Kanye vs. Chuck D

(Our fictitious discussion takes place in an abandoned warehouse in New York City, the site of a party for N.A.S.A.’s release party for The Spirit of Apollo, an album on which our participants in this rhetorical dialogue all play guest roles.)

Chuck D: Hey Kanye. Good to see you here, man.

Kanye West: Thanks D.

Chuck D: Call me Chuck. So, Kanye, what were you thinking the other night when you interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the Video Music Awards?

Kanye: I was being an activist standing up for what I believe.

Chuck D: And what is it precisely that you believe?

Kanye: I believe I am the best rapper in the world. I believe Beyonce’s video was the best video of the year, and possibly ever. I believe George Bush hates black people.

Chuck D: What is it about you, and your personae, that allows you to believe those three tenants?

Kanye: They are just true.

Chuck D: And it’s through your art form that you present your ideas, correct? What would you call your trade?

Kanye: Man, you know what my trade is.

Chuck D: I want to hear it from you. What is your trade?

Kanye: It offends me to have to say this.

Chuck D: I truly want to know, with no sense of barbarism or patronizing, what is your trade?

Kanye: Rapping. I’m an artist.

Chuck D: Is it the role of the artist to make art that challenges ideals?

Kanye: Yes.

Chuck D: Is it the role of the artists to make art that breeds new ideas, both politically and musically?

Kanye: Yes.

Chuck D: My group, Public Enemy, wrote divisive music that spoke to legions of people. We wrote classic songs like, “911 is Joke,” “Fight the Power” and “Power to the People.” Each one tackled different issue from police response time in black urban neighborhoods, deconstructing established beliefs about power and the system, and true democracy. What are your songs about?

Kanye: Terrorism, racism, civil war and religion.

Chuck D: Ah, you’re referring to the song “Jesus Walks,” then?

Kanye: Yes.

Chuck D: Is it not true that you quote the movie Happy Gilmore in that song? Is it also not true that you use the term “Niggaz” in that song? Is it also not true that you compare people’s love of God and their savior Jesus Christ to the way Kathy Lee Gifford and Regis Philbin need each other?

Kanye: Yes.

Chuck D: And you find no level of irony in the simplicity of your message?

Kanye: That’s some complex shit.

Chuck D: I see. Let’s go back to your three beliefs. On the first you claimed to be the best rapper in the world.

Kanye: Yes.

Chuck D: What do you believe is the purpose of rap?

Kanye: To entertain.

Chuck D: But was that always the case? When rap first started on the streets, it developed as a strong sense of community, and out of the strong oral history of blacks in America. We were like town criers, with style.

Kanye: Yeah, but that changed.

Chuck D: And what was the catalyst for that change?

Kanye: Money.

Chuck D: Precisely. Do you rap about money?

Kanye: Yes.

Chuck D: Do you rap about money in a Marxist sense?

Kanye: No. I rap about gold diggers. I rap about drug dealing. I rap about cool cities to live in.

Chuck D: Do you put any political sentiments in your music?

Kanye: No. That shit doesn’t sell.

Chuck D: So you care more about money than the politics you discuss publicly.

Kanye: I suppose so.

Chuck D: Let’s go to your second belief. Do you truly believe Beyonce’s video was better than Taylor Swift’s?

Kanye: Hell yes.

Chuck D: Why?

Kanye: Because Taylor Swift is white. That voting was straight-up racist.

Chuck D: Do you have any evidence of this? You may be right, but does it make any sense? Was it your place to interrupt this award show?

Kanye: No.

Chuck D: Don’t you think your energies would have been better spent discussing Afghanistan, Iraq, Obama, healthcare reform, poverty, structures of power, etc.? Rather, of course than interrupting an awards show.

Kanye: Beyonce should have won.

Chuck D: Does that matter? Is there any context in which Beyonce or Taylor Swift truly matter to the world dialectic?

Kanye: The what?

Chuck D: The world dialectic. The discussions that make and shape our world.

Kanye: No one has invited me to these discussions because they fear me. They fear what I may say.

Chuck D: Fair enough. Let’s move on to your statement about George W. Bush during a telethon supporting victims of Hurricane Katrina. You said, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

Kanye: I did!

Chuck D: What was your goal?

Kanye: My goal was to make it known that George Bush doesn’t care about black people.

Chuck D: Yet you barely stood by that assertion once the media storm kicked in. Why?

Kanye: I don’t know. People were yelling at me.

Chuck D: I know why. That same money you talked about earlier—or the soon to be lack thereof. You engaged in a classic backtrack, not unlike The Dixie Chicks. If you are an important voice in a community, in our community, you must engage in personal responsibility. If you say something controversial, back it up. If you want to affect change, stand by your statements.

Kanye: But George Bush doesn’t care about black people. I thought everyone knew that.

Chuck D: Lots of presidents haven’t cared about black people. When you call them out, you stand by it. Elvis still don’t mean shit to me, and I stand by that. Will you stand by your actions, or will you continue to pop off and retract?

Kanye: I gotta go.

That Gorgias Helen....

I have to say I appreciated reading both Poulakos's and Biesecker's
articles RE: The Encomium of Helen. Not being an antiquity scholar, I
found little to disagree with in either. The democratic context of built
into Biesecker's argument seemed valid, as did Poulakos's comparison
between Helen and Rhetoric.

They've, to some extent, convinced me.

However, I had a lot of trouble with Rhodes's "Radical Feminism, Writing
and Critical Agency," for the same reason other posters have. It's
incredibly vague about its actual goals, and I think incorrect about its
assertions that academia fosters a masculine way of writing. If
anything, schools are constantly charged with accessing the male mind
and male creativity because males tend (and I mean tend) to be more
difficult to work with in a "traditional" classroom setting. And, if
she's talking purely composition studies, well then, too: A language
system exists. Theoriticians work within said system. They break down
said system occasionally, yet each new appearance within the system
becomes part of the system.

Particularly regarding the "Women's Ways" of writing, I think it's as
damaging to assert that there is a "women's way" to write and a "man's
way" to write. It's almost laughably absurd not to recognize that
multiple intelligences lead to multiple ways of writing. If Rhodes can
find a way to enter compositional rhetorical arguments through
deconstruction, re-education or other untraveled roads, then I'll get
excited. For now, her call to arms seemed rather useless in terms of
practicality.

Gorgias vs. Plato

The rhetorical argument between Gorgias and Plato draws strong parallels
between the disagreements of whether or not a god (or gods) exists.
Gorgias, with his Sophist idea that there is no extravagant truth to be
attained, or that if there is—humans do not possess the sensory skill to
reach or achieve this level of absolute truth—might be best represented
as an agnostic. Plato, on the other hand, symbolizes a deeply religious
man with deep-seated aspirations of an afterlife, in my metaphor.

Gorgias, and by extension the Sophists, certainly possess more of a
realist perspective on human life. What we know is what we sense. The
senses are imperfect. Therefore, what we know is imperfect. However,
certain people can be taught to grow, through rhetoric, philosophy and
language to learn through argument and discourse. There’s not some
refined enlightenment in their path—simply growth in knowledge and
persuasion. In “Encomium of Helen,” he reasons out four possible excuses
for the beguiled Helen—almost like a President trying to lay out
possible solutions that will please everyone to a national health care
problem. (That’s not a political statement—it was just an easy, relevant
comparison…). The import of Gorgias’ diplomacy is that through this
writing he proves his theory that argument allows people to see the
various sides of an issue without necessarily placing judgment on any of
the sides.

Plato, on the other hand, is an idealist who feels that through rhetoric
and discussion people can attain some form of Nirvana (or heaven)—his
truth. His dialogue between Socrates and everyone else in “Gorgias”
certainly rings with the heir of superiority and enlightenment of
someone who “knows.” It’s almost as though he’s so desperate to prove
that there’s something more in life than just living that he’s resorted
to somewhat ruthless measures. Earlier today I watched Barack Obama on
“60 Minutes” to see the context of his assertion that, “that the
loudest, shrillest voices get the most attention,” and I couldn’t help
but draw more parallels to Plato here. Throughout recorded human
history, Plato’s writings were the loudest and shrillest philosophical
and rhetorical documents. Yet, his argument that philosophers can attain
absolute truth through thought, discussion and argument seems more to
have bred the divisiveness of contemporary “I’m right, you’re wrong”
thought (Christian vs. Muslim, Liberal vs. Conservative, even white vs.
black). This kind of thinking bred the “I, I, I” American way of life
(for one) and causes many conflicts throughout the world.

It’s apparent I decided to side with Gorgias, for the simple reason that
each individual has a different path to growth. If discussion and
argument can lead a person to see all sides of an issue, and not simply
some albatross of a TRUE answer, that ability, to me, is more of a
“truth” than any one truth can ever be.