What happens when you cancel people and try to remove them from all access to polite society? They don't magically disappear. They still need to use all the goods and services that you forbade them from. They still need friends. So what do they do? They look for new platforms, goods, and services. If all their former friends abandon them because they've been canceled, then they will look for new friends who accept them. This is exactly what happened to Kanye West.
Kanye is just one prominent example of what's been happening to countless other non-famous people who have been de-platformed and banned from social media. They go to Gab (or other such platforms) joining other canceled people, where their views become more radicalized as they get enmeshed in echo chambers of others who are not just extreme in their beliefs but extremely angry over having been canceled.
Initially, Kanye had a right to be upset over his record deals, and there were some points he raised that were worth considering. But when his grievances were not able to be considered, and he was immediately canceled outright, and no one else was even able to talk about the issues, his only recourse was to go to people who would hear him. So he found people who not only shared his opinions but were a lot more extreme and angry than he was. They confirmed his beliefs and outrage and fueled it further, which in turn made Kanye's views more radical, extreme, and angry, resulting in what you saw on the Alex Jones Show.
Again, Kanye is just a microcosm of what happens when some anonymous ordinary person is removed from Twitter for an off-color joke, then they are forced to go to Gab where they converse with people who find that off-color joke, not just acceptable but benign. The canceled get introduced to much more extreme views fueled by the anger over having been canceled. Critics of free speech like to point at the toxicity on Gab and say, "See, this is what happens when you have free speech. It turns into nothing but deranged conspiracy hatespeech." But that's not entirely true.
Gab is what happens when you force anyone with the slightest of controversial views out of polite society and into an echo chamber where those views intensify. But if those people weren't banned from Twitter, and instead of forming an echo chamber on Gab remained with polite society, then there would have been a chance to push back on some of their views and ground them in reality. But also consider that sometimes these "controversial people" make good points worth confronting. Sometimes speech that sounds hateful is merely truth. Polite society can become too polite from political correctness if people aren’t able to push the boundaries without being canceled. The censors think that by canceling people, they are preventing further radicalization, but they are actually causing further radicalization.
There was some debate worth having about Kanye’s record contracts and the amount of power and influence certain Jewish label owners and bankers have. It could be worth debating why that is and looking into whether those contracts are fair. Had people done that at first rather than immediately canceling Kanye, then perhaps they could have saved him from falling further into the conspiracy rabbit hole. When you suspect a conspiracy of Jewish bankers is controlling the world, then you get your bank account taken away for voicing it, that does not make you think the conspiracy was false. It only confirms your theory further. Whether or not Kanye's conspiracy theories are true is not the point. But the way the media/banks/corporations/governments responded to his conspiracies made it seem—in his mind—more likely to be true, not less.
I wrote this post last year defending Kanye West, saying it was unfair to dismiss him as “crazy.” I would reiterate that point, but I think it is clear he is struggling with some mental health issues right now, which is completely understandable after a public divorce. At the same time, he has a right to be angry over some of his unfair record contracts, and then furthermore the over-the-top cancellation that followed. Plus he is right that there is a double standard about which groups you are and are not allowed to question and critique.
I think the cancellation broke Kanye in the sense that he had nothing else to lose and nowhere else to go. That caused him to go down the conspiracy tunnel further. This is what happens to all people who are banned, canceled, and de-platformed like Ye. It is exhibit-A of why censorship is more dangerous than hatespeech. When ideas aren't allowed to be discussed openly, they will fester in the underground. Cancelation leads directly to radicalization.
Now you have people like Milo and Nick Fuentes, who aren't looking out for what's best for Kanye right now; they're using him to promote their own platforms and agendas. I'm not hating on Milo and Fuentes—they have a right to their free speech and views, which may be right (I'm not sure because no one will honestly confront their ideas.) I can't blame them for seeing this opportunity with Kanye to bring an otherwise forbidden conversation into the mainstream. It is not Kanye's new friends who failed him but his old friends.
I feel sorry for Ye and hope that he will get some help from people who truly have his best interests at heart. That doesn't mean immediately assuming he's crazy and institutionalizing him. As I said in this other post, Kanye needed friends to have an open and honest dialogue about his grievances and conspiracies and explore what truth may or may not lurk behind them. I give credit to Tim Pool and Lex Friedman for attempting to do that—trying to be those friends who have an open and honest debate—but they did not succeed.
Part of the problem is Kanye doesn't have the historical knowledge or intellectual capacity to have that debate—at least not in his current state of mind. Ye has the common sense, instincts, and pattern recognition to realize something is up, but he doesn't have the critical reasoning and intellectual rigor to figure out exactly what that is, nor the verbal eloquence to properly explain it. So when he tries to do so, it sounds deranged—compounded by the fact he speaks hyperbolically (like Trump). Then Ye gets angry when pushed on any issues or called out for discrepancies in his story—which again makes me feel sorry for him. I think Kanye would have been better served to let Milo and Fuentes do more of the talking for him as they could better explain the issues and history. Even if they are wrong, it is a debate worth having because many other people believe they are right. The more they get canceled for even trying to have the debate, the more right (in the minds of their followers) they will seem.
This is what happens when there are certain topics that are forbidden from being talked about, and when people who try to discuss those issues are removed from polite society: they go to unpolite society. So can you blame Kanye West for becoming more unpolite after you canceled him? We failed Ye.
