144
PARTISAN REVIEW
he believes "black progressives will playa disproportionate ro le" in the
struggles ahead .
One reads this book mostly in wonder. Mr. West is clearly an intelli–
gent and educated man, but one who, out of ideological conviction,
seems to have committed himself to willful ignorance . Hardly a page
goes by in which an alert reader will not ask, "How does he know
that?" or "But wha t about ... ?" We don't necessaril y read a manifesto
for the footnotes (there are none), but a decent respect for facts would
be nice.
Mr. West's influence on current thought about race is doubtful, but
his influence on current scribbling about lots of other topics is manifest.
The title,
Race Matters,
is a double-hinged phrase, like the bar-room
doors in a Wild West sa loon. Mr. West saunters into the saloon, blood
in his eye, asserting
"Race
(n.)
matters
(v.) !" and the doors swing in. But
then they flap back out to reveal Mr. West's double, the schoo lmaster,
clutching hi s sheaf of pedantic observations,
Race
(n)
Matters
(p I. n.).
The Big Theme Saloon has done brisk business in recent years . We
have Michael Lerner's
Spirit Matters
(2000),
Phillip Go ld 's
Justice Mat–
ters
(1997),
and Bell Hook's
Where We Stand: Class Matters
(2000),
as
well as such titles as
Family Matters
(T993),
Money Matters
(1999)
and
Women's Money Matters
(1999) .
Of course,
Food Matters
(1995)
and
Emotion Matters
(1999),
but
Media Matters
(1996)
too .
Gender Mat–
ters
most recently for Alejandro Lugo and Bill Mourer
(2000).
Our chil–
dren prep for these titles by studying
Nonfiction Matters
(1998)
and
Math Matters!
And when we are weary and ready to rusticate, we have
our choice of six different
Country Matters
(Derleth
1996,
Morgan
1997,
Zsolt
1999,
Mabey
2000,
Osander
2000,
and Korda
200T),
or
just plain old
Mud Matters (1998).
Lest one draw the hasty conclusion that everything matters, a school
counselor named Bev Cobain offers bracing advice in
Why Nothing
Matters Anymore: A Survival Guide for Depressed Teens
(1998).
I
understand why those teens are depressed. They don't know
Why
Marriage Matters
and they haven't heeded the
New York Times
reporter
Tony Schwartz on
What Really Matters.
Life for them is increa ingly
Dark Matters
(subti tl e of
Star Trek Voyager
numbers nineteen
and twenty).
Mr. West is certain ly not responsible for inspiring
all
these titles. The
six different books titled
Country Matters
presumably take their lead
from Hamlet's semi-obscene quip to Ophelia. And some of the other
titles fail the swinging door test of matters as both verb and noun. But
Lawrence B. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington in
Culture Matters:
