The subtext of your comment was ambiguous until I stumbled upon this little gem on your website: http://rickbranson.com/ptw/
Your unfunny, offensive, 'parody' page, full of 'n-bombs' and a picture that is nothing if not racist, tidily explains your summarily trollish and unintelligent comment.
#1 - You contradict yourself implicitly with this defense. If a quote needs more context to have impact, then it is a shitty quote, which is what the OP said plainly.
#2 - 'Juvenille' and 'simple' are synonymous in this context. Period. Jay-z lyrics are more often then not, ridiculously vapid of substance or depth. Musical kool-aid.
#3 - Jay-z is a man who made his money ruining the lives of thousands by selling drugs, and millions more by being a horrific influence. He is a man who has admittedly attempted murder on more than one occasion. He is a man who has used and debased women proudly. He is a man of many transgressions. And I could look past all of them if he did not glorify them so.
Yet he does - so shamelessly in fact that its revolting to witness. His wealth and the adoration of the mindless sheep who buy his "music" are the justification he uses to continue to do so.
He says he'll always rap about variations on the same themes: drug hustling, business boasts, luxury hopscotching from Gucci to Louis Vuitton to the new Dior suit he says is a perfect fit.
I'm sorry his money and "accomplishments" and his poor excuse for music do not make this a praiseworthy man.
#1 - You're treating the quoted text as (I quote) "a quote". It's not. It's a small piece of a much larger whole. (I see your point- but it's wrong. I will elaborate in the next bullet).
#2 - Like the first statement- it's a mistake for you to speak factually on something so subjective. We're talking about art here, right? "Period" is especially offensive since clearly so many people disagree. Juvenile and simple are never synonymous. That's not to say they can't live mutually, but that certainly is not "synonymous". Period. Just the fact that people have agreed suggests he is delivering the emotion he intends to with his art. Unless, of course, you can tell me what his true intentions were with the lyric?
#3 - I'm going to make a fair assumption that you've lived a relatively privileged life. By this- I mean I'm pretty sure you didn't grow up in Bedstuy. I certainly don't believe that relieves him of his poor judgement, but I hope it helps invoke some situational empathy. Likewise, do you consider yourself not praiseworthy because of the mistakes you've made?
Edit - I assume a downvote one minute after a post is either accidental or negligent.
Quite frankly - you didn't respond to any of the objectives I raised. But I will respond strictly to the one's you've made up.
#1 - You're treating the quoted text as (I quote) "a quote". It's not. It's a small piece of a much larger whole.
Hmm - last I checked, a small piece of a larger whole IS a quote. Webster's definitively settles this in my favor.
#2 - No - there is no subjectivity involved in the claim that his lyrics are 'juvenile' and 'simple' especially when the man himself has said so on several occasions, both in verse and out. (See the song: Moment Of Clarity) If the artist himself says he 'dumb downed' his lyrics, I think its purely factual to then say his lyrics are 'simple'.
#3 - Pardon me, you don't know a damned thing about me or how I grew up. So no, your assumption is not fair. I've seen the gutter in my life. I've lived in places that I gather you are only familiar with through Jay-z songs. So forgive me if I take a particular offense to this comment.
Situational empathy? Are you kidding me? I suspect this kind of careless, 'there are are few better options' mentality stems from a brutal ignorance of what inner-city life is really like. So let me just help you out by saying there are thousands of kids from these terrible situations, (many of whom I work with weekly), who do not deal drugs, who stay in school, who pursue scholarship, who do not idolize Jay-z and his calling cards, thug-culture, gun violence, promiscuity, drugs, and death. Unfortunately for all of us, these kids are in the vast minority.
"...there are thousands of kids from these terrible situations, (many of whom I work with weekly), who do not deal drugs, who stay in school, who pursue scholarship, who do not idolize Jay-z..."
My argument stems from my assumption that there are also thousands of kids from terrible situations, who don't deal drugs, who stay in school, and do idolize Jay-Z.
If I'm wrong in the above assumption, then you're entirely right; my argument has no ground. Perhaps my optimism is blinding. If my assumption is correct, then is it not safe to say that there are other more compelling forces than Jay-Z leading youth into drugs or crime? The italicized is the point that I am trying to make entirely.
I don't think we're disagreeing on facts here. By situational empathy I'm not suggesting Jay-Z has no other choices. It's just my personal opinion that I would rather be inspired by Jay-Z's ambition to overcome such an unfortunate situation, rather than to condemn him for his past.
#3 - Jay-z is a man who made his money ruining the lives of thousands by selling drugs, and millions more by being a horrific influence. He is a man who has admittedly attempted murder on more than one occasion. He is a man who has used and debased women proudly. He is a man of many transgressions. And I could look past all of them if he did not glorify them so.
So I'll assume you have been perfect your entire life? He raps about what he knows and who he his, and he wasn't perfect. If you have listened to more than a lyric or two off the radio you would hear him rapping about being young and stupid and growing up and maturing.
> If you have listened to more than a lyric or two off the radio you would hear him rapping about being young and stupid and growing up and maturing.
That doesn't make one praiseworthy; regretting your sins doesn't erase them. If he's really had a past violent enough that he's attempted murder a few times--and I don't know that that's true and am making no claim it is--then he's not worthy of praise no matter how good he is for the rest of his life, he still did it. Most people grow up without any such severe regrets. Most do stupid things while young, not horrible things.
Growing as a person and improving the human condition are some of the most virtuous things that one can do. Someone doing those things should not be condemned for life because of past mistakes.
Your expressed belief seems to reflect the attitude of the current American criminal justice system, a system that is very bad at rehabilitation: it tends to turn minor offenders into hardened criminals.
Any improvement is worthy of praise. Any contribution is worthy of gratitude. Denying that to someone because past mistakes is very disingenuous. Pretending that people are static characters like some bad sitcom is short-sighted and naïve.
There is no good and evil, only people with different motives. If you've never grown up wondering where you're going to live next week or where your next meal is going to come from, then you can't understand the thinking of someone who has, and you're in no place to judge their actions.
Any improvement is worthy of praise, that doesn't make the person worthy of praise. You don't just get to pretend the past didn't happen and the people you hurt don't exist. Some things are unforgivable and nothing can ever make up for it; ever.
Yes, people change and grow, that doesn't mean you get to leave your past behind and pretend it never happened. You murder someone, you're a murderer forever, not just until you realize it was wrong.
> There is no good and evil, only people with different motives.
I don't agree, though I'd never use the words good and evil, I'd use right and wrong and some things are objectively wrong.
> If you've never grown up wondering where you're going to live next week or where your next meal is going to come from, then you can't understand the thinking of someone who has, and you're in no place to judge their actions.
I did grow up that way, and I am in a place to state my opinion on their actions.
I'm sorry, do you know how I grew up? No, I didn't think so. Growing up in Brooklyn is not an excuse for bad behavior, nor did he have it particularly rough.
While I do not agree with the poster you are responding to, there is a lot of room between being a drug dealer and being not-perfect. All people aren't perfect, but most aren't drug dealers.
The problem maybe that he glorifies drug dealers to a certain extent. And I am sure you will agree, that we need less drug dealers, and need to make it less attractive.
What's entertainment for a lot of Jay-Z's listeners is more like a guidebook for far too many young black men (and the women who chase men like him). I personally like rap and know that if you dig deeper into many of Jay-Z's songs, you'll find more substance, but that doesn't negate the fact that he has a far more negative than positive influence on people who need all the positive role models they can get.
I upvoted the comment above yours because I see his (and other rappers) influence firsthand among friends and family members and it's really very depressing. Sometimes I don't know how I justify listening to his music...
There are very few perfect role models. I would argue that the best roles models are the ones who made mistakes, learned from them and then kept moving forward.
People also tend to hear themselves in music. They hear the parts they relate with and block out the parts they don't. I hear Jay-Z and hear a story about a kid who had nothing, did what he had to do to survive and kept working till he made it. You don't even have to go that deep into his tracks to start getting a lot of good motivational lyrics. He has an entire song (with some Notorious Big dubbed in) talking about never getting lazy to keep working and 'treat your last like your first.'
Why is it that so many entrepreneurs find his lyrics inspiring and focus on his positive change- and "many young black men" see his reference to his past as a "guidebook"? The answer is because his art is subjective.
He does obviously have a responsibility to make sure he is a positive role model; but the fact that his lyrics very clearly reference his past in relation to his present- makes me wonder why anyone would focus their energy on emulating his past when they can see the success his positive ambition has brought him.
Lastly, can you cite your sample of "many young black men"? Does this source also include the amount of young black men who were inspired by his lyrics to overcome?
No, the answer is NOT that art is subjective. I don't think it can be boiled down that easily, but if I were to try and answer succinctly, I would say the difference is there because black people, specifically African Americans, live in a culturally parallel America where there are different rules about what is and isn't acceptable. There is intense pressure on Black men to be "hard" and the way to express that is usually laid out in song.
I actually DON'T think it's his responsibility to be a role model. BUT I think it's wrong to glorify his success without saying something about the path he walked/walks to obtain it. He is 40-something and STILL writing lyrics about selling drugs.
As for citing examples, I'm sorry, I haven't been keeping a running log of the number of funerals I've been to, the guys I've known who've gotten shot, the women (including myself) who've been physically harassed by guys trying to re-enact the latest video, the children who are lost to drug addicted parents, and every other societal ramification that comes from supporting hip hop culture without qualifying/recognizing the damage it does to the black community. I live it, I think that's enough.
"There is intense pressure on Black men to be "hard" and the way to express that is usually laid out in song."
I understand this, and it is also exactly my point. I have not been exposed to the elements that really any impoverished America (or wherever) faces. This is why I'm not affected in such a negative way if I listen to Jay-Z. The fact that there is differentiation at all is what makes it subjective.
Rereading my post; I could have been more clear. I absolutely did not intend to suggest that the subjectivity was the reason for the pressures of any different cultures. I am suggesting that these pressures where the reason for the emulation.
Which is obviously unfortunate, but I don't believe his fault. There are lots of pressures encouraging black males to be hard, I just don't think Jay-Z is one of them. Even compared to other relatively tame mainstream rappers (say, 50 cent).
If I can make a relevant reference (sometimes I cannot): consider any artist who has ever been scrutinized for the "negativity" of their production.
If I can make a relevant analogy (sometimes I cannot): "lessons learned".
Thanks for your "analysis". Clearly you've given this a lot of "thought". We've obviously "progressed" since the 80s, and I feel very "reassured" that "race" and "class" are no longer barriers to social mobility.
If a quote needs more context to have impact, then it is a shitty quote...
Is that why you conveniently left off the tail of your own quote? For "impact"?
"He says he'll always rap about variations on the same themes: drug hustling, business boasts, luxury hopscotching from Gucci to Louis Vuitton to the new Dior suit he says is a perfect fit.They're all narrative devices:"
I'm sorry but this idea that you get a pass for drug dealing and misogynistic lyrics because you are black and from a poor background needs to just die.
There are options that don't involve poisoning the very community you claim to care about through drugs and promoting a lifestyle/"profession" that can get someone killed or sent to jail.
What I meant and what you appear to be ascribing to me are separated by such a wide gulf that I must have communicated very poorly, indeed.
I am not saying anybody gets a pass for anything.
I am saying that the comment above has simply substituted a set of new rules for when someone can be praised (e.g. "you can't have ever been a drug dealer") in place of the old ones (e.g. "you can't be black") with the same puritanical intent of undermining anything the target of the criticism might have actually accomplished.
It's tempting to think that this acts as a filter, keeping the riff-raff out of the pantheon of saints, but in practice it only rewards large-scale ignorance, subterfuge, and mythologizing.
Jay-Z promotes ambition, through whatever means necessary.
Lots of things get people killed and/or sent to jail.
Zuckerberg profits off the millions of college students "dumb enough" to waste their precious time "socializing" instead of studying like our society says they should. And don't forget the videos of myspace obsessed children and the like, I'm sure there are people out there who have died of social media related things, it's just not as easily attributed as a cause of death.
Similarly Jay-Z just happened to profit from people "dumb enough" to buy the drugs he sold. It was an opportunity, and he capitalized on it.
You have to work with what you got. It's just the way the world works. I'm pretty sure if you put Zuckerberg in the hood, he'd turn out to be a dealer and give Jay-Z computers in his childhood and he'd probably be a hacker. It's a combination of the ambitious troublemaker personality with the environment that makes what these people have become.
In a sense, you could say Jay hacked the coke game, and was smart(lucky?) enough to get out before he got into too much trouble.
I agree, we shouldn't look up to Zuckerberg either. Both are doing rather slimy and morally questionable things, and I would argue that we should find both of them distasteful.
Wow - this is a powerful analysis of a powerful idea. He crystallizes a notion that I've always sensed subconsciously but never realized actually. The importance of the "first follower" is now etched into my mind.
Downvote the above if you will, but there is truth in those words, if only masked behind palpable bitterness...
...and honestly - I feel the guy.
We humans have a tendency towards the shameless worship of heroes. We seem to need to create legends and demigods and to praise and glorify acts that upon careful examination are little more than the progeny of good fortune and timing. Providence itself isn't worthy of our praise nor our consideration - which makes the ascension of men of 'lesser stuff' a bitter pill to swallow for those few 'in-the-know'.
I think back to first grade, and recall how desperately I wanted to be a scientist/composer/hero/great man/demigod. I had no idea what these things were really, but in my mind, they were the people who knew; and what they didn't know they sought. They were the gatekeepers, arbiters, discoverers, and composers of knowledge, truth, and frankly most of what mattered. A few years later, when asked who/what I wanted to be when I grew up, beyond my father I could think only of Newton, Einstein, Maxwell, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, et al...
My, how quickly things change. The pursuit of knowledge and beauty for its own sake is an ideal which has perhaps never existed, or existed in so few men as to have practically never done so. But we're waaay past that. A man not too long ago solved Fermat's Last, how many know his name without Wikipedia? What impresses us now? What is deemed worthy of our 'shameless worship"?A man not too long ago solved Poincare's; beyond the story about his rejecting a million dollars, who gave a shit?
No one. We save our shits for the pirates of Silicon Valley these days.
That, if I am ever blessed with a son or daughter, and they are one day asked in their youth who or what they want to become when they grow up, and in turn respond with Gates, Jobs, Zuckerburg, et al, we have all failed. And I, them.
That's one of the aspects of the HN community that I most dislike. It's like Puritan divine providence, but applied non-religiously to business. X succeeded so he/she must be great. HN sees these people as masters of business: smart, ambitious, persistent, etc. What if they were lucky? Unscrupulous? Manipulating? I'm not saying it has to be all one way or all the other, but I often think only one point of view gets seen here.
"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt
Completely agree, the name dropping around here can get tiresome quick. There was a great article on Mint vs. Wesabe posted here recently - in my opinion we need more articles like that and less Jobs is a design master/Zuckerberg is a genius/etc.
Eleanor Roosevelt didn't say that. From Wikiquote, which is slowly approaching authoritativeness on quotes online:
This has been quoted without citation as a statement of Eleanor Roosevelt. It is usually attributed to Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, but though Rickover quoted this, he did not claim to be the author of it; in "The World of the Uneducated" in The Saturday Evening Post (28 November 1959), he prefaces it with "As the unknown sage puts it..."
Not sure what you think of Malcolm Gladwell, but I am finally reading Outliers and he casts new light on the many factors of success -- new in the sense that, contrary to mythos, success is not attributable primarily to personal greatness/willpower, but rather having the right-place-right-time + family upbringing + opportunities, etc. (things that are not in the person's direct control).
Pure academic achievement is no doubt worthy of appreciation. And on other days, the Nobel Laureates and Fields Medalists and Booker Prize winners will get their due.
But let's be clear: our modern day Fords and Edisons also deserve their due. Self-made billionaires have served society in the ultimate sense: they made something that millions upon untold millions of people want.
Those in the ivory tower, god bless them, are scratching their own itch. Sometimes, some of them produce something which benefits humanity, but it's not their primary goal. Their goal is to indulge their curiosity and make a name for themselves. And their world is generally far less stressful than if they'd taken the plunge into actually creating wealth and building things for other people.
As for your children, well, there's a couple billion people in China and India who've endured a 20th century replete with attacks on industrial ambition. Something tells me many of them would be just fine with their son or daughter growing up to be the next Gates, Jobs, or Zuckerberg.
This used to be called "Startup News." It's a news site explicitly established for people who want to become Mark Zuckerberg. Flag it if you don't like it, but move on.
Can someone with state-of-the-art knowledge of biology explain how in the world something like this could have evolved?
It was my rudimentary understanding that Lamarckian inheritance had been debunked; how else then could such precise knowledge of a cockroach's neurological functions have been passed on to the subsequent generation from the primary generation whence such a technique was first employed?
I don't have state-of-the-art knowledge of biology, but you'll note from the article
While a number of venomous animals paralyze prey as live food for their young, Ampulex compressa is different in that it initially leaves the roach mobile and modifies its behavior in a unique way.
This suggests to me that the ancestors of this wasp would simply paralyze the roach and lay eggs inside, and this behaviour evolved from that.
This suggests to me that the ancestors of this wasp would simply paralyze the roach and lay eggs inside, and this behaviour evolved from that.
That would be backwards evolution.
From the scienceblog link:
Amuplex is not technically a parasite, but something known as an exoparasitoid. In other words, a free-living adult lays an egg outside a host, and then the larva crawls into the host. One could easily imagine the ancestors of Ampulex as wasps that laid their eggs near dead insects--as some species do today. These corpse-feeding ancestors then evolved into wasps that attacked living hosts. Likewise, it's not hard to envision an Ampulex-like wasp evolving into full-blown parasitoids that inject their eggs directly into their hosts, as many species do today.
You tell the poor fellow to focus on his project, and then give him four ways to distract himself! Nevertheless...
Regarding #3 :
This is an excellent but intractable idea. The sheer number of languages in that region is too staggering to capture even a majority percentage in such a manner; and it would be of little use to any but the academics in linguistics or cultural anthropology.
Better would be a tool that completely encapsulates the vocabulary and grammar of the main languages in that region, so that they may be learned online. There are no sufficient tools that do so at present, either online or in bookstores - and the children of the diaspora, and their children and so forth, could/would make great use of such a thing.
I added that mostly for variety, my two personal interests are medical records for the ID-less (specially pediatric medical records.) And vigilante education reform with games, song and dance. I can talk about those two all day.
The principle behind my idea for language documentation is that logging diversity, in one Nigeria-wide record, also underscores the equality of the Nigerian people as a whole, across religious, linguistic and clan divides. Right now most people identify with one of few macro-clans, something that aborted our own Somali state.
Documenting dialects and noting the nuanced differences between people makes an amusement, a public spectacle if you will, of what could otherwise have been a matter of tribal pride and differentiation to feel superior over others. I didn't become a "Somali" until I saw the British records, and how identical we were to them.
Empower the minority sub-cultures, and the large clusters come apart. Give voice to individuality, and local culture at the micro-level, and, paradoxically, the larger group identity becomes stronger. Could you imagine how better off Africa would be if people didn't vote along clan lines?
[Edit:
I gotta get ready for a flight, but I really wanna keep this conversation going, hopefully with Oo's involvement.]
Ah - I see where you were going and totally agree with your sentiments. In my opinion, tribalism is simultaneously Africa's (nay, the World's) greatest potential catalyst to overcome its tremendous problems, and also its most devastating weakness. That said, the extent language plays in such tribalism is that part of the world is debatable, as English is Nigeria's national language and the natives communicate extensively in pidgin dialects.
But you provoke interesting questions; Is it possible to mitigate or eliminate tribalism on any level, anywhere in the world? And if so, can software be integral to the process, or in any way accelerate it?
My reading of history tells me that favorable outcomes are possible in regards to both questions, however the form of such software is at the moment beyond my conception.
Sir, with all due respect, kindly speak for yourself.
I find your post offensive to good sense, pragmatism, and sensibility.
If, and when a person chooses to share their lives with the entire world, they must then also live we the consequences of that sharing, good or bad.
Patio11 has done exactly this - he has quite literally given a piece of himself to the world and for that he has both been praised and psychoanalyzed. He is by all accounts an adult, and I am sure he is aware of the nature of this beast.
I enjoyed lionhearted's analysis, if only as an intellectual exercise. Is that not why this damn site exists? For the stimulation of intellectual curiosity? If this kind of post is not acceptable here, then by all reasonable measures 95% off all front page articles ever, do/did not belong here.
Where is this melodramatic over-reaction when the myriad of critical PG, Zuckerburg, Gates, Jobs, Hansen, Arrington, and Calcanis posts hit the front page? Why haven't the writers of those blog post been similarly singled out? Your needless "defense" of patio11 is more an affront to him then the post of which you disagree! If you're going to engage in high-school melodrama, at least be consistent about its application.
"Let's keep HN sacred."
HN isn't sacred for goodness-sakes. It is a place for intellectual discussion; the subject of which can be anything or anyone. Remove the 'sanctimonious' from your thinking - please.
Your unfunny, offensive, 'parody' page, full of 'n-bombs' and a picture that is nothing if not racist, tidily explains your summarily trollish and unintelligent comment.