{"id":351349,"date":"2021-03-30T15:16:33","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T19:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=351349"},"modified":"2021-03-30T15:16:55","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T19:16:55","slug":"knowles-taking-lil-nas-x-and-satan-seriously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/knowles-taking-lil-nas-x-and-satan-seriously\/","title":{"rendered":"KNOWLES: Taking\u00a0Lil\u00a0Nas\u00a0X (And Satan) Seriously"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">10<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fknowles-taking-lil-nas-x-and-satan-seriously%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=351349&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/fb_image-4575.jpeg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Conservatives are wailing and gnashing their teeth over rapper&nbsp;Lil&nbsp;Nas&nbsp;X\u2019s new satanic song and sneakers. The shoes feature pentagrams and a single drop of human blood. The music video depicts the performer giving Satan a lap dance. The publicity stunt, timed to coincide with the start of Holy Week, has succeeded at getting people to talk about&nbsp;Lil&nbsp;Nas&nbsp;and his products, and all it cost the rapper was his soul.<\/p>\n<p>The Right is right to take the rapper\u2019s antics seriously. Satan is a real person, Hell is a real place, and\u2014to borrow a phrase from Baudelaire\u2014\u201dthe greatest trick of the Devil is to persuade people he doesn\u2019t exist.\u201d As the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia once reminded a smirking <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/books\/page-turner\/the-devil-you-know\">interviewer<\/a> from the&nbsp;New Yorker, \u201cMost of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil.\u201d&nbsp;It\u2019s all fun and games until the Devil devours your soul.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, conservatives have not taken&nbsp;Lil&nbsp;Nas&nbsp;seriously enough. The rapper\u2019s music video, \u201cMontero (Call Me By Your Name),\u201d offers more than the shallow carnality of Cardi B\u2019s \u201cWAP\u201d; it presents a coherent narrative of our present political perversion.<\/p>\n<p>The song takes its title from the rapper\u2019s Christian name. He begins, \u201cIn life, we hide the parts of ourselves we don\u2019t want the world to see. We lock them away. We tell them no. We banish them. But here, we don\u2019t. Welcome to Montero.\u201d&nbsp;Nas&nbsp;seems to be referring to his homosexual desires, which he had kept hidden from the public until only recently.<\/p>\n<p>Lil&nbsp;Nas&nbsp;has built Montero to be a Garden of Eden already in the throes of serpentine temptation. As the rapper laments a love interest \u201clivin\u2019 the life\u201d but who \u201cain\u2019t livin\u2019 right,\u201d the snake coils around the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.&nbsp;Lil&nbsp;Nas&nbsp;attempts to flee, but the serpent cuts him off and seduces him. Ancient Greek letters glow on the tree, revealing Aristophanes\u2019 theory of love from Plato\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Symposium<\/em>. Zeus, the ruler of the gods, had cut primordial man in two to humble his pride, according to Aristophanes. Romantic desire therefore attempts to restore our original nature by rejoining us to our other half, who need not be of the opposite sex.<\/p>\n<p>The rapper next finds himself enchained in a stadium, jeered by the crowd. Nevertheless, he begins to ascend toward heaven, where an angel awaits \u2014 until Lil Nas discovers an infernal stripper pole, which he rides all the way down to Hell. The rapper swings and sings exultantly as he descends to the sorrowful city. Nas enters Satan\u2019s palace, where around the Devil\u2019s throne he reads the Latin phrase, \u201c<em>Damnant quod non intelligunt<\/em>\u201d (\u201cThey condemn what they don\u2019t understand\u201d). The rapper then mounts the Father of Lies and gives him a lap dance before cracking the Devil\u2019s neck and stealing his horns, which he places atop his own head.&nbsp;Nas\u2019s eyes glow red, and he sprouts the wings of a fallen angel.<\/p>\n<p>The whole scene recalls John Milton\u2019s sympathetic portrayal of Satan in&nbsp;<em>Paradise Lost<\/em>. Upon banishment into damnation, Milton\u2019s Satan insists, \u201cThe mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.\u201d All that matters for him is that he \u201cbe still the same\u201d and that he \u201cshall be free.\u201d He prefers to reign in misery than to serve in joy. Milton\u2019s Satan exalts individual autonomy above all else, including justice and virtue. One might call him a \u201cclassical liberal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite the judgment that&nbsp;Nas\u2019s protagonist endures in the stadium, Heaven lies before him. But he chooses to ride the slippery pole to Hell. Or does he? That same protagonist also chose to resist the Serpent in the Garden, but the Serpent overpowered his will and seduced him. To what extent can a man so compromised even claim to possess free will?<\/p>\n<p>Back in reality, liberals of the Left and Right have adopted the Devil\u2019s wishful thinking. They mistake licentiousness for liberty, the chains of Hell for the freedom of Heaven. In&nbsp;Nas\u2019s Montero, the desire for self-definition turns man into the Devil himself. But who wants to heed the rapper\u2019s cautionary tale?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a&nbsp;<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>member<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Conservatives are wailing and gnashing their teeth over rapper\u00a0Lil\u00a0Nas\u00a0X\u2019s new satanic song and sneakers. The shoes feature pentagrams and a single drop of human blood. The music video depicts the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2311402,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/fb_image-4575.jpeg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"KNOWLES: Taking\u00a0Lil\u00a0Nas\u00a0X (And Satan) Seriously","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-351349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/fb_image-4575.jpeg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"KNOWLES: Taking\u00a0Lil\u00a0Nas\u00a0X (And Satan) Seriously","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2311402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}