ANDREW SULLIVAN: Kanye West and the Question of Freedom.

When elites speak of tribalism, we tend to think we’re somehow above it. After all, we have educated minds that have developed the intellectual muscles to resist coarser loyalties, have we not? We value unique individuals over the amorphous group. We like to think we can see complexity and nuance rather than wallowing in coarse Manichean ideas, articulated by demagogues, that divide the world into “us” and “the other.” It’s the unthinking masses who do that. Not us. Unlike them, we are aware of the dangers of this temptation, alert to its irrationality. We resist it. . . .

The dynamic here is deeply tribal. It’s an atmosphere in which the individual is always subordinate to the group, in which the “I” is allowed only when licensed by the “we.” Hence the somewhat hysterical reaction, for example, to Kanye West’s recent rhetorical antics. I’m not here to defend West. He may be a musical genius (I’m in no way qualified to judge) but he is certainly a jackass, and saying something like “slavery was a choice” is so foul and absurd it’s self-negating. I don’t blame anyone for taking him down a few notches, as Ta-Nehisi Coates just did in memorable fashion in The Atlantic. He had it coming. You could almost say he asked for it.

But still. And yet. There was something about the reaction that just didn’t sit right with me, something too easy, too dismissive of an individual artist’s right to say whatever he wants, to be accountable to no one but himself. It had a smack of raw tribalism to it, of collective disciplining, of the group owning the individual, and exacting its revenge for difference.

To be fair, Coates’ established role is to call people outside the tribe racist, while policing racial attitudes and behavior within the tribe.

Plus:

As an individual, I seek my own freedom, period. Being gay is integral to who I am, but it doesn’t define who I am. There is no gay freedom or straight freedom, no black freedom or white freedom; merely freedom, a common dream, a universalizing, individual experience. “Liberation from the dictates of the we” is everyone’s birthright in America, and it is particularly so for anyone in the creative fields of music or writing. A free artist owes nothing to anyone, especially his own tribe. And if you take the space away from him to be exactly what he wants to be, in all his contradictions and complexity, you are eradicating something critical to a free and healthy society. You are devouring the individual in favor of the mob. You are reducing a kaleidoscope to black and white.

And notice that in Ta-Nehisi’s essay, two concepts — freedom and music — that have long been seen as universal, transcending class or race or gender or any form of identity toward an idea of the eternally human or even divine — are emphatically tribalized and brought decisively down to earth. Freedom, in this worldview, does not and cannot unite Americans of all races; neither can music. Because there is no category of simply human freedom possible in America, now or ever. There is only tribe. And the struggle against the other tribe. And this will never end.

Well, that’s the point. If it ends, a lot of people’s livelihoods, social positions, and power bases are gone.

MARK PULLIAM: Something Is Amiss At UTexas Law School.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO FACILITATE RAPE: Mom pleads guilty to letting elderly man rape girls for cash.

YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BE DIFFERENT: The Trashing of George Mason University: The left gangs up on the school for having conservative professors.

Cue the outrage. Among the horrors supposedly uncovered by UnKoch is that one condition of these gifts was that George Mason rename its law school after Antonin Scalia. UnKoch wants everyone to know that the Great Scalia was “one of the most ideological and polarizing Supreme Court Justice [sic] in history.” OMG, as the kids say. The New York Times ran a nearly full-page story on the documents.

The truth is that the naming request and decision went through normal university channels that included a vote by the university’s Board of Visitors, as well as the State Council on Higher Education for Virginia. Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Scalia friend, also approved.

UnKoch has also hyped correspondence between George Mason’s law school and the Federalist Society as something nefarious. The emails include Mr. Leo’s recommendation of a prospective student and discussion of candidates for professorships. UnKoch is aghast that a law professor and Mr. Leo would discuss federal clerkships for alumni who are current Federalist Society members. Don’t universities want their graduates to succeed?

UnKoch has also seized on now-obsolete gift agreements between the Mercatus Center and George Mason’s economics department. Signed between 2003 and 2011, they gave the Koch Foundation a minority role on committees that make recommendations about candidates for George Mason professorships and for Mercatus Center positions funded by its gifts.

This non-scandal gets worse. A 2009 gift agreement between George Mason and the Mercatus Center outlined the terms for a Koch-funded chair, and it states that “the objective of the Professorship is to advance the understanding, acceptance and practice of those free market processes and principles which promote individual freedom, opportunity and prosperity, including the rule of law, constitutional government, private property and the laws, regulations, organizations, institutions, and social norms upon which they rely.”

We should hope so. Donors are committing no crime in trying to judge if their philanthropy is fulfilling its purpose. The Kochs, God bless them, believe in supporting academics who believe in the principles of liberty and market economics. While they can’t and shouldn’t dictate what any professor writes, professors who believe in free markets will tend to support those principles.

The contracts explicitly stipulate that “the final say in all faculty appointments lies in specified GMU procedures, involving academic approval and final approval by the Board of Visitors.” But if George Mason chose to hire academics like the prolific Donald Boudreaux because he believes in advancing free-market ideas, so much the better.

Or so much the worse to the left, which brooks no intellectual diversity without essaying a smear or two.

LEONARD PITTS: Why should we bother to ‘understand’ Trump supporters when they’re just a bunch of old white people who’ll die out soon anyway?

GET WOKE, GO BROKE:  Gun Manufacturers Fire Back at Dick’s Sporting Goods, Halt Sales.

YEAH, SO TIRED OF THIS:  The “Trump bump.”

KILLING THE GOOSE THAT LAYS THE GOLDEN EGGS:  If it Please the Crow.

THAT’S A FUNNY WAY OF SPELLING STALKING:  Venmo is a great tool for cracking relationship mysteries.

AND ABOUT TIME TOO:  The Coalition for Cultural Freedom.  Yeah, it’s weird, but a rising revolt lifts all boats.

WHO WOULD HAVE IMAGINED THAT PEOPLE WITH DRUG ABUSE ISSUES WOULD NOT DISPOSE THEIR KITS PROPERLY?  San Francisco’s streets are littered with free syringes.  This is my shocked face.

IF BOTH GENDERS ARE EQUAL THERE’S NO JUSTIFICATION FOR SEGREGATED EVENTS:  Woman sued by men for discrimination at empowerment events.

STILL PLAYING THIS GAME?  Russian Nuclear Bombers Intercepted Near Alaska.

FOR SOME REASON “ALEXA” DIDN’T MAKE THE LIST:  Here are 2017’s most popular baby names.

ALEXA, WIRE $10k TO A NIGERIAN PRINCE:  Hackers can use white noise to break into your Alexa.

BOOK PLUG FRIDAY: Meet Pam Uphoff.

NEW EUROPE VS. OLD EUROPE: Scoop: EU statement opposing U.S. embassy move is blocked. “Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania, in coordination with Israel, today blocked a joint EU statement criticizing the relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, Israeli officials and European diplomats told me.”

Two thoughts: (1) Weird, people keep telling me Hungary is anti-semitic now; and (2) Unlike France & Germany, they’re not making a bundle — and having their politicians outright bribed — from Iran.

SO, LIKE THE DEMOCRATS, THEN? We read every one of the 3,517 Facebook ads bought by Russians. Their dominant strategy: Sowing racial discord.

Meanwhile, from President Trump: “When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.”

THIS IS CNN: Chris Cuomo Asks if America Should Be Blamed for Iranian Aggression Toward Israel.

OPEN THREAD: Make it Friday-night special.

AND HERE’S SOMETHING ELSE TO WORRY ABOUT: Anxiety levels linked to increased bone fractures in older women.

NEWS YOU CAN ABUSE: Rock & Roll Safehouse, Part II: How to Write and Record Your Own Song.

Last week, we explored how to make a music video without leaving the editing room. Its sequel article is a deeeep dive into the songwriting and recording process. I tried to write the sort of article I would search long and hard to find when I was starting out learning how to play guitar and writing songs. So I certainly won’t fault non-musicians’ eyes from glazing over during this one.

(Bumped.)

REVIEW: SIG Sauer P365 Micro-Compact 9mm Pistol.