So another model has come forward with salacious allegations against the modern Nero, Kanye West. The BBC reports that a woman has accused the rapper of choking her during a recording session in London. Now, I am no defender of Mr West, a man whose public behaviour has long since crossed the line from eccentric genius to tawdry narcissist. But let us step back from the spectacle and ask a more uncomfortable question: why is this story dominating our news cycle?
We live in an age of intellectual decay. The Roman Empire fell, in part, because its citizens lost the capacity for serious discourse. They preferred bread and circuses to political engagement. Today, we have replaced circuses with celebrity scandals. Every allegation against a famous person is treated as a national crisis, while the real crises of our time go unexamined. The collapse of the family, the decline of educational standards, the erosion of national identity: these are the true indicators of a civilisation in decline. But no, we must obsess over a rapper’s hands around a model’s throat.
The model, whose identity the BBC has protected, claims the incident occurred in 2023. She says West lost his temper during a studio session and choked her until she nearly passed out. Horrifying, if true. But let us not pretend that this is a story about justice. It is a story about celebrity. The fact that West’s UK visa is now being questioned only adds to the farce. The Home Office is reportedly reviewing his right to remain in the country. As if deporting a celebrity will solve anything.
I am reminded of the Victorian era, when the public decried the moral decay of the aristocracy while ignoring the rotting slums of their industrial cities. We are no different. We point fingers at Kanye West because it is easy. It absolves us of the harder work: examining the cultural rot that produces such monsters. West is not a cause of our decline. He is a symptom. He represents the unfettered ego, the worship of fame, the commodification of outrage. We created him. We bought his albums, we shared his rants, we made him a billionaire.
The real question is not whether Kanye West should be banned from the UK. The real question is: why do we care so much? Every hour we spend dissecting his behaviour is an hour we are not thinking about the rising tide of anti-Semitism, the collapse of public discourse, the dismantling of our institutions. But that would require us to look in the mirror. And we are all far too busy staring at the trainwreck.
Perhaps the model is telling the truth. Perhaps Kanye West is a violent misogynist. But if he is, he is merely the logical endpoint of a culture that rewards excess and punishes restraint. We have raised a generation that believes fame is a birthright and self-expression a moral imperative. The result is a man who thinks he can choke a woman and still command a headline.
I offer no solution. There is none within the framework of this decadent culture. But I will say this: the next time you find yourself enraptured by a celebrity scandal, ask yourself what you are ignoring. The answer will tell you everything about why our civilisation is crumbling.
