was areas where Black people were not allowed to buy homes, that they kept them in these communities, the same crimes kept occurring in the same places.

Dr. Cornel West 58:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:21 And all they were doing was going in there and arresting people.

Dr. Cornel West 58:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:23 And nothing changed and nothing was fixed. And as a police officer, he was realizing and, uh, uh, just becoming a- aware of the fact that this is ... He's a part of the system. He didn't want to be a part of the system anymore, but he was a part of the system that is creating this problem. When you d- ag- address that, though, the people that don't suffer in those communities, that aren't a part of that community, there's a natural inclination to resist.

Dr. Cornel West 58:49 Oh, that's true. That's true.

Joe Rogan 58:50 And it's because they don't want to do anything. They don't, they don't want to think they're responsible, they don't want to think they're a part of it, they don't even want to discuss it.

Dr. Cornel West 58:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:57 Even discussing it, you feel resistance.

Dr. Cornel West 59:00 They want to end the state of denial.

Joe Rogan 59:02 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 59:02 Trying to avoid and trying to evade. No, it's, that's very, that's very real. That's very real. But you know, it also works, uh, within communities of people of color. And this is, again, why I think we have to resist any monolithic char- or homogeneous characterizations of people, you see? So that anytime you talk about White supremacists, you've got the John Browns. And you know, Mary Ellen Pleasant, who was a, um, a Black woman who was worth $347 million in the 1840s.

Joe Rogan 59:35 Whoa.

Dr. Cornel West 59:36 She's called the Mother of Human Rights in California.

Joe Rogan 59:38 What did she do?

Dr. Cornel West 59:39 She mated a rich White brother and he died on her. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:42 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 59:43 So she ended up with millions of dollars. First thing she did, she gave John Brown a million dollars.

Joe Rogan 59:49 Wow.

Dr. Cornel West 59:50 John Brown had a note-

Joe Rogan 59:51 He probably didn't even notice it.

Dr. Cornel West 59:52 ... from her in his pocket-

Joe Rogan 59:54 Wow.

Dr. Cornel West 59:55 ... when he was at Harpers Ferry. That's how he survived.

Joe Rogan 59:58 Wow.

Dr. Cornel West 59:58 You see? Now, John Brown was killing innocent people, I think that's wrong. I don't believe in innocent people, no matter who they are, no matter what color. But at the same time, John Brown had a love of Black people, much deeper than many Black people have with themselves, 'cause he was willing to die for Black people. But the same is true within, let's say, Black communities, you've got, okay, 1% of the population in America who owns 41% of the wealth, you got three individuals who have wealth equivalent to 160 million fellow citizens. But within the Black community, the top 1% of Black folk have over 70% of the wealth. So that means you got a lot of precious Jamals and Laticias out there, who don't ... Are, who are told to live vicariously through the lives of Black celebrities.

Joe Rogan 1:00:40 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:00:41 So it's all about representation, rather than substantive transformation. You get that in politicians, you know, "You got a Black president, all of y'all must be free. Isn't that a beautiful thing? Live through him."

Joe Rogan 1:00:55 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:00:56 "Live through the family. Beautiful achievement. Magnificent achievement."But it's not about symbolic representation only, this is about fundamental transformation. So it's a challenge. Mary Ellen Pleasant and others, and Martin King and others, are challengers for those of us who do have some resources, to still raise our voices. Because you can be Black and highly well adjusted to injustice; economically, in terms of race, and so forth, you see? And the same is true, you can be brown, you can be ra- So it's not just a matter of looking for that one individual who represents, it's a matter of connecting that representation to fundamental transformation. If there's no fundamental transformation, you end up with a whole generation of peacocks.

Joe Rogan 1:01:44 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:01:45 Look at me, look at me, look at me. All about foliage. And what does that do? That falls directly into the culture of superficial spectacle.

Joe Rogan 1:01:53 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:01:54 Last thing we need is just spectacle with no substance in that way.

Joe Rogan 1:02:00 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:02:00 And this is a battle within, uh, within the communities of peoples of color, because it's not, it's not gonna be a matter of just pointing out White supremacy. Of course White supremacy is a f- fundamental foundation and part of the country. It's not the only foundation, 'cause you got resistance to White supremacy. Y- you got Lydia Maria Child, she wrote a book in 1834 called An Appeal For That Class of Americans Called Africans. It was deeply influenced by one of the greatest works ever written at that time by David Walker, Appeal to Colored Citizens of the World. She's a White sister, she is as vanilla as Doris Day in the 1830s, a fundamental part of the Black Freedom movement. Right?

Joe Rogan 1:02:45 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:02:45 Well you see, those folk need to be lifted up, because what does that do? That exposes our humanity in terms of the choices we make, not just the skin color we have. And I would say the same thing in terms of gender. The brothers who are fundamentally concerned about breaking the back of patriarchy, when we know patriarchy is shot through us 'cause we grew up in the (laughs) 1950s and '60s. No man escapes it. But you try to reconquer it all. And the same is true with our precious gays and lesbians and trans folk, you see? T- t- to be decent human beings who make moral choices. See, I believe in the primacy of the moral and the spiritual, the centrality of the artistic, especially the musical and especially the comics, as the vanguards who represent a freedom and a courage and a vision to connect us as human beings. 'Cause you can't really be a comic with a wholesale Nazi ideology.

Joe Rogan 1:03:45 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 1:03:46 Now you can be a Nazi genius like Martin Heidegger, who was a great philosopher and a genius and a thug when it come to pol- when it comes to politics, you see? But a comic has got to be able to be open enough to deal with the incongruity and inconsistency and the sheer absurdity of it all.

Joe Rogan 1:04:04 You talked about moments of freedom earlier, and I, I recognize that as, like, one of the greatest things that you ever see when someone's on stage-

Dr. Cornel West 1:04:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:11 ... and they're killing, there's moments where everyone's together.

Dr. Cornel West 1:04:14 That's right.

Joe Rogan 1:04:14 They're all together, locked up in the laughter. And they're all together, there, there's a sense-

Dr. Cornel West 1:04:19 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 1:04:19 ... of community that you share with the people that are in the room.

Dr. Cornel West 1:04:22 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 1:04:22 It does bring people together, even if it's for brief moments, for a few seconds, or-

Dr. Cornel West 1:04:26 Yeah, but you know, moments-

Joe Rogan 1:04:28 ... as long as it takes.

Dr. Cornel West 1:04:28 ... moments are not to be trashed.

Joe Rogan 1:04:31 No.

Dr. Cornel West 1:04:31 Life consists of moments.

Joe Rogan 1:04:33 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 1:04:34 You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 1:04:34 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 1:04:35 Definitely. And, and see, it's, in a democracy, you see, it's those moments that constitute the memory of what could be-

Joe Rogan 1:04:47 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:04:47 ... as opposed to what's in place. You know, the great August Wilson, uh, the great b- playwright, Black playwright, deeply influenced, he said, by the blues, Baraka, and Bearden, Roman Bearden, the great painter, and B- Am- Amiri Baraka, of course, from Newark, like yourself.

Joe Rogan 1:05:02 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:05:02 Just like Sarah Vaughan and Philip Roth, right there from Newark. He used to say that performance authorizes alternative realities for the audience that gets them to unsettle their conventional perceptions of the world.

Joe Rogan 1:05:19 Whoa.

Dr. Cornel West 1:05:20 And that's what great artists and great comic... But that's what, that's what you, th- that's what you do in Strange Times though, brother.

Joe Rogan 1:05:26 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 1:05:26 That, that you bring in the fact that we're living in such a grim moment, and what I'd call, you know, an American empire in decline. And we all need to call for its regeneration, its democratic revitalization and regeneration. But-

Joe Rogan 1:05:39 How, how do we do that?

Dr. Cornel West 1:05:40 Only by example, man, because there's a difference between, uh, what the great Roberto Unger calls, um, biographical time and historical time. All of us are born in circumstances not of our own choosing, we're only here for so long. We all have insecurities, anxieties and fears knowing that our bodies will undergo extinction one day very soon. And therefore, to deal with those insecurities and fears and anxieties, you have to have certain structures of feeling and value that give you some sense of worthwhileness as you move through time, from mother's womb to tomb. Right? And it's only in biographical time, 'cause we only got one life this side of the Jordan, and there's no person who's a messiah. Now they, people will tell you they are, but you say, "Okay, just go with it."

Joe Rogan 1:06:27 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 1:06:27 You know, be self-deceived and drink your cognac and keep moving.

Joe Rogan 1:06:31 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 1:06:31 (laughs) 'Cause there's no messiahs out there, there's no saviors out there. There's no messiahs in groups, there's no messiahs in collectivities, there's only lives to be lived. We back to Chekhov again.

Joe Rogan 1:06:43 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:06:44 Lives to be lived, acknowledging things were in place before we arrives, so therefore we ought to have gratitude for the love that we received. I mean, th- that's how I begin my, my whole life. I am who I am because somebody loved me. It's Mom, it's Dad, it's my brothers, my sisters.... it's my friends, right? And I don't deserve it. And I have to somehow follow in Ashford Wins- Ashford and Simpson when they say, "Send it." Like a puff of smoke, you got to let it go. Spread whatever love, justice, by example. Examples are the gold cart of justice. That's a wonderful line in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

Joe Rogan 1:07:27 Examples-

Dr. Cornel West 1:07:28 Examples are the gold cart of judgment. The judgments we make are predicated on the examples that we have. And we d- must have examples of greatness. If you're gonna be a classical composer, you better study some Ludwig Beethoven.

Joe Rogan 1:07:45 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:07:46 If you're going to be a serious artist of, of musical theater, you better study a genius who's still alive named Stephen Sondheim.

Joe Rogan 1:07:54 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:07:55 From West Side Story, The Company, to Sunday in the Park with George, to Passion, to oh, Sweeney Todd, across the board. Not to imitate, but just to know what greatness is in your genre. If you're in hip hop, you better study some Rakim.

Joe Rogan 1:08:10 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:08:10 Oh, you better study some-

Joe Rogan 1:08:12 Follow the leader.

Dr. Cornel West 1:08:12 ... that's, pu- 2Pac. That's right. You better study-

Joe Rogan 1:08:15 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:08:15 ... the folk who are great. It's the same way, you know, you study-

Joe Rogan 1:08:17 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:08:17 ... Prior and-

Joe Rogan 1:08:18 Sure.

Dr. Cornel West 1:08:19 ... Bruce, Lenny Bruce, and the others.

Joe Rogan 1:08:21 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 1:08:21 Roseanne Barr and the others.

Joe Rogan 1:08:22 Well, that's one of the more important parts of being a person, right, is to really ch- your diet of what you take in, in terms of w- what, whether, whether it's your art, or whether it's-

Dr. Cornel West 1:08:33 That's right.

Joe Rogan 1:08:33 ... your education, try to take in the, the best and most inspirational and the most spectacular versions of human, uh, human endeavors.

Dr. Cornel West 1:08:41 Absolutely. See, that's one of the reasons why sports is a kind of-

Joe Rogan 1:08:45 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:08:45 ... American religion.

Joe Rogan 1:08:46 Sure.

Dr. Cornel West 1:08:47 Because in sports or whatever form, I know that you got the, is it the taekwondo thing?

Joe Rogan 1:08:53 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:08:54 Yeah, I mean, you... And you understand the role of excellence, what the Greeks call arete, that, that plays. But to be able just to turn on our television and see Brother LeBron James do-

Joe Rogan 1:09:05 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:09:05 ... his thing, that's another context that cuts across race, class-

Joe Rogan 1:09:12 Sure.

Dr. Cornel West 1:09:12 ... gender, and so forth. LeBron, how you doing them memories of Mike Jordan and Jerry West-

Joe Rogan 1:09:18 Well, that's why Ali was so important.

Dr. Cornel West 1:09:20 ... and Ali and so many.

Joe Rogan 1:09:21 When he sat out those three years in the late 1960s-

Dr. Cornel West 1:09:23 Oh, yeah. Oh, my God.

Joe Rogan 1:09:23 ... because he wouldn't go to Vietnam.

Dr. Cornel West 1:09:25 Courage, man. Mu- Muhammad Ali, along with Richard Prior, the richest, it was the freest Black, Black man of the 20th century. Uh, but see, the, the boxing is so crucial, as well as the, uh, the, uh, the other sports, because for Black people, every other sphere in the society is unfair and unfree. But when you get in that ring and the referee is fair-

Joe Rogan 1:09:49 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:09:50 ... you finally get fair competition.

Joe Rogan 1:09:52 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:09:52 That's why Jack Johnson was such a threat. You remember when-

Joe Rogan 1:09:54 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 1:09:55 ... Jack Johnson-

Joe Rogan 1:09:55 Sure.

Dr. Cornel West 1:09:55 ... was knockingThe white brothers out?

Joe Rogan 1:09:56 (laughs) Sure.

Dr. Cornel West 1:09:57 There would be racial riots against-

Joe Rogan 1:09:58 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:09:58 ... Black folk, killing Black folk all across the country. Don't you get the idea-

Joe Rogan 1:10:02 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:10:03 ... that just because he beat the white man in the context of fairness-

Joe Rogan 1:10:06 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:10:06 ... that you can beat anybody?

Joe Rogan 1:10:08 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 1:10:08 And that goes all the way to Muhammad Ali. It's very interesting, you know, the time I spent with another genius named Prince, who we miss so, so, so very much.

Joe Rogan 1:10:16 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:10:16 There's nobody like him. But he, like Miles Davis, viewed Jack Johnson as his favorite Black man.

Joe Rogan 1:10:22 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:10:22 Isn't that interesting?

Joe Rogan 1:10:23 Well, he was a pioneer because there was none before him. Jack Johnson was the-

Dr. Cornel West 1:10:28 Jack Johnson was out there-

Joe Rogan 1:10:28 ... literally the first.

Dr. Cornel West 1:10:29 ... all by himself.

Joe Rogan 1:10:30 By himself.

Dr. Cornel West 1:10:31 In many ways. There was one, I think, but not as famous.

Joe Rogan 1:10:33 Not as famous.

Dr. Cornel West 1:10:33 But in terms of the spotlight.

Joe Rogan 1:10:35 Yeah, there was other great boxers that were-

Dr. Cornel West 1:10:36 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 1:10:36 ... Black at the time, but he, he-

Dr. Cornel West 1:10:38 But he just took it to a-

Joe Rogan 1:10:39 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:10:39 ... heightened...

Joe Rogan 1:10:40 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:10:40 ... and leave the country and so forth-

Joe Rogan 1:10:42 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:10:43 ... you see? And what Muhammad Ali, you know, you got someone who was just himself in the context of a social movement that was taking place at the same time. So he would associate himself with the Black freedom movement called the Civil Rights Movement. He joined the Nation of Islam under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Then he became, then he became very close to Malcolm X, and had to deal with the split in its own way, and ultimately becomes, you know, a more orthodox Muslim, but at the same time, recognizes his political consciousness was tied to the Nation of Islam and so forth.

Joe Rogan 1:11:21 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:11:21 And for him to do that, I mean, to be associated with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, uh, th- the Nation of Islam probably had about 0.1% approval-

Joe Rogan 1:11:32 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:11:32 ... in the country, and probably about 4% or 5% in the Black community, 'cause at that time, Black folk and Black Christians were just afraid-

Joe Rogan 1:11:41 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:11:42 ... of the Black Muslims. But it was Malcolm X who, i- in all of his genius, made it so broadly conceived that even Christians like myself, I'm a f- Jesus-loving free Black man, but I can't live my life without Malcolm-

Joe Rogan 1:11:57 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:11:58 ... you see? And he's Muslim to the core.

Joe Rogan 1:12:00 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 1:12:00 He's praying five times a day. You know what I mean? That's just the beginning of it, you see?

Joe Rogan 1:12:03 Well, he's also very complicated too, because his grandfather was white.

Dr. Cornel West 1:12:07 Well, his grandfather was white. His father was a Garveyite. His-

Joe Rogan 1:12:09 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:12:09 ... his mother w- was tied to the interracial, but her father was a Garveyite who was killed. His mother, of course, put in the, uh, in an insane asylum. He's a fo- foster child. The great-

Joe Rogan 1:12:18 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:12:19 ... stories he tells in The Autobiography of Malcolm X., one of the great classics, really, a memoir on the history of American civilization. But he-

Joe Rogan 1:12:26 But he's very misunderstood in terms of-

Dr. Cornel West 1:12:28 Yeah, Malcom-

Joe Rogan 1:12:28 ... like the, the cultural narrative of who he was.

Dr. Cornel West 1:12:31 Absolutely. No, it, it, it's true. He used to say, "Sincerity is my only credential."

Joe Rogan 1:12:37 Ooh.

Dr. Cornel West 1:12:38 Isn't that powerful?

Joe Rogan 1:12:39 Damn.

Dr. Cornel West 1:12:40 Sincerity. So when he said, "White men and women are devils," and he believed it. Now, he's wrong. No, white brothers and sisters is not devils. Then he says, "I changed my mind. They're not devils. They, too many got devilish behavior." He's right.

Joe Rogan 1:13:00 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 1:13:00 (laughs) 'Cause that's true. All, too many of all of us have devilish behavior-

Joe Rogan 1:13:03 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:13:03 ... you see? But when he said the first thing, he said what he meant, he meant what he said. When he said the second thing, he said what he meant, he meant what he just said.

Joe Rogan 1:13:10 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 1:13:10 How many folk do we have like that-

Joe Rogan 1:13:12 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 1:13:12 ... today?

Joe Rogan 1:13:13 That aren't scared to change their mind.

Dr. Cornel West 1:13:15 And, and speak what's deep in their souls.

Joe Rogan 1:13:17 Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:13:17 You see? It is, uh... See, one of the great gifts of, um, (smacks lips) the artist, and, and I, I speak about this especially in the Black tradition, is what we could call soulful kenosis, K-E-N-O-S-I-S. Now, kenosis means self-giving, self-donating, and self-emptying. So if you go to a James Brown concert, that brother goes for four and a half hours, and gives everything, every fiber of his being. And at the end of every concert, what does he say? "I'm an extension of you. You're an extension of me."

Joe Rogan 1:13:57 Mm, yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:13:57 "I don't exist without you." Did we fail to play a song that somebody came to hear and their sister hollers out, "You didn't play 'Soulf... Power,' and he say, 'Hit it, Bootsie.'"

Joe Rogan 1:14:11 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 1:14:11 I got to play that song 'cause his service, you see?

Joe Rogan 1:14:15 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 1:14:15 Al Green, go to Al Green concert, that brother can't walk-

Joe Rogan 1:14:20 Hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:14:20 ... after the concert. He's given everything from falsetto to tenor to everything.

Joe Rogan 1:14:26 Well, ultimately, that's what happened with Prince, right? I mean, Prince had such incredible-

Dr. Cornel West 1:14:29 Prince gave everything.

Joe Rogan 1:14:29 ... pain in his hips.

Dr. Cornel West 1:14:30 With the hip jumping off pianos.

Joe Rogan 1:14:33 That's-

Dr. Cornel West 1:14:33 I saw him jump off-

Joe Rogan 1:14:34 That's how he got hooked on pain pills.

Dr. Cornel West 1:14:35 That's exactly right.

Joe Rogan 1:14:36 And that's what killed him, ultimately.

Dr. Cornel West 1:14:37 That's exactly... John Coltrane blowing his horn as if his neck is gonna snap every night.

Joe Rogan 1:14:44 Mm. Yup.

Dr. Cornel West 1:14:44 And then he gave a concert November 1967, '66, right before he died in July '67. He drops the horn, start beating on his chest, man.

Joe Rogan 1:14:54 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 1:14:54 Rashid Ali said, "What's happening, Trane?"

Joe Rogan 1:14:56 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 1:14:57 He said, "I'm just giving the people all that I can, and the... now them horns getting in the way."

Joe Rogan 1:15:01 Wow. Oh, wow.

Dr. Cornel West 1:15:02 You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 1:15:03 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 1:15:03 But don't you feel that when you walk off the stage, man? When you walk off the stage at strange times, man, you've given everything, all that Joe is at that moment. Now, what is that? You see, that is the example of a love supreme that is there to serve the people. Now, you gonna make a living too. They gonna get paid. You gonna get paid and so forth, but that's not the primary thing.

Joe Rogan 1:15:28 Hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:15:28 That's not it.

Joe Rogan 1:15:29 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 1:15:29 See, Curtis Mayfield sings the, sings his songs that the radio won't play. When he's told not to go to the rallies and he shows up with his guitar anyway and plays We Are Winner-

Joe Rogan 1:15:40 Hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:15:41 ... that's self-giving, self-emptying. And I tell that to the young musicians these days, 'cause a lot of... You know, in, in the culture of spectacle, nowadays, shit, you get these performers, they just show up and think they ought to get a standing ovation for 10 minutes. Say, "No, negro-"

Joe Rogan 1:15:57 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 1:15:57 "... sing a song first, man. Shit."

Joe Rogan 1:16:00 Well, peacocking-

Dr. Cornel West 1:16:00 No, this ain't no spectacle and peacock. We want... You sang something that's gonna stir our souls the way Sam Cooke and Johnny Taylor-

Joe Rogan 1:16:06 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 1:16:06 ... and Lou Rawls when the soul stirs, did.

Joe Rogan 1:16:08 It's the work.

Dr. Cornel West 1:16:09 Now, we, we, we respect that genius and so forth. See, Beyoncé is fascinating in this regard because she's a genius. There's no doubt about it. She's, I think she's the greatest entertainer of our day. I've been very critical of her because there's a sense in which she's still tied to the cultural superficial spectacle-

Joe Rogan 1:16:25 Hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:16:25 ... in terms of the way she looks and girls in formation and so forth.

Joe Rogan 1:16:29 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:16:29 But at the same time, she's also grounded in the tradition. And there's a new mo- movie that she made. You see that?

Joe Rogan 1:16:34 No.

Dr. Cornel West 1:16:35 Homecoming?

Joe Rogan 1:16:36 No, I haven't seen it.

Dr. Cornel West 1:16:37 Oh, man. Oh, man, you gotta see it. That's one of the greatest performative films ever made, man.

Joe Rogan 1:16:40 Really?

Dr. Cornel West 1:16:41 When she goes to co- she goes to Coachella, and she shows up Coachella with all of the bands of Black colleges, and performs all of her songs with all of them moving 150, 200 of 'em.

Joe Rogan 1:16:55 Wow.

Dr. Cornel West 1:16:56 And then reflections of Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin. Oh, no, Beyoncé. See, I was wrong about Beyoncé in a certain sense.

Joe Rogan 1:17:03 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 1:17:03 Now, I'm telling you, that sister, she brings a tradition with her that is the highest level of both respect and of excellence.

Joe Rogan 1:17:14 Well, maybe she changed who she is because of criticism like yours.

Dr. Cornel West 1:17:17 Well, ge- it's just hard, you know, I've never met her, you know, and everything-

Joe Rogan 1:17:19 But it reflects for sure.

Dr. Cornel West 1:17:21 ... so it's hard to say. It's, it really is hard to say, but, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:17:22 When people hear things like that, it does make them-

Dr. Cornel West 1:17:25 I, I think that, I think that's, that, that could be the case. I mean, she married to a genius.

Joe Rogan 1:17:29 For sure.

Dr. Cornel West 1:17:29 Well, Jay-Z too, and of course, the kids and, and her lovely parents and, and family and thing. You never know what goes on in the mind and heart and soul of-

Joe Rogan 1:17:38 What was-

Dr. Cornel West 1:17:38 ... a great artist like Beyoncé. Uh, it's hard to say.

Joe Rogan 1:17:40 What was it that led you to be critical initially?

Dr. Cornel West 1:17:43 Oh, just because I'm, I'm very concerned about young folk. You know, I've, I've made three, uh, three smoking weird albums with Prince.

Joe Rogan 1:17:48 Yes.

Dr. Cornel West 1:17:49 You know, make, make, made a single with Prince. He was, uh... He would not sample any of, uh, allow any of his music to be sampled by hip hop artists. He was very hard on hip hop. But when we asked him for spoken word, he said yes. And thank God we did. Same is true-

Joe Rogan 1:18:00 That's amazing.

Dr. Cornel West 1:18:00 ... for the greatest soul singer of his generation, Gerald Levert, who really deserves (sniffs) so much more attention, uh, who's on the album and so forth. So I spent a lot of time with young folk in studios. Just did a thing with Tef Poe, one of the great artists coming out of, uh, of Ferguson and the American Empire on Black Julian 2. Uh, E-40 of, um, coming out of Vallejo, who I have great respect for. Uh, I've been blessed to do a number of things with the, with the young folk. But I tell them, I say, "I'm old school, y'all. You need to know that." See, we into originals, not into copies. Do you see? That we into lifting every voice that's soulful so that we stir souls. We don't wanna just titillate bodies.

Joe Rogan 1:18:39 Hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:18:40 We don't want just stimulation of body edges. Now, I'm not a Puritan, so, you know, I believe in body stimulation at the right time.

Joe Rogan 1:18:49 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 1:18:49 You know what I mean? I ain't got nothing against orgasm, but the thing is-

Joe Rogan 1:18:53 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 1:18:53 But the thing is, you know, you can't just orgiastically move through life.

Joe Rogan 1:18:56 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 1:18:57 You got to have context. You got to have tradition.

Joe Rogan 1:18:59 Stir souls.

Dr. Cornel West 1:18:59 You got to stir souls in that way. And so I put a lot of pressure on 'em. O- o- one of the things that I bring a lot of, uh, critique to bear is, see, I am deeply shaped by The Dramatics, The Delfonics, The Main Ingredient, The Whispers, Lakeside.... James Brown's band, George Clinton, Bootsy's band. I'm shaped by The Emotions. I'm shaped by The Jones Girls, The Miracles, The Temptations, Marvelettes. All those were groups that expressed their soulful self-emptying in a form of sweetness. See, I believe in sweetness and kindness, and we're losing that. Y- I, I go to the young folk, "Where is your dramatics?" Why is it we don't have large numbers of groups that sing in tune and w- with a beauty, and a sweetness, and a gentleness, and a kindness? When you hear the voice of David Ruffin sing Ain't Too Proud to Beg, the vulnerability, the flexibility of it, the intensity of it, and it goes straight to your soul. That's why the people keep listening to-

Joe Rogan 1:20:12 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:20:13 ... David Ruffin from Whynot, Mississippi. I would say the same with Ted Mills of Blue Magic. Uh, I get the young folk, "Let's just stop. Let's just listen to Ted Mills of the Blue Magic."

Joe Rogan 1:20:25 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:20:25 Let's just listen to Russell Thompkins Junior of The Stylistics. "Oh, Brother West, you just old school. You just nostalgic." No. S- love, sweetness, gentleness, never go out of style. As my brother would put it, Clip, "Never go out of style." Everybody needs sweetness, kindness, gentleness. Black music used to be the fundamental conveyor of that sweetness, so that The Bing Crosbys, The Frank Sinatras, these are great, great geniuses themselves. You ask Frank, "Who were you inspired by?" "Billie Holiday." "Oh, you talking about the genius from Baltimore City, Billy?" "That's right." "You're an Italian working class brother from Hoboken?" "That's right, 'cause I'm tied to excellence and sweetness."

Joe Rogan 1:21:12 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:21:12 Now, Frank Sinatra, he sings some sweet s- gentle songs now.

Joe Rogan 1:21:17 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:21:18 But the younger generation these days, they've got Jaheim and some others who can, who are beautiful, don't get me wrong, but it's smaller and smaller. But it's partly a matter of the oligarchs in the recording industry.

Joe Rogan 1:21:29 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:21:30 See, The Boyz II Men, in a way, is the last great group singing, uh, per- performative act that connected to The Dramatics and Delfonics that I'm talking about.

Joe Rogan 1:21:42 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:21:42 You say, "Well, what happens?" Well, they think they can make more money with just one Negro with a microphone running their mouth. So you get a genius like Kanye, deeply confused politically. We won't go into that right now.

Joe Rogan 1:21:55 (laughs)

Dr. Cornel West 1:21:56 (laughs) All this Trump connection.

Joe Rogan 1:21:58 Yeah.

Dr. Cornel West 1:21:58 We need some serious pushing on that, brother. But they'd rather have a individual isolated, easier to control in the industry. And the same oligarchs run live performance, radio and the music and the products. You know how they've now undergone this fundamental transformation in the industry, especially given the new technology and social media. So that I, I tell the young folk, I say, "You know, I could not have grown up without the sweetness of those rhythm and blues groups." Now, I know the circumstances are different, but where do you get your sweetness from-

Joe Rogan 1:22:36 Mm.

Dr. Cornel West 1:22:36 ... musically? What will be the soundtrack of your freedom movement? Geniuses like Kendrick Lamar provide some of the soundtrack, there's no doubt about that, and then there's others as well, but not enough. Not enough.

Joe Rogan 1:22:53 Not enough soul-stirring music, in your opinion?

Dr. Cornel West 1:22:55 Not enough soul-stirring. There is no Curtis Mayfield.

Joe Rogan 1:22:57 Right.

Dr. Cornel West 1:22:57 Nobody near Aretha, nobody near Smokey Robinson, you know.

Joe Rogan 1:23:00 Do you think that's the, connected to the peacocking and, and-

Dr. Cornel West 1:23:03 Oh, Lord, yes.

Joe Rogan 1:23:04 ... social media and-

Dr. Cornel West 1:23:05 Absolute image, spectacle, money-

Joe Rogan 1:23:08 Yeah, Instagram.

Dr. Cornel West 1:23:09 ... Instagram, push button culture.

Joe Rogan 1:23:10 Standing in front