Cornel West

Morning Wire

Truth Over Tribe: An Interview with Cornel West & Robert George | 3.15.25

Absolutely. I think that Brother Robbie and I view ourselves as being part and parcel of great traditions, the Socratic legacies of Athens, where we try to muster the courage to think critically for ourselves, to examine ourselves, examine our society and world, do it in the spirit of intellectual humility, but also tenacity.

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So we're in pursuit of the truth, but also the prophetic legacy of Jerusalem, the courage to love. And because justice is what love looks like in public, to actually be justice seekers. But we recognize that truth, capital T, and justice, capital J, they're bigger than any of us, any of our groups, our tribes, our nations, our races, our genders, our sexual orientations.

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So we have a certain sense of acknowledging we're both fallible, but we do believe that we've got to get beyond any kind of narrow relativism and any kind of sense of not being deeply concerned about courage, courage, courage to think, courage to love.

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Yes, I would just add that I think we're living in a moment of such spiritual decay and moral decrepitude. What is not just polarization, what is gangsterization, obsession with the 11th commandment, thou shall not get caught, rather than the 10. And so Robbie and I are simply trying to make the case that integrity

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honesty, decency ought to be at the center of our sense of what it is to have civic virtue. And civic virtue is about public interest in common good. That, again, like Robbie says, goes beyond tribe, goes beyond region, race, gender, or what have you. It's something profoundly human. And we are missing that in this moment.

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And as you know, I actually ran for president, so I have a particular kind of bias here. But it has to do with the lens through which I look at the world. You see, as a Christian and a black freedom fighter, I look at the world through the lens of morality and spirituality. And what I saw was corruption in both parties.

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mendacity in both parties, hypocrisy in both parties, big money playing a disproportionate role in both parties. And I'm concerned about the moral quality and the spiritual content of our citizenry. And if they're feeling cynical, if they're feeling nihilistic, if they're feeling as if they're choosing Thrasymachus over Socrates, might makes right rather than right having its own gravitas.

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then it means we're sliding down a slope toward chaos in terms of both our society and culture as a whole.

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I mean, as a Christian, I'm always tied to ways of spiritual awakening, which have to do with how do we get beyond our egoism and narrow tribalism and be tied to a love with the blood at the bottom of a cross that can transform our lives so we recognize the ways in which we are all connected.

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human beings made in image and likeness of an almighty and loving God and therefore have a fundamental commitment to the least of these.

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Now, I would want to fight for the rights for my Muslim brothers and sisters, my Jewish brothers and sisters, my Buddhist brothers and sisters, my agnostic and atheistic brothers and sisters, because in a democracy, I want them all in the language of Walt Whitman, to be able to enter public space without humiliation and engage in dialogue.

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Absolutely. Thank you so very much for having us. Yeah, thank you, Georgia.

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I fight for people's right to be wrong, theologically and politically, and I do not believe in imposing my Christian views. I argue in that public square and try to make a case, but I don't want to be authoritarian. I don't want to be in any way coercive in that sense.

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I'm not sure that unity is the goal here. I think that in any society, what you really want is to have citizens who cultivate enough character and integrity that they can learn how to disagree with respect. for each other. And with that kind of respect, they're still able to live together even as they disagree and therefore will not generate any kind of species unity.

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And so I think there's a need for a profound moral renaissance and spiritual awakening that gets us beyond the hatred and the greed and that sense of putting each other down, personal attack. What's so wonderful about Brother Robbie and myself is that even though we have deep political and ideological disagreements, I rebel in his humanity, he rebels in mine.

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We recognize that we're seeking a truth and a justice that's bigger than ourselves. And we're able, therefore, to not so much reach a unity, but reach a respect for each other in our common humanity.