My Dinner with Kanye

But a person can be off the rails and sick and still be a Nazi. I hope he comes back to reality and gets help. I wish he hadn’t traveled this path. Forum rules prohibit us spending much time on what’s going on in that regard. But I also know he’s a Nazi because he has expressed himself in a way that endorses everything that term implies. Assholes can be ill too. One concept doesn’t cancel out or cause the other one. We can shout him down for his Nazi beliefs and still acknowledge there’s other stuff happening.

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Sure, I never said he wasn’t an asshole. But if I told you I knew I was Napoleon, would you be discussing my plans for renovating my villa in Elba?

People who mistakenly think they are Napoleon are not spreading a hateful ideology which others may act upon dangerously.

Those who spread Nazi ideology are. And are hence called Nazis.

It’s that simple.

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Well… not at the moment.

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I’m not sure offhand what prejudices and biases Napoleon had. But if you believed you were Napoleon AND endorsed those same hypothetical prejudices, and if there were a convenient word to reference someone who shared Napoleon’s biases and prejudices? Yeah, I’d say you were both ill and whatever version of jerk that particular set of prejudices reflected.

Is Kanye unwell? Most likely. Is it his potential mental illness that causes and/or is responsible for his denigrating an entire group of people? No. Not even close. I know plenty of mentally ill people. I’m a shrink…it’s what I do. Some are racists. Some are antisemitic. They’re not antisemitic or racist because of their illnesses. Neither is Kanye. So prioritizing their illness while he’s spouting awful garbage reads like excusing his awful garbage as a symptom. Something he can’t control. Something diagnostic rather than emblematic of a belief system.

I think it’s fair to discuss both. Since this forum doesn’t permit speculation about a person’s mental illnesses…well, I’ll stick with Kanye being a Nazi. Or Nazi-adjacent at best. And his mental illness? I’ll leave that for discussion by the people who will hopefully help him figure out how to get back on the rails.

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I wouldn’t call it a pass, I’d call it a “not guilty by reason of insanity” verdict? To me, Ye reads as the kind of guy who quickly gets swept up in whatever random thing happens to pop into his head at any given time, long before whatever he’s struggling with now. That doesn’t make it OK to ever say hateful things, or amplify them, of course!

Wow. If you’re a shrink, you’d certainly have lots of personal experience in this area. I’d defer to your judgment.

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You’re not Napoleon. But is there any reason to think Ye isn’t a Nazi, given that is something entirely independent of both mental illness and its absence? Because that you did straight up excuse him for, despite all the things that in anyone else would clearly mark him as one.

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Anyone who poses an existential threat to me and mine* can go GET FUCKED, SIDEWAYS.

Period.

I don’t care what his problems are or why he’s doing the hateful shit he’s doing.

I care that it actively endangers oppressed people.

*And also to everyone who isn’t White, cis-het male and “Xtian”.

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He didn’t need the money, or the attention, or a new grift … he just hates them Jews so much it seems to outweigh everything else in his life and all future consequences :confused:

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This is a terrible analogy, BTW. Kanye isn’t claiming to be Hitler, and those calling him a Nazi wouldn’t believe him if he did. His critics are calling him a Nazi because he’s explicitly aligning himself with the literal Nazis.

A bigot proclaiming “I am Hitler” is making an easily disprovable statement, but a bigot who proclaims “I love Hitler” must be taken at their word.

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But, you know, that’s just a weird thing for him to do, so let’s focus please on how strange it is for him to do that. Instead of acknowledge that basically, dude is a fucking Nazi!

I mean, wow. Is liking his music making people blind? Or maybe the fact that he’s black? Or that he’s famous? :confused:

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And in MDWA, Andre didn’t seem to eat much of anything – if at all – he just talked and talked and talked.

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Yeah, so much talk! I dont recall it amounting to much at all, really.

Again Wally was right for the other role. He’s a master at befuddled and incredulous reaction shots. :laughing:

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You should catch Shawn in A Master Builder.

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One of the greatest things I have ever seen was a bar on South Haight in San Francisco back in the eighties. Without fail, every night, the TV over the bar would be playing My Dinner With Andre

With the sound off

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Ahhhh, thanks!

Damn, that’s genius. Sounds like my kinda place.

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“He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium…”

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He’s also running for president. Maybe he thinks he needs to be president in order to implement that awful garbage.

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