What Kanye West’s tweets reveal about the culture war

Of all the bizarre things I thought would spring out of 2018, Kanye embracing President Trump and a resulting tailspin of the culture war was not high on my list. However, neither is a it a huge shock. Many will remember his visit to Trump Tower in 2016 shortly after the victory to “discuss life”, a stunt that whether it was pure provocation or not, did little good for Kanye’s already dubious reputation in leftist circles. He was actively called an Uncle Tom and a token black person for daring to even entertain the ‘deeply bigoted’ president. Curiously though people seemed to forget about the incident, or at least sweep it under the rug, and went back to loving Ye and his music once again. Little did they know that the monster in the cupboard was only resting, and Kanye had far from abandoned his admiration for the Republican president.

Fast forward 18 months and Kanye is back at it, but this time doing more than just standing for a photo-op with the president. Reactivating his Twitter account, he unleashed a tweet storm to end all tweet storms where he included such gems as “Some people have to work within the consciousness while other people can shift the consciousness”, “Just stop lying about shit. Just stop lying” and perhaps my personal favourite “Truth is my goal. Controversy is my gym. I’ll do a hundred reps of controversy for a six pack of truth.” I mean, truly this was golden stuff. Then came an announcement phase, disclosing the release date for his album, a collaboration project with Kid Cudi and Pusha T’s album, all dropping in early June (to my huge excitement).

Then things got serious when he dropped the 7 word bombshell that broke the delusions of so many, “I like the way Candice Owens thinks.” A google search later, and much of Kanye’s fanbase was outraged. A CONSERVATIVE? How could he? Does he not understand the plight of black people? Is Kanye West… you guessed it… A RACIST? So on and so forth. But he went on.. “Self victimisation is a disease”, “There was a time when slavery was the trend but apparently that time is still upon us. But it’s now a mentality.” He then, hilariously, posted himself watching notorious Trump fan Scott Adams’ video, talking about how Ye had flipped the culture on it’s head with his comment about Candice, which knowing Kanye’s history would have been a huge boost to his ego and pushed him further down the rabbit hole. The real kicker though came just a couple of days ago, Kanye saying plainly that he loves President Trump and that they share, wait for it.. DRAGON ENERGY! I mean, I’m trying to be semi-serious here, but really, the best Hollywood screenwriter couldn’t make this shit up. He then posted his MAGA hat, the cherry on top of this beautiful symphony of trollery. Chance, The Rapper later chimed in saying “Black people don’t have to be democrats.”, as well as Kim Kardashian who staunchly defended her husband’s right to like whoever he wants. Who would have thought the day would come where Kim Kardashian is making more sense than The New York Times?

Now, why did I bother laying out this timeline of Kanye’s tweets? Why does all this matter? Well, by Kanye doing what Kanye has always done, stir up the hornet’s nest, he unintentionally exposed many ugly truths about the liberal-conservative culture war that has been brewing furiously on social media for years now, and for once, forced people at least temporarily out of their ideological echo-chambers. The internet has always been a double edged sword when it comes to free-speech and the open exchange of ideas. Initially it promised to be the bastion of such principals, many social networks had humble beginnings as tools primarily designed for connecting people who might not otherwise associate with one another. What they have slowly morphed into however, are moral arbiters tasked with the promulgation of “acceptable discourse”. We can see this playing out legally at the moment with Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony on Capitol Hill a few weeks ago, rightly being asked by Ted Cruz just what the principal role of Facebook actually is. Are they a biased publisher or a neutral platform? Clearly, he doesn’t quite know the answer, but legally it has to be the latter. He can’t have it both ways. What we know for certain is happening though is that social networks are cracking down on whatever they consider to be “hate speech”, a vague, subjective term that really means “speech we don’t like”. Now, this cleanse of mainly conservative voices is yet to fully play itself out, but the wheels are most definitely in motion. Conservative content, especially independent content, is routinely being demonetised on YouTube, censored on Twitter or actively removed from people’s Facebook timelines by biased algorithms. One of the fundamental questions of the internet age is waiting to be answered, do Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey want to promote diversity of thought, or do they want to be moral adjudicators?

But how does this tie in to Kanye’s tweet storm? Whether he meant to or not, Kanye opened up a schism in the normal order of social media. The recipe; huge celebrity, perceived to be of the left and for social justice, a free thinker who loves controversy. The truth is, the left knew that Kanye was always a danger in the culture war simply because he can not be pigeon holed. He has routinely shocked me with his very unique blend of provocation and a disregard for social niceties and norms. Love him or hate him, he will never give you anything but his honest take on things. Many of those takes might be ignorant and crass, but they are always from the heart. However like many great artists throughout history, he has been routinely mischaracterised by people who think he stands up for them and their beliefs. A comparison can be made to my favourite artist ever, Bob Dylan, who also resolutely refused to be labelled as standing for an ideological position, and predictably got torn to shreds when he then chose to go against the ideas of the group. The mistake people make is associating individual statements on distinct situations with a firm political affiliation. It is possible for instance, for Kanye to see George Bush’s response to hurricane Katrina as insufficient or even racist, without him then having to swear an oath of allegiance to the Democratic Party. The unfortunate truth of social media is that it promotes tribalism and radicalism on both sides, encouraging group think and closed debates where thinking is not required. There is a human desire to seek out the collective in all of us. It is secure, safe and doesn’t require the confrontation of chaos that comes with considering radically different viewpoints. Nobody is exempt, and even without dodgy algorithms these social and cultural divides are simply inevitable on a platform that requires little courage or accountability.

But what Kanye has done over the last few days is shatter this divide to some degree, as trivial and non-consequential as it all sounds. Liberals have been forced to look at one of their cultural hero’s in a whole new light, and likewise conservatives have had to look more seriously at someone they chose to dismiss as crazy for a long time. Sadly, the echo-chambers are too powerful to be taken down so easily. In fact ironically, the response to these tweets has shown me that the reverse might be true – they might be strengthened. I am sure that Kanye will prompt some liberals to look up the likes of Candice Owens and Scott Adams, who I think are reasonably rational political commentators, and perhaps they will re-evaluate some of their long-held prejudices. Likewise I hope that some conservatives will take the likes of Kanye and others like Kendrick Lamar more seriously and push for greater cultural unification. But I suspect and see a much more sinister side to all of this. Many liberals have simply doubled down on their beliefs, promising to boycott Kanye’s future albums, sell their collections of his shoes and commit themselves to attacking him vehemently. Equally there are right-wingers who are trying to use Kanye as a weapon for their own rigid ideology, one that I am personally more inclined to but by no means fully attached. The truth is that Kanye is the same person he always has been since bursting onto the hip hop scene in 2004, and we have to take his utterances one by one and sometimes with a grain of salt.

Scott Adams’ argument is that a Kanye, like Trump before him, has broken long-held cultural taboos and opened up an a new frontier for free-thought that will act as a gateway for all of us to escape our ideological mental prisons. This all sounds great, but isn’t this space also a power vacuum that will be filled by a new set of demagogues? There is no obvious reason to think otherwise. I like a lot of what Trump has done as president, but you’re a fool if you think he hasn’t also done a great deal of harm to the idea of decency and honesty with his rhetoric. Populism is incapable of fostering a truly healthy public debate on important issues, as we are seeing with this degradation of common values on social media. It is a dangerous game to play. What we really need is a space that can act as buttress against ideological possession, much like the territory people like Jordan Peterson have opened up with his hours of lectures on personal responsibility and individualism, or Sam Harris’ ideas about mediation, the need for rationality and the scientific method. These are people who I see as really leading the charge against the Hell on the extremes of politics, with their willingness to debate their ideas with people to which they disagree in the public arena, as it’s clear to any thinking person that there is a reason for both sides to exist. If Kanye or anyone else can add to that discussion then I applaud him for that. In truth I already applaud him for not being afraid to speak his ideas loudly, just as he always has. But let’s keep it in perspective, worshiping or hating the man will get us nowhere. Let’s start seeing each other as fellow brothers and sisters instead of despicable enemies, and judge each idea (or tweet) on it’s own merits. Adams is right that we have a chance to forge a new world, but we must do it responsibly and with our highest virtues in mind, free-speech, compassion, understanding and critical thinking. Or as Kanye says, “Be fearless. Express what you feel not what you’ve been programmed to feel.”

Where this surreal story will lead is anyone’s guess and I can’t pretend to know anymore than anyone else. As always there have been takeaways that I like and others that are straight up crazy. Predictably The Washington Post labelled Kanye alt-right, another term that has been twisted to the point of utter deformity by it’s overuse. Ben Shapiro credited West but warned people that he might still be a crazy lunatic and to not jump to conclusions. The late night hosts gave spiels denouncing him. But overall, the comments on these tweets give the most accurate picture of the response, and sadly it seems that a lot of his fans have put him permanently in the loony bin and thrown away the key. Personally I wish Kanye all the best for his upcoming album releases, which I await with baited breath. This might all turn out to be the greatest marketing scheme in music history, as you can be damn sure that our outrage obsessed culture will want to see what Ye is going to say when he raps even if they are currently ‘boycotting’ him. I still predominantly care about Kanye because I see him as one of the greatest artists of his generation, controversial as that may be, but to pretend that this past week has not been a significant cultural moment would be very naive even if I wish it wasn’t. As Andrew Breitbart said “politics is downstream from culture”, and it’s about time we got our act together on both fronts.

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