Happy 2023!!
The questions and comments last month centred around the artist formerly known as Kanye West and, always, Elon Musk. My November post was about Twitter, or social media. Beyond that, the only thing new I have to say is that the pile on of Elon Musk is concrete evidence of the weakening or collapse of every endogroup he perches on top of. He is the endo-ideal of wealth, industrial, male and white endo-idealism and none of those are successfully shielding him.
Fascinating to watch, let it spread, but let’s remember that what we are watching is the collapse of all those endogroups and we really need to build something with conscious awareness and forethought to replace them. The law of the last circle says the collapse of an endogroup is a time of proliferation of smaller endogroups forming to catch those who cannot or will not survive without endogroup protection. Endogroup collapse is also a time of great danger for the negative image. Which brings us to Ye. Anyone who underestimates this man right now could be in for a horrible shock.
Listen to the cadence, authority and emotion with which Kanye speaks. He is in a country that elected Reagan and Obama on their supposed oratory skills. Compare those two with this man’s rhetorical style. Kanye has been called an artistic genius a nearly unprecedented volume of times, often by people other than himself. What artistic genius means is the ability to emotionally dominate interactions, what can also be called pulling at the heartstrings, or inspiring. That is the ability to become an endo-ideal to a huge endogroup. He speaks many emotional truths that resonate with a wide variety of people in a country ruled by emotion.
The US is overwhelmingly ruled by emotional will. International business classes teach that you have to make someone from the US feel like they are your friend before they will do business with you. People who appeal to intelligence are more likely to draw hostility than support in the US. No one in US politics has the emotional intelligence of Kanye or his ability to emotionally connect with people and, as an added bonus, he is the only candidate who can use an extensive vocabulary and not draw hostility. His celebrity means that crowds will show up to his talks and media will not resist covering him obsessively so these gits are going to be on prominent display.
His consistency and confidence is far more important than what he says but let’s have a look at what he says anyway. His statements that abortion is “a Holocaust that we’re dealing with right now” aren’t going to offend nearly enough people in the US, any more than his racist, anti-semitic or misogynist comments ever have. Most people won’t care, as he and others have amply proven, and even more won’t hear them. Twitter may trend his Hitler comments and corporate media may write very long opeds, but Tiktok has a very different message. Read the comments. Remember which demographic came through for the Democrats in the last election?
Let’s not forget, the US elected Donald Trump who just pretended to be all the things Kanye actually is, like a celebrity, b/millionaire, genius, self-made businessman, Christian, etc. Q anon notwithstanding, you would have to be very stupid (yes a lot of people were and are) to believe Trump was against child rape and slavery. Kanye is a far more believable advocate for child safety and ‘normal people’, aka not those associated with Adidas and Balenciaga. He also has more credibility in standing against ‘the elites’.
Ye hardly has to establish himself any more strongly as an endo-ideal but he does anyway. He is claiming the right to define reality in the face of the authoritative endoreality in the US, coming from the media, politicians, celebrities and more. If he retains any credibility at all in doing so, that is a tremendous amount of endo-ideal power he will have successfully taken. He is claiming victimhood with some pretty clear receipts of what his speech has cost him. He is claiming selfless virtue by throwing his entire life’s work and reputation on the alter of saving the children, god, free speech and all the other key words every US politician has to hit. He is claiming credit through the artistic gifts he has given the world.
His reflectors have reportedly diminished. Don’t buy this. They will return as soon as his endogroup strengthens to the point that interactions are being governed by emotions and those emotions are being based on the endogroup roles assigned. Reflectors that are retaining the ability to assess Ye cognitively (or based on the current authoritative endoreality) may be leaving but they will come back hard when he starts to pull them in emotionally. From Abstracting Divinity, “Often, a group of people will roundly condemn an unscrupulous action until it is complete, and then they seem to change their opinions as the newly acquired power encourages the idealization of the perpetrator. It is not only the perpetrator who is changed by predation; the people around them are transformed into reflectors.”
Also from Abstracting Divinity: “One of the strongest attractions of endogroups is the provision of a negative image on which to project guilt.” Kanye brings the endogroup unity the US has craved in the last years against a negative image that has become increasingly unpopular since 2012. Misogyny and racism notwithstanding, he is increasingly focusing on a much smaller and more clearly defined negative image than Trump with a clarity, boldness and consistency that Trump never dared. Unlike Trump, Ye professes to have one clear negative image and to “love everyone” which is a far more popular message than Trump who openly disliked practically everyone, not limited to women, Mexicans, blacks, Jews, Europeans, China, poor people, disabled people and “the elites” he was working with. Hitler himself pointed out the necessity of having only one clear negative image because if you had more than one (and Hitler’s list was also everyone) people might start to suspect the problem was with you.
Finish reading and join the discussion in 2023!
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The single greatest tool for making moral people commit atrocities is group affiliation. The single greatest tool for promoting global human rights and equality is to end group affiliation.
Heather Marsh 