A Future for Black American Tradition
Glenn Loury
Recently, the public intellectual and economist Glenn Loury kindly invited me to be a guest on his show. To see the full discussion, click here or the image below.
I’m deeply grateful for the chance to engage with Prof. Loury, considering his stature in the academy as well as his role in public discourse. For some, his past or current association with the conservative side of the political spectrum makes him suspicious in their eyes. But such folks may not have—as have I—viewed dozens if not hundreds of hours of his online program, which has featured guests from across the aisle on a wide range of social, political, economic, psychological, and cultural issues. Aside from political labels, what I gravitate to is Glenn Loury’s substance as a man; as a scholar; as a devoted husband, father, and citizen of the United States; and as a proud Black American who desires that we reach our full potential. He is fiercely determined to set right a public discourse that he believes focuses far too much on bias and blame over development, self-determination, and cultural agency.
For over four decades, Glenn Loury has grappled with determining the best stances and perspectives to address and ameliorate the problems and predicaments facing Americans, especially those from his own cultural and ethnic tribe. He's discussed this trajectory on The Glenn Show, and is detailing the same in his autobiography. I respect Mr. Loury’s candor and his open, vulnerable recounting of the mixed motivations and internal battles that became his public stances.
Regular readers of this blog know the contours of my concerns and my passionate desire for cultural growth and cultural intelligence. It’s through such advancement in mind, behavior, and achievement that we can overcome the illiberal forces on the far left and far right that I spoke of in my last post. One element, on the progressive postmodern side of the table, that does more harm than good, is a quasi-religious fetish over the prevalence of racism and the folklore of white supremacy. No need to deny those elements where they exist, but to imply or to suggest that they are present in anywhere near the sweltering heat of oppression as in the past is either dishonest, ignorant of history, or boldfaced opportunism for material or psychic gain. At times, I wonder if some of these anti-racist folks descend into the basements of their minds, where they slowly approach an altar with images of Black body degradation. At this altar of victimization, they chant: “White supremacy, white supremacy! Structural racism. Systemic racism!”
Ever hear the saying “what you focus upon, increases”? I don’t think these folks got that memo. My question to those smoking the crack pipe of racial grievance is the same one that Jim Brown asked Richard Pryor: What you gonna do? Whether pointing to the nightmares of the past or to phantoms or to real obstacles based on race—and, truth be told, class—the question is: what are we going to do individually and collectively to address those obstacles, those challenges?
What I’m going to do right now is invite you to focus on my conversation with Dr. Glenn Loury, a description of which he shared with his Substack subscribers earlier this week. Considering that April is Jazz Appreciation Month and that April 30th is International Jazz Day, I think it’s fitting that Prof. Loury and I began with a detailed look at the Jazz Leadership Project, the very business that powers this blog.
Here’s Prof. Loury’s overview of our intense, probing, and passionate conversation.
Normally I would post one of my bi-weekly conversations with John McWhorter today, but John and I had too many scheduling conflicts to find time to talk this week (he’ll return in two weeks). So in his stead, I’m talking with Greg Thomas, co-founder of the Jazz Leadership Project and senior fellow at the Institute for Cultural Evolution.
We begin by discussing Greg’s work with the Jazz Leadership Project, which uses the principles of jazz to train leaders within businesses and organizations. He’s got some big-league clients, so I was interested to know how Greg implements ideas and strategies from an originally African American art form within a corporate environment. Greg was a friend of the great critic, poet, and novelist Stanley Crouch, and I ask him about how they came to know each other. This leads us to discuss the intellectual lineage that runs from Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray through Crouch. These thinkers were deeply rooted in black art, culture, and politics, but they were also, to varying degrees, skeptical of race as a foundational concept. Is there anyone now continuing this tradition? Greg talks about his own efforts in that direction, but he also notes that the modern Enlightenment tradition, which sought a scientific foundation for knowledge and institutions, has been at least partially displaced by postmodern thought, which seeks to critique the Enlightenment. Greg argues that such a critique is fine, so long as we don’t abandon modernity’s gains. He then introduces some ideas from integral theory and from the philosopher Anthony Appiah that he believes can help reconcile the need both to preserve culturally specific traditions and to claim membership in a broader cosmopolitan community. And finally, Greg tells me about some of his daughter’s impressive accomplishments, including building the We Read Too app.
I really enjoyed having Greg on as a guest, and I hope to have him back on for an episode with both John and I soon.
0:00 Greg’s work with the Jazz Leadership Project
12:35 How does a “black” art form operate within a corporate environment?
17:27 What’s left of the legacy of Ralph Ellison, Albert Murray, and Stanley Crouch?
25:04 Black culture after the postmodern turn
32:45 Greg’s work with the Institute for Cultural Evolution
36:40 Greg’s critique of Black Lives Matter
40:48 Rooted cosmopolitanism and the “Faustian bargain” of whiteness
50:46 Greg’s very accomplished daughter
By Glenn Loury
I look forward to being in conversation with Glenn again, and would love to be in dialogue with John McWhorter also. I invite all reading this post to consider subscribing to Glenn’s Substack, so you can benefit from his past, present, and future content, especially the dialogues he has with thoughtful people, some of whom you may disagree with strongly. I certainly have. But like Glenn, if we can listen to, question, and respond to other citizens with our own well-considered and thoughtful replies, the more we enact the civil, conversational dimension of civic responsibility within our fragile democracy.