Fences and Morals
In the past year, I have attempted to check myself on a lot of things, in a lot of matters. One of the more interesting things I have discovered and internalized is the need to identify my values and stick with them firmly.
It has manifested itself very clearly in my stance on pop/hip-hop culture (or music culture in general) — it is toxic and contradictory and should be avoided totally & completely.
To put in perspective, we (Nigerians on social media) can see how internet fraud aka Yahoo Yahoo has been a big point of discussion recently. A lot of words and outrage have poured out towards fraud apologists — those who are making excuses for fraudsters, and of course the culture of fraud glorification. I’m here to hold a mirror to a lot of us and show the apologist in us:
“I do not support fraud and I think it is reprehensible, but I will play music glorifying fraud at my wedding. No o, I don’t justify fraud o, but those beats are fire 🔥 and will make my wedding lit”.
“I believe fornication/adultery is a temptation and is bad and I should guard myself from it, but I will listen to/dance to/sing songs where the theme is the things I want to do to a man/woman I see behaving in a certain attractive manner”.
“I believe polite speech is underrated and polished, polite speech is a marker of good manners and civilized relations, but I will immerse myself in a culture where women are called by derogatory nouns, and swear words are a dime a dozen.”
“I believe intoxicants/narcotics are quite dangerous and drugs/alcohol addiction is a social problem, but I really enjoy rap that is about moving drugs and songs where it is mentioned in every other verse how we all need some alcohol/weed/coke to do great stuff. No, I don’t support it o. I just dance to it ni. The wordplay is lit bro. It’s just for the culture”
Take a step back from your lives and think about it. Just for a bit. Are those sentences familiar? More importantly, are they logical? Do we believe our minds so powerful that we can get the best of different worlds? Or perhaps we are closet supporters of these things and are lying to ourselves? The latter are in a better position than the former — they know what they stand for and are simply deceiving others. Those in the first group? They set themselves up. There is a common proverb in these parts — how a man who attempts to chase down two rats at the same time catches none. The lesson from it is not so common.
In moral matters, there is no fence. Stop looking for one, and stay to one side.
