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I don't know about you but I wouldn't follow him into a room full of free Belgian chocolate.
Anyone have any opinions about Russell Brand and his latest campaign?
Me, I think this is just more attention seeking behaviour but does he have a point?
Anyone have any opinions about Russell Brand and his latest campaign?
Me, I think this is just more attention seeking behaviour but does he have a point?
Brand is the pied piper of anti-politics - don't follow
The Drum
By Shaun Crowe
Fri 31 Oct 2014
Russell Brand is articulate and charismatic in his anti-politics crusade, but that doesn't mean we should follow all his leads. In the end politics is all we've really got, writes Shaun Crowe.
Russell Brand is a man with many undoubted talents. Eloquent, attractive - in the same way that Kramer from Seinfeld never struggled for a date - and with a natural instinct for a flamboyant, dandyish style of comedy.
But Russell Brand in 2014 is a very different man to Russell Brand in 2008. Over the past year, the English comic has styled himself as a political guru, the spiritual leader of the brewing revolt against corrupt democracies. Earlier this month he released a book, Revolution, outlining his ideas and personal journey. Brand's manifesto is receiving press unimaginable to any methodical, cautious political scientist. (It took Marx five years to sell 1000 copies of Das Kapital in Germany.) This is partly due to the unexpected nature of his political awakening, but also because of how uncompromisingly radical his arguments are.
Brand claims that the current system of party democracy is broken. It's a cartel upholding the political status quo, concentrating power and allowing inequality and alienation to grow. Brand wants a "true" democracy, one where ordinary people's "views are expressed" and where they can "manifest their will through process". Brand doesn't engage with the party system, considering it pointless, and doesn't vote in elections.The reason I don't vote is the same reason I don't eat glitter, there's no f***ing point ... I would suggest total disobedience, total non-compliance and also total organisation!Brand's contempt for modern politics is articulate and cutting, but it isn't unique. While I doubt they'd consider themselves political allies, Clive Palmer's (Australian coal millionaire who formed his own political party and who now has balance ov power status in the Senate) rise harnesses a similar anger. In his maiden speech, he claimed that politicians were "indifferent" to the needs of voters. Jacqui Lambie, another Palmer United politician, wants to create a "fair go for all Tasmanians and Australians, not just the privileged and the rich".
Anti-politicians like Palmer may be volatile, but the sentiment behind their popularity remains solid. So how should political forces, especially progressive ones, engage with them?
Some have already argued that hatred of politics should be embraced, not rejected. Tad Tietze believes that anti-politics represents an "opportunity" for the left - a chance to harness anti-establishment anger to build something beyond capitalist democracy. Simon Copland has made a similar point, in terms of the movement against Tony Abbott.
While this advice might seem tempting, it should be avoided at all costs. An enthusiastic embrace of anti-politics would do nothing but long-term damage to progressive causes in Australia. The problem with anti-politics is that it loudly proclaims something that social democrats don't want to concede - that politics is inept, dishonest and ultimately doomed to fail.
Parties like Labor (centre left) and the Greens (further left) have very little to gain by spreading this idea further. In fact, their sales pitch - what differentiates them the Liberal Party (centre right)- is their argument that collective, political action can help shape a society that would be poorer without it. Socialised healthcare, subsidised education, the awards system, the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) and carbon pricing are all premised on the fact that active democratic politics can be force for good.
Importantly, the anti-political tradition in Australia has rarely been anti-government. Pauline Hanson actually rejected the economic deregulation promoted by the Hawke-Keating Labor government. Clive Palmer described the 2014 budget as "heartless and cruel" because of its cuts to services.
Politicians must take this anti-political sentiment seriously, but that doesn't mean promoting it. The political scientist Peter Mair has highlighted a worrying situation where democracy is becoming feeble - where politics is "easing away from the demos". If people feel alienated from decision making, that's an argument for reforming institutions so they're connected in meaningful ways. Bill Shorten (Leader of the Opposition and Labor Party) acknowledged this, starting the conversation, but that has since stalled.
One of the biggest problems Brand has with politics is how slowly it seems to move - "the revolution cannot be boring", he proclaimed. But pluralistic democracies take time. The sociologist Max Weber described politics as the "strong and slow boring of hard boards".
Even Gough Whitlam (reformist PM 1972-1975), whose three-year term is the closest thing to Brand's flash of revolutionary light in Australian political history, spent more than a decade internally boring the boards. He would never have led the country as he did if he didn't slowly reform the Labor Party, travelling to often-tedious local branches and state conferences.
The desire for things to move fast, to see the change you want now, is understandable. Life is short. But because democracies require majority support, they're always going to irritate radicals.
And what's the alternative? Overthrowing parliamentary democracy for something more visceral and local?
It's hard to see this happening, even if it was desirable. Australians are so constitutionally conservative that they rejected a modest republic. The socialist revolution won't fare much better.
Brand is articulate and charismatic, but that doesn't mean we should follow all his leads. Politics is slow, frustrating and we need to make it better - but in the end it's all we've really got.
Shaun Crowe is a PhD student in Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University. View his full profile here.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-...-piper-of-anti-politics---dont-follow/5854720
