Nearly 30 years ago, Russell Jacoby
lamented the disappearance of intellectuals from the public square in his book The Last Intellectuals. Today he might
be lamenting the fact that the public intellectual is making a comeback, and
his name is Russell Brand.
Comedian-and-actor-turned-political-firebrand
Brand, whose Rasputin-like visage stares hypnotically from the cover of his
latest book Revolution, is
establishing himself as a bigger politi-pop messiah than Bono. He is managing
this despite his many media critics like Michael Moynihan, who wrote a devastating
takedown of Revolution at The Daily Beast calling the manifesto “utterly
misguided, unfunny, illogical, and unreadable.” The Guardian says he has a “barmy
credo” without a plan of action. The
Independent dismissed
Brand as “Britain’s most trivial revolutionary.”
And yet his revolution keeps gaining
traction. The grinning, gesticulating,
machine gun-mouthed Brand is being taken seriously as an intellectual
not so much by other intellectuals as by the disaffected, pop culture-saturated
young people who feel the injustice
of The System. The Guardian
acknowledges that he is “worth taking notice of because he is the nearest
Britain has to a revolutionary populist.” He has become a ubiquitous TV interviewee, no longer because he was once
Mr. Katy Perry but because he is the new Ché. He was designated a guest editor
of the liberal New Statesman.
He was interviewed
for London’s prestigious Financial Times.
He was the subject of a
Vanity Fair piece in which, like
all the others, the writer found Brand’s ideas nonsensical and unworkable but was
nonetheless seduced by his “innate carnality” and calculated charisma. And his
influence is sufficiently worrying to induce BBC political editor Nick Robinson
to
present a radio series in which he grapples with it.
The very fact that Brand don’t get
no respect, as Rodney Dangerfield might say, from The Establishment is
confirmation to his fans that Brand’s Occupy-style message – of a collectivist blah blah ecologically
sustainable blah blah changing our consciousness blah blah future – is
on target. They don’t care that, as Moynihan noted, Brand misquotes Orwell or
makes up facts; facts are irrelevant in the face of Brand’s glib but urgent
call to action. We’re raping the planet! Our politicians are all corrupt! Some
people are poor! Even worse, some people are rich! These passionately delivered
sentiments are intoxicating to masses of young,
politically naïve utopians.
“He seems designed for young people
who are just getting into politics,” was the backhanded compliment from a Guardian columnist – or less
politely, “people with a surfeit of opinions and a dearth of understanding,” as
the International Business Times recently
put it.
When Brand tells them not to vote, for
example, he claims
it’s not because he’s apathetic – it’s because The System is apathetic to the
people: “I am not voting out of absolute indifference and weariness and
exhaustion from the lies, treachery and deceit of the political class that has
been going on for generations.” Well, we’re all weary of that, but “absolute
indifference” is apathy, and a
non-vote made in protest has the same effect as a non-vote made in apathy – it ensures
that the status quo which Brand rails against will remain in place.
As for the hypocrisy of a celeb worth an estimated $20 million preaching anti-capitalism, Brand announced
that “I have decided that I don’t need to make any money anymore.” It’s
not that he intends to start refusing paychecks:
The money that I
get, I’m going to use for the establishment of community centers, which will
sell good food and provide a place for people to hang out: initially, a service
for people recovering from drug addiction, but also an incubator for social
enterprises, where people will work, on a not-for-profit basis, in a wide
variety of trades.
In addition to starting up these enterprising
incubators where recovering addicts will hang out working for nothing, Brand is
unveiling
a documentary about economics called Emperor’s
New Clothes, on which he collaborated with filmmaker Michael Winterbottom,
who previously turned Naomi Klein’s The
Shock Doctrine into a documentary about “disaster capitalism.” The new
film, which will include “comedy routines,” promises to be as demagogic and
fact-challenged as a Michael Moore documentary, and possibly as popular.
Coincidentally, another British pop
star has a new book as well, and he too is being given the public intellectual
treatment. John Lydon, the artist formerly known as Johnny Rotten, lead singer
of punk godfathers The Sex Pistols and rock’s first “anarchist,” is now the
author of Anger is an Energy: My Life
Uncensored, which made the London Times
bestseller
list (as did Brand’s). At 58, Lydon lacks Brand’s satyr-like energy and
mind-numbing verbosity but exudes a mischievous intelligence.
Invited to contribute to the
November issue of Prospect, the UK’s
“leading magazine of ideas,” the man who sang “I wanna be anarchy” in 1976 now declares
that he is no longer an anarchist: “Anarchy riddles itself with dictatorial
policies and doesn’t like to be questioned.” He called Brand a “bumhole” and expressed
little patience for his anarchic vision. Urging young people not to vote, Lydon
said
in an interview to promote his book, “is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever
heard.” When asked if a revolution like Brand’s is possible, Lydon responded,
No, what you’ll
get is a rat-pile of infestation, laziness, and eventually you’ll all be
evicted. If you don’t contribute or in some way try to reshape the society
around you, you’re gonna have no effect, and therefore become ineffectual,
ignored, condemned. What [Brand is] preaching there is a lifestyle of cardboard
boxes down by the river. He’ll make you all homeless.
And like Michael Moore, who has
more houses than Century 21, Brand is “preaching all this from the mansion.
Lovely, innit?” His advice to Brand’s constituency? “Get smart, read as much as
you can, and find out who’s using you.” Perhaps that last bit suggests that they
examine whether they are being used by Brand himself.
Russell Brand and John Lydon are
disenchanted with the current state of affairs – as are we all. But Lydon has
grown to see that “The older you get, the more you learn, and you have to be
able to put yourself in the position of going, ‘ooh, I was wrong there,’ or
‘there’s room for flexibility.’” Revolution without a workable plan, he now
understands, is just spinning your wheels. “I always thought anarchy was a mind
game for the middle classes, really. Impractical.”
“Anarchists can’t get anywhere
without motorways,” he adds with an impish smile.
(This article originally appeared here on The Federalist, 1/7/15)
