Cornel West — "You've got to be a thermostat rather than a thermometer. A thermostat shapes the…"
You've got to be a thermostat rather than a thermometer. A thermostat shapes the climate of opinion; a thermometer just reflects it.
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More from Cornel West
"We need more prophetic voices, not just polite voices."
"I'm not interested in being popular. I'm interested in being profound."
"To be a revolutionary is to be a person of integrity."
"The greatest challenge of our time is to keep despair at bay."
"There's a certain rhythmic seduction to the word [nigger]."
About Cornel West (born 1953)
American philosopher, public intellectual, and theologian (Race Matters, 1993; Democracy Matters, 2004), now teaching at Union Theological Seminary. Closely associated with Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Harvard Black-studies collaborator) and Toni Morrison (literary peer and friend). For an intellectual contrast, see Larry Summers, economist and former Harvard President — Summers's 2002 confrontation with West over rap-album recordings, summer-school grading, and political activism led to West's high-profile departure from Harvard for Princeton. The clash became the public face of competing visions of Black scholarship — celebrity public intellectual vs traditional academic gatekeeping.