“A Conqueror’s Freedom”: A Hegelian Interpretation of Kanye West’s Breakdown

Something about Kanye West’s latest breakdown (or “breakthrough” as he puts it ) made me think of Hegel. In Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit, forms of consciousness attempt to make themselves Absolute, to give themselves a basis for knowing and acting that isn’t relative to some other being, to win freedom. The book, in a very abstract and hazy way, …