West doesn't necessarily have to use GRE words oor make references to the pragmatic tradition and nineteenth-century Russian literature. If he is going to be a public intellectual, we do have to judge him on the quality of his arguments.

When someone says your work is like “a cover version of a hit performed better by other singers—Barbara Ehrenreich, Joseph Stiglitz, and William Julius Wilson, to name a few,” that's serious.

More seriously, if dude is draping himself in the cloak of the "black prophetic tradition" and we can say wait a minute, you are distorting king and defining prophet however you see fit, we have a major problem.

I agree tnr has a pretty awful track record on black politics but it's one of only 3-4 publications that would have published a piece of this length.