Kanye West, a guy called Uwe Diegel, and a sickening confusion of categories

I was checking out one of the social media last night and some-one I respect posted this:

Uwe Diegel is chief-executive of a medical firm. He also has a past as a classical concert pianist.

So let us get the equation right: the music world may be compared to the Muslim world. And in that case, it is okay to compare Kanye West to a terrorist.

I checked out Kanye West on Wikipedia because I don't know much about him and maybe I overlooked a recent atrocity. I also checked some other sites on news about him. Found nothing to be deeply anxious about. Yes, the usual Famous American rubbish; little scandals, bigger scandals, cross-libelling, et cetera. Nothing to be too shocked about if you follow the show bizz from the side lines.

I cannot draw any other conclusion: it is okay for Diegel to compare Kanye West to a muslim terrorist because West makes music Diegel dislikes. (And, maybe: because Music, to Diegel, is Religion.)




I could stop here. Enough said. Enough attention given to a former-classical-pianist-now-CEO-of-a-medical-firm speaking out the usual dominant hegemonic cultural white elitist western shit ex cathedra.



But I don't. Because this kind of message still makes me angry. Maybe it's meant as a tongue-in-cheek message, but still I can only read it as a 'nudge-nudge-wink-wink-know-what-I-mean' kind of message addressed to PLU (People Like Us - or rather, in this case, People Like Uwe). I read it like this: We, the Superiors, know that morally Muslim terrorism should be condemned (an opinion I share, with the addition that all other kinds of terrorism should be condemned equally); and We, the Superiors, feel that taste-wise Kanye West should be condemned.

And behind that: We, the Superiors, feel that questions of Musical Taste are answerable on the same footing as questions of Morality. Good Taste is a question of Morality. Aesthetics are Ethics, really. And answers to aesthetical questions are just as clear-cut as answers to ethical questions (which, of course, are hardly clear-cut). And therefore, you are allowed to compare a man to a terrorist by checking out the music he makes or listens to.

A confusion of categories that makes me sick in a hundred of ways. But let's forgive and - especially - forget Uwe, he probably doesn't realize his speaking is not his but his culture's.

And of course, to finish this message: hating all classical-music-lovers-cum-medical-managers because of dummies like Uwe Diegel is like et cetera.