No One Man Should Have All That Power

 by James Mullen

To the dismay of Kanye West, Taylor Swift won the award for the best female video at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards: so much so that he interrupted her acceptance of the award, rather proclaiming that Beyoncé had ‘one of the best videos of all time’, in reference to her hit single ‘Single Ladies’. Since then, there has been an evident divide between the so-called Swifties and Kanye fans, who both often feud via social media.

Since the incident, Kanye faced condemnation from various public figures, including Obama who called him a ‘jackass’, aided with the then-new development of social media. As a result, he felt as if the whole of the western world was against him, and he therefore exiled himself to Japan, where he quickly began work on his own fashion house and his next studio album: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. 

Inspired by the chaos of his current life and the pressures associated with being under constant scrutiny in the public spotlight, the album was released in November 2010, just a year after the VMAs. Both him and his fans alike knew that this album would make or break his career. The ball was in his court and it was up to him how he played it. All of the lights were on him. 

And, at least in my opinion, he did not disappoint, arguably releasing his magnum opus, the epitome of which can be appreciated in the third track of the album: Power. At a first glance, the song offers an introspective view on what having fame means. However, it fundamentally asks the question ‘do you have the power to let power go?’. 

He argues that power and fame is addictive, almost like trying to reach the top is a drug. During his presidency, Obama faced a lot of critique for abusing his power and trying to expand his authority and making empty promises. Despite being renowned for negotiating in peace talks, he exhibited clear hypocrisy as his actions spoke in the contrary. For example, his administration escalated the use of targeted drone strikes and military intervention in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen and Libya. As a result of these costly wars, many innocent civilians were killed, raising clear concerns about the extent of the president’s interventions, executing his power in geographically-far countries and, in the process, killing the inhabitants of those countries. And yet, he publicly promised to de-escalate the wars by peaceful cooperation and negotiation - maybe no one man should have all that power.

The Romans understood this concept well. During the period of the Roman Republic, they opted for a style of having two consuls in government, simultaneously. These would be elected by the people and serve as the highest, executive officials in the Republic, but would only serve for one year. It is important to note that each consul had the power to veto the decisions of the other.

However, a clear drawback to this system, which was seen at many points in history, caused the consuls to almost prove themselves in combat and exhibit Roman ideals by expanding the empire, in an attempt to gain their own popularity for themselves. This often led to further conflict rather than peace due to the provocation of the Romans in their hunt for glory. But, at the end of the day, no consul could have more power than the other as their authority could always be checked by the other. The Romans understood the fact that a man with too much power can easily slip into the hands of tyranny, like many notable dictators have done in the past; maybe tyrants still exist in the western world, just demonstrating a different visage to the public as to not get impeached or have their power revoked, suggesting that many modern rulers do not have the power to let power go.

And it was this ambivalence that Kanye talked about in pretty much all of his songs in his album ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’, so much so that I’d argue it’s the album’s overarching theme. For Kanye expressed his frustration with facing so much scrutiny in the spotlight for superficialities, and yet even more powerful people, like Obama, were praised despite their insincere nature. (Well, this was my own interpretation of his lyrics ‘I was the abomination of Obama’s nation). i.e. No one man should have all that power.