The Symbolic World 70 - Kanye West - The Fool and the Inversion
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Nov 6, 2019 A look at why cultural fools surface as signs of social turning points. Traces a famous musician’s arc from provocative excess to participatory ritual. Explores how entertainment saturation breeds a thirst for genuine purpose and communal celebration. Notes the ambiguous, trickster-like nature of such figures as markers of wider change.
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First Hearing Kanye's Gospel Flip
- Jonathan Pageau describes first hearing Kanye on Jesus Walks in 2004 and being struck by its gangster language flipped into gospel.
- That early moment made him pay long-term attention to Kanye's cultural moves from a distance.
Fools Drive Cultural Upside Down Then Back
- Modern culture is carnivalesque and saturated by the fool who turns things upside down.
- Jonathan Pageau argues the fool both creates the spectacle and can also flip things back right side up, forcing cultural shifts.
Kanye's Descent Into The Cultural Bottom
- Pageau traces Kanye's descent into crass celebrity: marrying Kim Kardashian and public provocations like supporting Trump.
- These moves placed Kanye at the cultural bottom, fitting the holy fool archetype before his recent flip.