Cornel West intends “Democracy Matters” (Penguin Books, 256 pages, $24.95) as a “strong democratic vision and critique” for a society pervaded by materialism and poverty and led by militaristic plutocrats. Okay – but because these objections are hardly atypical of intellectuals, I assumed that a scholar of Mr. West’s status would use them as springboards for insightful observations and counsel. Instead what we have are the curious ramblings of an academic writing for the general public.

Mr. West repeatedly suggests that we take to heart “Socratic questioning,” “prophetic love of justice,” and “tragicomic hope.” But beyond this, it is hard to glean clear suggestions for solving the problems he purports to address – that is, as the subtitle of the book has it, “winning the fight against imperialism.” The only explicit political prescription in the book is “wealth-sharing and wealth-producing” activities via “massive investments in health care, education, and employment.”

But if Mr. West really feels that the gap between rich and poor is a simple matter of the elite being stingy and unfeeling, then he must defend this position. A great deal of work shows that funding is not the main problem in our schools, and to urge “investment in employment” requires at least attempting to address basic economics. But here and elsewhere Mr. West writes as if the leftist orthodoxy is beyond challenge.

Another example is his casual espousal of the dependency ideology in Latin America, whose problems he traces to imperialism: This theory has been falling out of fashion among academics and politicians for 20 years, and Mr. West should at least discuss his reasons for continuing to believe in it.

We expect a Princeton intellectual to offer substantial argument rather than preach to a choir. But for someone who purports to be interested in ideas, Mr. West has oddly little interest in positions beyond his own. His main interest is in Speaking Truth to Power – an orientation difficult to maintain when considering the outcomes of, rather than the intentions behind, Great Society ideology. And it leads Mr. West into some downright unempirical claims.

For example, he recites the mantra that America is in some kind of denial about its origins as a racist society. This may have made sense 40 years ago, but it is absurd today – museums, memorials, holidays, postage stamps, documentaries, films, and an endless stream of books chronicle the slave trade and the civil-rights movement.

Hip-hop, we are told, took the “gangsta” detour when white moguls decided that white listeners would enjoy the “thug” routine – as if black listeners have not been eating up the exact same thing for 20 years now.

And of course “the voices and views of nihilistic imperialism currently dominate our discourse” – as if the Deaniacs were rounded up by “the pigs” and Harper’s and Mother Jones were sent through the mails in brown wrappers.

These claims make sense only as part of a basic quest not to reason, but to object. Mr. West assumes that these are the same thing, and this is a rather anti-intellectual position. His assumption that Socratic questioning will necessarily show the truth of leftist positions is also surprisingly facile for someone trained in philosophy.

Too often in this book, Mr. West presents listing and sorting in the guise of intellection. In one chapter, he celebrates the commitment to democracy in various thinkers past and present, such as Emerson, Whitman, and Toni Morrison. But who is under the impression that democracy has not figured large in America’s intellectual history? What we seek is novel insights on these people’s ideas; instead, Mr. West gives us a kind of celebratory book report.

Mr. West sees America as shot through with not just nihilism, but three types – the evangelical, the paternalistic, and the sentimental. But the nature of the phenomenon being described does not motivate this three-way subdivision in any academic sense. Rather, the formula serves as a framework to hang assorted indictments on.

His offered solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine is to “respect and encourage” writers on both sides who espouse “democracy.” But beyond listing a few of the writers, he has nothing to say about just how we should “respect and encourage” them, or how doing so would affect the policies of Ariel Sharon and Yassir Arafat.

Reading on, it becomes clear that to read this book as a work of intellect is to miss the point. Hack commentator and radio host Tavis Smiley is termed an “intellectual.” Mr. West’s account of why he quit Harvard in 2002 shows a lack of basic awareness that serious academics, whatever their public presence and contributions, produce a steady stream of substantial, refereed work. That he had not done so in a decade or more was a legitimate issue for concern.

When Mr. West gets to defending appeals to God in public discourse and even charges that to stray from leftist ideology is to recall those who crucified Jesus, one realizes that this book is ultimately a sermon. Not being part of the flock in question, I would have preferred ratiocination.

Mr. West’s frequent references to Ancient Greece reminded me of something I saw recently in Nathan Lane’s musical version of Aristophanes’s “The Frogs” at Lincoln Center. In it, Dionysos chooses Shakespeare over Shaw to bring back to earth, deciding that what the world needs now is not logic but poetry. Perhaps this is how one is to read “Democracy Matters.” Otherwise, it’s hard to understand why it ought to be read at all.