[elefanten]

He's a celebrity public intellectual. He hasn't pioneered any ideas or theories. He builds departments and plays a ton of politics (both internally at academic institutions and publicly in the American media ecosystem.)

He's a PR intellectual. He gets way too much air time for his contributions to humanity. A boring figure.

[jjeaff]

I don't know enough about his actual academic contributions to comment on that. But I have seen him in enough public appearances to know he is definitely not "a boring figure".

[AnimalMuppet]

I don't know about that. He's someone I disagree with on many points, but he still speaks in a way that I understand. I may still disagree, but I find myself thinking that many of his points are interesting and/or at least somewhat valid.

[elefanten]

Yeah I was over the top there. He’s smart and prolific. Public intellectuals are important, it just feels like he’s in that class that cares about spectacle over substance.

[robotastronaut]

There is a growing number of academics who might argue that the spectacle can be part of the substance. For quite a long time, spectacle (or even advocacy) has been regarded as problematic in academia, particularly in the sciences. I see a lot of what West does as making “good trouble” that gets really important philosophical issues added to the general discourse