Decoding the Gurus - Russell Brand: Spiritual Transcendence and Anarchic Revolution is Praxis

Episode Date: November 21, 2020

Russell Brand is a hip bohemian Englishman on the path to enlightenment. And he likes the ineffable. Like, a lot. The decoders kinda like him too, despite the fact they really struggle to eff him at all. Really, Matt has no effing idea what he is babbling about most of the time, but Chris, being 'English-adjacent', seems to make a better job of it.Imagine smoking pot and talking big ideas with your precocious college room-mate at 2am in the morning. Now give him some methamphetamine, and you've got some idea of the fast-talking stream of consciousness that is Russell Brand.A pair of milquetoast moderates like Chris and Matt just aren't the right audience to properly appreciate the mystical anarchism that Brand advocates. It's probably got something to do with the limits of the bandwidth of their instruments of perception given that knowledge and wisdom are infinite and being-ness itself is.... Well, you get the idea.The lads also reveal some of the exciting progress of the podcast!In exciting news... DTG has broken into the top 100 podcasts! In the Culture and Society category... in Iceland.Regardless, come ride this unstoppable and frenetic juggernaut of mind-expanding concepts with us, and get these cosmic ideas downloaded directly into your squishy little brain!LinksJeremy Paxman and Russell Brand interview from 2013The main 'Awakening of Russell Brand' interview with Rich RollShort Video Update from Brand on 'What I think about This UK Election and Politics Today'

Hello and welcome to Decoding the Gurus. It's the podcast where two academics listen to content from the greatest minds the online world has to offer and every couple of weeks we try to understand what they're talking about so my name's matt brown uh with me is chris cavanaugh um i'm a psychologist he's a cognitive anthropologist and uh he is from a place that definitely isn't England. So, Chris, are we ready to get into it? Are we ready to get into it today? Yeah. I'll also mention that you, Matt, are also from somewhere

that definitely is not England. Yeah, yeah. That's an interesting introduction you've gone with this week. Yeah, but, you know, unlike where you're from, no one could possibly be confused about that. That's right. My accent means that people are often mistaking me for a high-class, elite English man.

So you're right. It's a perennial cross that I have to bear. Yes. Well, this week we uh got a few introductory things to get through and then we're going to get into russell brand aren't we he's going to be fun oh yes yes that's right put you put the spoiler up front matt no no build-up just there he is the big-haired buffoon it's not a secret chris we do advertise it beforehand oh yeah that's right and it was posted in advance this week.

Yeah, good on you, Chris. You pulled your finger out and got that done. Right. Yeah, I seem to recall somebody saying, I'm definitely going to do that. Don't you do it, I'll do it. But anyway, you know, memory is fallible. So who can say what's real in the past and what's not.

It's lost in the midst of times now. We'll let that go. Okay, before we get... Will we, Matt? Will we? Will we? Okay, so let's do a few updates first. We also want to review a couple of our reviews, which we love doing.

Oh, yeah. So we have been doing well with people kindly leaving reviews as we we love we love doing oh yeah so we we we have been doing well with people kindly leaving reviews as we asked and some of them have been quite amusing so we actually don't have new negative reviews and i'm not saying that to encourage people to leave negative reviews but just that it means that the two i'm going to discuss today are actually positive don't sound so you sound surprised you know i mean and it sounds really good that we got two positive reviews but it's it kind of it's less sounds less good when we realize that one of them was from my brother yeah yes so i think you haven't read this your brother might be called

sean bryan would this be correct that would be correct yes yeah so how do i know it's your brother well here we go there's a five-star review on the australian itunes and it says uh the title is my brother made me do it the review says mafio is my brother and he made me leave a five-star review or he'd nipple cripple me i don't know what they're talking about good stuff though yeah that's good he follows instructions yeah he's little brothers are good for something it seems i feel that that kind of spoils the the point of leaving the fake family review when you identify yourself and admit it was coerced but yeah but every every

rating counts every rating counts like i said just the five stars you could write anything you want after that so uh yeah good um we had another one as well yes we did uh which i have just closed down so uh give me one second i'll'll just play some elevator music. Okay. Yeah. So this is by someone called Natalia DeZobra. I apologize for that, Natalia. But the title is I Love These Guys.

So she's off to a good start. Excellent. But I actually can't read the intention in this next line. So maybe you can decode it for me. So she said, one of my favorite things is when a simple, dull joke will sound absolutely hilarious after over an hour of exhaustive and dry analysis. Yeah, that's a pretty good summary yeah that's uh yeah that's a very borderline that's borderline praise there chris i'm not sure i i like that i like that but and uh and she also points out that a rear review from ma on rudger bregman he should use it as a blurb on his next book and this is a quote from you I don't think this guy is a grifter he's not motivated by bad things

only a bit slack in his research and reasoning yeah there's me being very even-handed and fair I'm sure Roku would be happy with that review I mean you know he knows it can't be all praise you know why do you hate him so much matt that's the thing that i'm i just was astonished last week the level of you know passionate hatred it was was hard to deal with but there we go i think well you know rutka if you're listening to this which of course he isn't because um he's far too important he i think he's my my favorite person that we've reviewed so far yeah that's a very that's a stunning endorsement given the people that we've reviewed so far

congratulations um and yeah so okay now now we have had people sing our praises or or or subtly negus, then there was one other very important thing that I think I need to make you aware of. We've broken the podcast charts. I got a notification in the email inbox. Oh, really? And yes, we're in the top 100 podcasts in society and culture. Sounds good so far. In Iceland.

We're big in Iceland. That's right. In the top 100. I'm not sure that's that big, to be honest. Yeah. sure that's that big to be honest but the uh yeah we're currently ranked 78th in iceland for society and culture podcast so how are you going to manage this new fine level of fame people are going to be stopping me on the street i mean well we can't go to iceland now obviously we'll be just swamped with adoring fans uh Yeah. That's right.

That's why I've been getting all those letters and emails from Icelandic fans. That's the reason. We're becoming big there. So, yeah. That's good news, Chris. I mean, it's not quite as good as I thought it might have been, but it's still good. I wanted to see if you've got your brother's review

you've got breaking the iceland top 100 it's it's hard to overestimate uh you know the extent to which this podcast success is soaring so it's it's it's just it's just been a whirlwind it's like uh you know it's been like a dream so yeah yeah so um so after that uh exciting news i thought we would move on to our well usually after we've covered someone we have corrections or complaints or or feedback to discuss regarding the guru that we covered and last week it was Rudger Bregman. Fair to say we didn't get as much call for corrections, but maybe we didn't make that many misstatements. In fact, I would say the majority of feedback we got was people quite satisfied that we had focused on him.

It seems like he's annoyed quite a lot of people especially a fair amount of left-wing people as well so that was interesting to see but uh did we did we get any critical feedback or anything you want to correct the record on yeah um oh look i yeah i think people are generally pleased that we're looking at, you know, leftist-centred people too. And, of course, we're following that up again this week with Russell Brand. Yeah, I think, look, the only thing I got I think was a little bit of pushback. People were a little bit unhappy that I kind of agreed essentially

with the kinds of things that Rutger was arguing for, which I think for me was a bit of an offhand kind of thing because just to make the point that, you know, my main problem is with his arguments rather than what he's arguing for. But yeah, I don't know. I think I think I didn't think it was really that controversial, the kinds of things that he's arguing for. I mean, like like UBI is, you know, I'm a little bit confused, though, Matt, because

my impression was that you were for automated luxury gay space communism. Yes. And I'm not sure that's what Rutger is promoting. So there does seem to be a contradiction somewhere here. I've clearly misunderstood where Rutger was coming from. I thought that's what the audio is going for. Maybe, I think like if i can if i can speak for you i think part of the issue is although there's lots of things to point out

where ricker seems to be exaggerating the evidence or maybe misrepresenting the the level of consensus on particular issues the general view about inequality as a problem a greater redistribution of wealth higher taxes those those kind of like fairly bog standard lefty positions those are the things that you i think agree with is is that yeah thank you accurate yeah it is yeah thanks for that chris um yeah you know the other the the other thing uh you know there's his more general point of view that we should try to you know look at the incentives and stuff in society and see if you know we can reorient them a bit so it's not all about chasing wealth and status and maybe focusing on health and well-being and and trying to do things that are more more meaningful i think it's pretty

appropriate given that we're kind of moving towards a in some ways a post-scarcity type society in many places in the west and um i yeah so i stand by those statements i not one step back um i'm okay with them. I feel that, yeah, like you said, they're pretty, they're not particularly controversial for someone who's coming from, you know, a general progressive point of view. Well, okay. You've done your best to justify your worldview, Matt.

Let's see if people buy it. Luxury space automated communism for the win. Yeah. Remember, Matt is available on twitter and by email for any feedback on his political views but and and actually maybe this is a good time to mention before we we have a a little discussion about the state of the the gurus that we've covered before is that that this week, when we are covering Russell Brand, who has at least superficially an argument

for quite a revolutionary style of politics, I think it's fair to say that you and I don't agree with his political view, but we don't want that to be the focus like as we've said in previous weeks it would be impossible for us not to let our our personal views and and political beliefs to influence you know the way we respond to things but it isn't the focus this week to kind of argue that if you agree with a more revolutionary style of politics, that that's inherently wrong or that that's the issue, right? I think as we'll get into,

there's other points of departure, but I guess what I'm trying to say is the podcast is not intended to be advocacy for milk toast centrist politics even though that may be what it turns out to uh to often be saying i don't know yeah that's that's that's well put chris it's an important distinction to make like was it was it well it wasn't well put but um it was it's a difficult thing to put well so you did you did your best chris that's the main thing um yeah like look if you disagree with our politics and think that we're morons and not uh like sufficiently revolutionary that's fine just listen anyway that's five stars five stars reviews yeah yeah five star review and explain

in your review why our politics are yeah yeah exactly no look um i think your distinction is really important which is that um yeah you know we have opinions just like everyone else but we don't want this podcast to be just you and me airing our opinion about every damn thing really what we want to do is focus on how these people are communicating, the style of argumentation and the quality of the argumentation that they're putting forward to kind of just help tell the difference between good and bad discourse or, yeah, arguments. So, you know, when we looked at Jordan Peterson, for instance, we tried to look at what he does and how he does it, not in terms of whether we agreed or not with his socially conservative points of view, but rather the kind of logic and, yeah, I keep saying argumentation, but that's the only word I can think of for actually getting there.

And, yeah, we're going to try to do the same thing with Russell russell brad yeah and unfortunately as we're humans we'll fall short but tough shit yeah yeah it's a free podcast so you know you get what you pay for that's right yeah um all right so enough uh introspective waffle now let's get back to criticizing everyone else um we we sometimes in recent weeks have done the kind of state of the gurus round up on our previous guests so do you have any updates worth mentioning to start us off matt uh the gurus the gurus um oh no you go first first, Chris. I need to get inspired. You need to shuffle your notes and organize your thoughts. Yeah. So one thing I really enjoyed, I can say this, give me a deep feeling of catharsis, was that just yesterday, actually, Sam Harris released a new episode in which he publicly slammed the intellectual dark web and metaphorically handed in his membership card because of their rampant promotion of both siderism and various endorsements of Trump's election voter fraud conspiracies. So he basically called out enlightened centrism takes and the notion that, you know, saying both sides have problems is in this current environment where Trump is trying to disqualify

his loss in the US election as harmful. And he didn't pull punches. He said, you know, if you're doing that, you're an agent of misinformation and delusional. So it was just quite enjoyable to hear somebody within that sphere just describing what's happened. somebody within that sphere just describing what's happened. Because, you know, in the post-election environment, we've detailed in recent weeks how James Lindsay,

who we covered on the second podcast, has descended further and further into the right-wing reactionary conspiratorial sphere and has recently been retweeting QAnon counts, former Infowars employees and a whole bunch of like pretty extreme conspiracy stuff. And he's not alone. Majid Nawaz, the Weinsteins, they're all in this post-election environment revealing the stripes i think as fairly dubious contrarian thinkers who aren't that good at critically evaluating conspiracy claims yeah yeah like um yeah i described sam harris's statement as surgical you know very precise and extremely forceful and uh you know i think he it really does distinguish him from these other

characters um like if you compare how he not not just what he said but the re just the systematic way he laid out the reasons for it and how unambiguous and clear he was and you contrast that with um eric weinstein i think it was wein was, his response to it, which was this, I can't think of a polite way to say it, this very mealy-mouthed, obscurantist, both-sided, yeah, it's chalk and cheese. That's really not like Eric as well. He's usually so clear and precise.

Oh, we're getting snarky,ris we're gonna pull it back yeah well another issue that's come up in the post-election environment which i think reflects this this kind of tendency amongst more some of the more heterodox contrarian types is that they've been focusing on this topic of the great reset, which is discussion and document and various policy proposals put forward at the World Economics Forum by a bunch of neoliberal globalist types. you know a bunch of neoliberal globalist types and this is being presented very much as an attempt by the neoliberal elite to usher in a new era of social control using the coronavirus as a like an opportunity to seize the reins of power and take control of the masses, remove all freedoms and so on and so forth.

And that framing of it, like, I mean, on the one hand, we should be very thankful that the world economic policy and leaders like Justin Trudeau have quite openly just discussed this as if it's actually just, you know, neoliberal policy wonkery, as if it isn't some grand nefarious scheme. It's more just the kind of things that internationalists and governments try to organize plans to rebuild after pandemics or natural disasters. That this is a thing that is fairly normal, bog standard. It's sort of their fault for attaching a conspiracy attractive title to it, right?

Like the Great Reset. But I just find the level of hysteria around this at the same time that the Trump administration is openly trying to steal an election, essentially. Yeah, to steal an election, like openly, but that's regarded as something that we should just treat as a normal procedural part of politics. Like, don't get hysterical about it. He's just alleging massive voter fraud with no evidence. But on the other hand, this economic policy discussion, which will probably lead to very little, is world shattering and everybody needs to be talking about it. Yeah. It's just so silly. I mean, the Great Reset is like a light version

of the New World Order, which everyone, all the conspiracy theorists freaked out about based on something that, who was it, George Bush Senior or Junior? Anyway, said. And that's just like a light version of these other things, you know, the Illuminati and the, you know, it's just so common, these conspiracy theories, where there's this paranoia, especially in the United States, about any kind of international meeting or body. When in actual fact, these international organizations have so little influence.

You know, they're just talk fests. It's like elites getting together to, you know, pat each other on the back and come up with plans that actually will come to very little often. Very little. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so, but by the way, Chris, I like how we started off the podcast with a big disclaimer about how this isn't about just us giving our opinions.

This section is all right, Matt. This is what this was for. And I will also note that you mentioned the New World Order as the more extreme version. And I've seen people that you mentioned the New World Order as, you know, the more extreme version. And I've seen people sharing a video where somebody mentions the words New World Order. And this was taken as, you know, dramatic, like curtain pull. Look, they're not even hiding it anymore. And yeah, I find this hard sometimes to deal with because a lot of it is just people saying,

how can you say that's a conspiracy? It's actually there. They have a website. They have documents. Like you can see them. And my reaction is like, do you hear what you're saying? Like this is a conspiracy, but they are producing documents where they outline it and stuff. It isn't a conspiracy.

It's just like if it is conspiracy, it's a pretty bad one. Anyway. All a conspiracy. It's just like, if it is a conspiracy, it's a pretty bad one. Anyway, all right. So that's what they're up to. And I think JPCers and some of the other folks in the orbit have been talking up Parler. But to be honest, with all these alternative networks, they get talked up a lot.

And people say they're going to leave YouTube and Twitter. But it basically doesn't happen, right? They go there and then they still keep their accounts open and come back it's only really the people that get banned that that actually shift platforms so yeah so yeah i i wouldn't be surprised if in one year parlor doesn't exist or is like super unpopular yeah yeah i suspect you're right okay so are we going to give a little, oh, sorry, are there any more updates we want to give about gurus, prior gurus? No, so maybe we can save the rest of it for what we've decided

that we'll do is in this conspiracy-rich post-election period, have a little look around at a bunch of different guru types on how they're responding to this post-US election environment. Oh, yes. And maybe release a special episode. So maybe we can update on some of our favorite gurus then in more detail. Yeah, I think that's going to be really fun because, obviously, if COVID hadn't given us enough juicy conspiratorial reasoning,

then the American election was just a bonanza for it. And so many different guru-like people weighed in on that with their hot takes, none of which seem to be having, as far as I could tell, any substance behind them whatsoever. Surprise, surprise. Spoiler. Yeah. So that will be fun.

So that's a special episode coming up. Stay tuned for that. We'll talk about the person we're going to be covering next time, our next proper episode. But do we want to save that as a surprise? Yeah, let's leave it to the end so that people are forced to listen if they want to know or they can just like fast forward but yeah that's right who would do that who would do that

well yeah look if anyone on twitter says hey i really like the episode i'm gonna say okay well who are we covering next week then that'll be the test okay that's good hold Hold on. Yeah. So there you go. That's our State of the Guru Union. With a slight dose, a slight dose of no-toe centrism there for you. Sorry, left or right-wing revolutionaries. Okay. So Russell Brand, the man of the hour. Yes. So you're kind of English adjacent.

So you're probably more familiar withsell brand than me or most people so why don't you give us a little um a little potted history of russell you are intent this week matt on annoying the irish the large irish and northern irish contingent that we have with your you are you are literally you are chris you are literally english adjacent there's nothing offensive about it whatsoever it's a geographical or fact yes yes yes granted indeed my my origin is even within the uk technically um so in any case uh russell brand is someone that i was aware of and have been for some time because he actually rose to fame or became well-known from hosting an after show about Big Brother in the UK many moons phones were a thing and corded landlines, talking to a friend from school and having seen Russell Brand on the TV

and basically lamenting at how such a person could exist and be popular. Or that I may have seen the most annoying person I could have seen the most annoying person I could possibly imagine. So that might give some view of my initial stance on Russell Brand. But he's an actor, comedian, and now podcaster and book writer sometimes. But he's quite distinctive in appearance and the way he speaks uh a bizarre mixture of almost cockney london slang with extreme flowery language and and jargony academic

ease almost stuff and yeah he's been in a bunch of movies I actually like some of the movies he was in like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and whatnot but he's become in recent years more relevant to us because in the I think it was the 2013 or thereabouts election where he was interviewed by a political journalist

who's quite famous in the UK called Jeremy Paxman and he strongly urged people not to vote. So he gave this impassioned call for people not to vote. And that led to him becoming a popular figure covered in the run up to that election. And he eventually endorsed the left wing Labour Party. But that was like a couple of days before the election. Anyway, he then subsequently went to a bunch of protests and wrote a book called Revolution, in which he outlined his political vision, such as it exists. And that was the situation a couple of years ago. And then

more recently, he's essentially stepped back a little bit from commenting directly on politics although he still does but he he's more now focused on advocating for a spiritual revolution and yeah and and promoting spiritual and mental wellness so a bit into the jp spheres jp sears sphere yeah yeah yeah in listening to him he really did uh strike me as someone who sort of sits halfway between jp sears and uh jordan petersen actually because he's got the same kind of you know scattergun stream of consciousness approach yeah yeah i think that's actually probably a really neat description of where he fits like in between because he is as we'll see he's a comedian and i think a better comedian than jp sears um and uh but but he has a lot of the peterson like stream of conscious and making references to world religions or literature or psychological theory

so there's there's definitely a lot of overlap in in those those two kind of groups of gurus that he's he's in the middle of the venn diagram off yeah look he's definitely he's definitely quite well read like jordan peterson and is able to kind of cite a bunch of uh stuff uh through his streams of consciousness yeah so. So, okay. Maybe a good place to start would be the Paxman, the famous Paxman interview to see the political position he was advocating a number of years ago. And then we can go and have a look at the more recent material and how his positions have changed or not. And I should probably say that the main talk that we're looking at this week is this interview with a kind of vegan health guru called Rich Roll, who is interviewing Russell Brand on his podcast. But we also looked at this short clip that he had on YouTube about who he's voting for in the UK election.

It just happened a couple of years back. So we're giving up on his political views. Okay, so before we get to the more recent stuff, here is him laying out his view about voting and politics in 2013. Voted in, that's how they do it. You can't even be asked to vote. It's quite a narrow prescriptive parameter that changes within the... In a democracy, that's how they get it. You can't even be asked to vote. It's quite a narrow prescriptive parameter that changes within the... In a democracy that's how it works.

Well I don't think it's working very well, Jeremy, given that the planet is being destroyed, given that there is economic disparity of a huge degree. What are you saying, there's no alternative? There's no alternative to this system? No I'm not saying that. I'm saying if you can't be asked to vote, why should we be asked to listen to your political point of view? You don't have to listen to my political point of view, but it's not that I'm not voting out of apathy, I'm not voting out of absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery, deceit of the political class that has been going on for generations

now, and which has now reached fever pitch where we have a disenfranchised, disillusioned, despondent underclass that are not being represented by that political system so voting for his tacit complicity with that system and that's not something i'm offering up yeah so he's actually being pretty explicit there isn't he chris um i think it sums up his point of view pretty well which is that revolutionary mindset that this uh sort of democratic process and you know incremental change just isn't working and is essentially, despite being nominally democratic, is actually subject to various corrupting forces of money and power and influence and so on. So he's describing pretty clearly his revolutionary mindset,

which is you actually need to upend the system rather than participate in it. Yeah. And I think one of the crucial points that I would emphasize is the extent to which that view that he had revolved around that voting was bad and that by actually getting involved with the process and voting, you were tainting yourself with the inequities of the system. So this is a shorter clip where he makes that even more explicit. But there are many people who would agree with you. Good. The current system is not engaging with all sorts of problems.

Yes. And they feel apathetic, really apathetic. But if they were to take you seriously and not to vote. Yeah, they shouldn't vote. That's one thing they should do. Don't bother voting. Because then when it reaches... There's a point.

So these little valves, these sort of like little cosy little valves of recycling and Prius and like, you know, turn up somewhere. It stops us reaching the point where you think, oh, this is enough now. Stop voting. Stop pretending. Wake up. Be in reality now. Time to be in reality now. Why vote?

We know it's not going to make any difference we know that already so you know i have more impact at west ham united cheering them on and they lost the city unnecessarily saturday yeah so for me that combination of criticism of the system with a disparaging of anybody participating within the restrictions of democratic voting. That's like really bad. The thing is that he did, just before the election, walk this back. And he ended up endorsing the left-wing Labour candidate a couple of days before the election. But it was this sentiment of dissatisfaction with the political system

and that they're all just the same that kind of got him the attention. And I mean, this view that if the system cannot be upended and revolutionized, that there's no difference for who people vote for. Obviously, especially in the current environment, that's not true, right? Who you vote for matters. And even if your vote is to protest by voting for a party which doesn't have a likelihood to get elected, at least, you know, you can send a message to some extent. Am I just being like a patsy of the system um yes you're being a milquetoast centrist chris but that look i mean his point of view that doesn't look too good with 2020 hindsight in 2020 sorry um this is the kind of gold tier banter you are going to get on this

podcast anyway um so like but it does remind me of the sort of right wing or pseudo right wing point of view you get a lot now oh biden and trump democrats and republicans they're all basically the same so and there's that kind of flattening which allows you to just kind of dismiss the stuff that trump does because oh you know the democrats have done this corrupt thing or that corrupt thing or whatever. And so you see it from other angles too, which really frustrates me. And that's exactly the kind of thing, actually, that Sam Harris was dismantling very systematically, I thought, that kind of really weak both-siderism.

So it does, I think the same criticism can apply to Russell Brand's point of view there i know it's a fashionable it's a fashionable kind of thing to say i don't know well but i mean look it feels trite to say that people died for the vote for your right to vote but like when if you come from a community that is systematically disenfranchised or that has a history with not being represented, then voting does take on a kind of different valence. You know, so I think it's OK just to say that that feels like a viewpoint which is very privileged that you don't care about voting because you can't get the exact party that you

want. And maybe a point to note here is like, so this is five years ago, right? And there's, like you say, there's hindsight bias. But this is a kind of position that you would hear amongst, you know, students. I maybe could remember sharing these sentiments right in your teens or 20s like fuck the system sentiments but but when russell is making these arguments he's in his 40s and and it's the same as like you know yeah joe rogan is in his 50s but people often talk about him as if he's just this like frat guy trying out ideas in his bedroom. But these guys have lied like 20 or 30 years existing in the world as adults. And yet, it feels like their politics and their image of the system is like really juvenile. Yeah. Well, there you have it. We've come down hard on a just I'm disagreeing with Russell

Brand here. So it sounds like the decoding the group guru's official policy is that we are pro democracy. Well, okay. There's one last clip from this time capsule where the interviewer presses him to get specific. And I think it makes a good job of like highlighting the contradictions better than our commentary can. What's the scheme?

That's all I'm asking. What's the scheme? You talk vaguely about revolution. What is it? I think a socialist egalitarian system based on the massive redistribution of wealth, heavy taxation of corporations and massive responsibility for energy companies and any companies in sport exploiting the environment. I think they should be. I think the very concept of profit should

be hugely reduced David Cameron says profit isn't a dirty word I say profit is a filthy word because wherever there is profit there is also deficit and there this system currently doesn't address these ideas and so why would anyone vote for it why would anyone be interested who would levy these taxes I think we do need to like there needs to be a centralized administrative system but built on yes there needs to be a government well maybe call it something else call them like the admin bods so they don't get and how would they be chosen jeremy don't ask me to sit here in an interview with you in a bloody hotel room and devise a global utopian system so i have one point to note here is that russell brown was a millionaire

when having this interviewing i'm pretty sure so that russell brown was a millionaire when having this interviewing i'm pretty sure so that you know profit is a dirty word but yeah that's that's a nice thing for a millionaire to opine on yeah um okay so okay so yeah so that gives a pretty clear idea of where he was then in terms of his slightly edgy revolutionary politics maybe not entirely thought through uh where is he now okay so here is a clip from him i think this is from 2018 or 20 yeah anyway in the last couple of years and he's talking about he's actually comparing his position now to then. My position since then has altered in that I feel that my focus and my connection is transcendent of the limitations of conventional politics and that I no longer want to be confined to that playing field, which was kind of comparable to the position I had then, which was, hey, politics is much too centrist. There's no genuine options or alternatives being presented here clearly that's changed with a kind of a move to the parameters but you know

even when you use a phrase like parameters whose parameters what parameters on both the left and right but as i say my focus is on a different type of politics by politics i mean the way that power is shared the way that systems are established and you know people will say oh these ideas that you have Russell they're utopian because they are ideas like questioning absolutely everything all of the things that are not placed on the table for discussion consider why that might be yeah so that is him outlining that. He's transcended the categories of traditional politics, left and right, political parties. But also, he kind of does have a half take where he recognizes that he's essentially saying the same thing, right?

That there is not enough options or differences and that he wants genuine politics, real politics, or not even politics, just, you know, change, democracy, spirituality. So yeah, the difference might be that he's positioning himself more in the spiritual side of things as opposed to revolutionary politics or revolutionary left-wing politics. The revolution happens inside our hearts, Chris. This is known. Yes.

This is praxis. So, okay, well, and here is one more clip of him detailing his political model as it currently exists. I have a very different vision of how the world ought be, the way that we ought treat one another, the way that we ought relate to one another and support one another. And increasingly, I recognize that it exists outside of the conventional paradigm. And I accept that that's not the case for a lot of people.

And I respect them. But for me, it is different. And my focus now is on new ideas, new vision, transcendent of national identity, transcendent of previous political identity. New, open, accepting, optimistic, still cynical, but utopian. You need not give up your cynicism to be a utopian. You can still be circumspect, intellectual, and reflective and be a utopian. You can still dream of new worlds, true democracies, real engagement in your community, power not shuttled off to elsewhere in the hands of someone who ultimately is just like you and shares your foibles. We have a genuine chance to explore the inner and outer world in new ways, to make genuine

discoveries about the nature of consciousness, genuine discoveries about how it's possible to organise societies, and I would not limit myself to any old idea, not when we have the imagination as our landscape of potential and of possibility. Reactions, Matt? He certainly knows how to string words together, doesn't he? Yeah, so it's interesting isn't this well maybe we should talk about his style because that's a good example um i think we're going to be hearing a lot more examples so maybe just a little bit it's it's very stream of consciousness

and just things just kind of flow from one to the next he's he's quite quick to combine sort of questions about something like consciousness with actual like politics and social organization that as well as a spiritual awakening and so on so it's very you know it's very broad it's very hand wavy and very very abstract and and vague but those are my thoughts i i noticed echoes as well of Rutger Bregman's views about being utopian is not a bad thing, that you can combine that with cynicism and realism. Although I'm really not sure that Russell Brand manages that, but the message that we can aim higher and not just settle for the mundane, moderate policies of center left and center right. And I don't think there's fundamentally anything wrong with people holding that political sentiment, you know, wanting a stronger left or potentially stronger

right, although that gets me more worried, style of politics. But I will say that a lot of it reminded me of these things called Barnum statements. This is this quite famous psychological effect whereby you make a statement that says both things, like classic examples are, you know, you're somebody who sometimes enjoys being with people and being outgoing, but there are other times when you like to be by yourself and not be around other people. And most people find these statements easy to endorse because everybody's a little bit extrovert and a little bit introvert. And in this case, little bit extrovert and a little bit introvert. And in this case, he's saying, you know, you can be utopian and you can be cynical and you can be reaching for transcendent politics and recognizing

the limitations. And I'm not sure that that's always true. I think like sometimes things are in conflict and it's definitely the case that things can be complex, but it feels that a lot of that is a rhetorical technique where he is advocating for this unrealistic, utopian, spiritual fantasy politics. But he wants to avoid the criticism that it's not realistic or to you know to just give a hand wave basically to prevent the jeremy paxman style questions from landing yeah yeah i think look there's a super reasonable interpretation of this which is that it is good to have to be a bit utopian it's good to to think bigger and not just think about in terms of okay we're balancing budgets and and you know increasing spending slightly on this and decreasing on that? Sometimes you can reach for something much larger. And obviously, the process of getting there might be a series of incremental changes. But yeah, the way he says

it, I think you're right. It's just so vague. And it's put in such a way that, well, of course, everyone would agree with all of that in a sense, but it's always going to be good to go for bigger and better things, but also to be pragmatic. Yeah, it's just very vague. I'm just not quite sure. So what he doesn't talk about is how to do any of these things. It's a little bit like some of these other gurus that we talk about where they sort of reflect a lot on themselves about what they want to achieve and how they're going to have these conversations and open their minds up to discussing impossible ideas.

But they never really seem to get around to them in any substantial sense. So I don't think with Russell Brand that he really spells out too many concrete ideas about how to get to these utopias. Yeah, and his speaking style actually reflects his appearance, which people can't see, right? But I'm sure many people know he has this kind of bohemian, tramp chic kind of style. He has crazy hair and big beard and dresses in bohemian kind of style. dresses in bohemian kind of style. So he's got a really distinctive appearance and quite a distinctive way of talking, which combines this flowery, pretentious overuse of academic-y or jargon-y words with a cockney twang, which makes for a really distinctive, even regardless of the

content, just the pattern of speaking yeah and i like i don't think that's that's necessarily good or bad just to know that that it's it's definitely an engaging way of setting your like a brand right you know uh his personal brand brand's brand so yeah i think we're gonna hear a lot more examples of how we communicate so yeah maybe i'll play one that you picked out matt this is you yeah i i do work i make contributions to this podcast um despite all the impressions that you give everybody yeah oh here's matt's clip everyone on my clip everyone. Russell Brown speaking style. Chosen by me.

So we look at things from a very, very narrow perspective, even when we consider ourselves to be considering a broad gamut of political ideas. It's a very, very narrow spectrum, in the same way I would argue that our sensory spectrum is narrow and limited. But we're not going to start questioning whether or not there are different entities floating about or different vibrational frequencies and forces communicating with us continually. We can't operate on that assumption. We've

got to get some dinner, we've got to get to bed, we've got to get laid. These are the things that seem of most importance, except it isn't working. And it won't work for people to elect right-wing populist leaders. C.S. Lewis brilliantly argues in his book Mere Christianity that the case for God is not made externally through theology but is made in our own belly, that we know when we've behaved badly, we know when we're doing something wrong. And he denies that these are acculturated ideas that we've been taught, don't do that, do as you will be done by because

he says there is no culture in the world where he goes there's cultures where a man may take one wife and cultures where a man may take five wives but there is no culture where a man is applauded for running away in battle but there there is a sense of good within us but we're so so so yeah that's a good example of his stream of consciousness communication style, which is interesting because it's, you know, he's like a hip Jordan Peterson in the way that he sort of does it. But, you know, if you actually, if you let it wash over you, like I found it quite difficult to select clips for this because I found myself becoming kind of mesmerized by his talk like that. It's almost all like that where I'm not, I can't really follow what he's saying really and it just sort of washes over you a little bit like Jordan Peterson.

But just with that, I tried to stop and say, okay, so what exactly is he saying? Well, he starts off talking about how it's bad to have, you know, very sort of narrow ideas and not sort of, you know, have that broader focus. And he uses, you know very sort of narrow ideas and not sort of you know have to have that broader focus and he uses you know actual physical perception and psychophysics as an analogy to illustrate that and then says but that's not working so i presume he's referring to the narrow narrow sort of focus with ideas and then he says it's bad to elect right-wing populists

and and then he talks about the case for God is made by a kind of inner intuition coming from your belly, some sort of ineffable realization. And then he seems to be talking about how there's some sort of culturally invariant feelings or moral principles like being brave or whatever that are just felt by everyone. I'm just going, well, what the hell? What are you talking about? We're just moving. It's like a dream where you're just sort of shifting through these different ideas. But do you know what he's talking about, Chris? Because I don't.

Well, I mean, I think it all comes back to essentially arguing about the need for spirituality in all things, right? And there are themes that recur, but I agree it's reminiscent of the alchemical lemon, which I took issue with Jordan Peterson, where there are connections that can be drawn between these subjects and topics, which makes sense. But a lot of them are very tenuous and, and in, in many parts, it feels a bit like the references are, are there not necessarily to illustrate a point, but to, to bolster the profanity of the guru, right? That if they just did it in simple prose

and make the point like straightforward, it sounds mundane or perhaps too wishy-washy. Yeah, it comes across as very thin, yeah. If they were to do that, which they don't, of course, you know. So those analogies and metaphors, this flowery language, it takes on a life of its own. And the metaphor kind of grows until it's a crystalline structure bursting out of the ground and then you're onto the next thing.

Screw you, Matt. Screw you. There was a section where actually it was very reminiscent of Jordan Peterson because he's discussing an academic who's talking about Jungian archetypes. But maybe it's worth having a lesson just to hear the parallels fairy stories the female is an aspect of it like with it like as in dreams as in folk tales the individual the sovereign the king is the you know the seat within the self and like so then there's Tristan and there's older myth he like he breaks down the chivalric tradition

when men or knights would fight for the honor of the princess or whatever, knowing that they would never be attained because they are some icon of the divine and the unattainable. We somehow used that motif for the foundation of romantic love. And like, if you look at sort of romantic art, romantic poetry, romantic films, so there's yearning, this terrible yearning that has no uh relationship to praxis it has no relationship how are we going to live this so i i i illustrate that that not to take issue really with the and the analysis but just to highlight the highly stylized and analytical approach, right? And literature metaphor, heavy analysis of culture and society that, that this is based on. My point isn't to say that's an invalid way of looking at things,

but just that it's, it's an inherently highly subjective interpretation. It's like it's almost interpreting dreams, yeah yeah like like yeah as you say i wouldn't take issue with the point that he's making there which is i think a reasonably good one that western conceptions of romantic love and relationships and whatever is kind of a cultural artifact right but yeah the way it's done is very much in in that rhetorical and poetic and elusive style, which, like you say, is okay. There's nothing wrong with poetry per se, but it's a very easy mode to abuse.

You could pretty much argue for anything using evocative imagery. I mean, so maybe a part where he distinguishes himself from some of the other guru figures that we've looked at is that with JPCers, we mentioned this approach of using comedy as a kind of shield that prevents criticism from landing. Because, you know, if you're criticizing a comedian, what are you doing, right? Like they're just making jokes and don't you have a sense of humor? And with J.P. Sears, it felt very, very much like the level of comedy is a thin veneer on the reactionary content. But I will say that Russell is a better comedian than J.P. Sears. And I also think he does have a kind of greater ability to laugh at himself. So let me just play a clip where Rich Roland and him are talking about whether he's setting up a new

religion. With people that come in, you came in as an atheist and now you're this like, you know, you're ready to start your own religion, basically. Where are we with that starting the old cult the acolytes are are you know everywhere at this point i don't know i just need to get the right kind of blanket work on that stare and long cuddle and then this is uh this is very good for your ego i would imagine oh that's exactly what i go for the irony yeah always you keep pursuing these these these avenues that are just r for that, right? I decided to tackle the- How about starting a religion or becoming this group?

I mean, there is, you know, of anything that you could enter into, like this is feeding that monster. The one- So that caution, you know? I will definitely tackle this tendency I've had towards egotism by setting myself up as a sort of online digital Jesus. Once and for all, let's nip it in the bud.

Exactly. You should see the way I drift around after my live shows. Yeah, yeah, that illustrates a couple of things, doesn't it? First of all, yeah, you know, he's pretty funny and he's definitely kind of knowing and self-aware in what he does, his shtick and everything but you know i think he recognizes that he is really a performer which is natural if you're if your background is being a comedian you know he's a he's a live wire you know like you mentioned before

about his style and his presentation he's a he's an act um i think first and foremost and again there's nothing super wrong with that and the other other thing too is that a lot of the time in this interview is spent talking about sort of personal things. So our focus is kind of more on arguments and what are they saying and so on. And this is true of a lot of the other videos and stuff I looked at from Russell Brand. A lot of it does have a very personal slant

that is issues with addiction. And then a lot of the messages, the messages for people that people are going to derive some value from are kind of coming out of his personal narrative, his personal story. So he is pretty egoistic. He mostly talks about himself and yeah that's that's just what it is what it is yeah so there's on the personal narrative and the role that they have in his guru approach i think it's hard to overstate because he had problems with addiction and the the current program that he's promoting is one about applying the 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program to basically your daily life in general and how that can be transformative. But before we talk about that,

I want to focus on the point that you made about his ability to weave personal narratives into his presentation. And there's a point where Rich Roll, the interviewer, makes this explicit. And I think he did a good job of describing how he uses personal narratives. Yeah. Well, it's the hero's journey. And there's something about your innate humanity and your willingness to be vulnerable in the storytelling matched with like this facility for language that you have that makes it very compelling. And then you'll surprisingly kind of zing people every once in a while with a paragraph about like here's how you can do this too. But it's done in such a way where you don't really feel like you're being preached to in any way because you're caught up in the storytelling itself and the humanity. So he's presenting that in a kind of positive spin about the ability for personal narratives

to hook into people and make academic-y topics or whatever more interesting or more abstract theories more applicable. But it could be framed as this is a very effective way to manipulate people emotionally to engage with your content, that you're not just giving some theories and ideas, but you're actually making them personally invested in your story. And yeah, in general, Rich Roll is spinning things in a positive light, but he does have these moments of insight where he kind of raises a possible critique or negative thing, but usually says, well, what about that? And I thought it's noticeable when we are talking about the way that Eric Weinstein or others invite their audience in to be their friends and to

come along with a journey. That kind of thing. Yeah, that's right. It is very touchy-feely and kind of emotionally engaging like that. And like a lot of these things, it has, I mean, I said this before about all of that poetic imagery. It's just easily abused in that you can get people to go along with it without really processing what it is that you're saying, sort of taking it on faith and taking it on trust. Yeah. It is like, you know, someone saying like, you're really getting your emotional hooks into your audience and it's, it's inspiring. Yeah. And Rich Roll does, yeah. Like he recognizes that a lot of it's got to do with his, his, his way of talking, which is really important.

You know, his style is really important. I mean, you hinted at this before. And like, you know, when you take a lot of the flowery language and the evocative metaphors and you take that stuff out and you just figure out what they're saying in a very blunt, prosaic kind of way, then it's often not much. You know, once you take off all those layers there's not a great deal there so you know with with russell brand his style is is so much of what he is you know that like you know i i haven't read everything he's written i haven't read most of what he's written i haven't heard everything but you're not a scholar of russell brown i'm not i'm not you're coming out of the closet no but i've

listened to a fair bit and i haven't heard him say very much apart from we should be more spiritual and have a spiritual revolution you know well isn't that enough well look the this train of thought evocative association technique that that seems to pop up quite a lot. There's a filmmaker called Adam Curtis, I think a British filmmaker, who makes these films. He made one, The Century of Self, like a kind of critique of consumerism and modern capitalism, looking at the psychology behind it. modern capitalism and looking at the psychology behind it. But he creates them by weaving together stock footage and interviews and little snippets and adding this voiceover to it to create the narrative. And Russell Brand has this section where he talks about how Adam Curtis was commenting

on Russell Brand's style and its narrative prose and how it reflects this postmodern or personal narrative style that is popular now. So let me just play him talking about that in case I do a bad job of summarizing it. He's brilliant, but very sort of pop in a way. He takes on hard subjects subjects but he's very pop he said that we live in our heads and like so he said that my he says that my right he was kind enough to say that my writing style is beneficial rather than relentlessly solipsistic in that like we live now continually in the narrative of our mind the sort of like the endlessly spiraling of what now what do i do what happens now i'm gonna get that so i mean i mean the point there is again you know saying positively that you're

you're just kind of rambling on about your personal anecdotes is another way to put that but uh yeah have you come across that kind of thing before matt like the those documentaries or movies linking together all these powerful images and concepts oh yeah yeah i have um i think though there was ones called baraka or so what was that one called sasquatchy or parasquatchy on this road before and we failed to identify the correct movie. Yeah, I'm sure someone knows. But anyway, they're nice documentaries.

There's often music going along and it's all about showing you evocative imagery on a theme. And there's usually a message. The ones I've seen were similar to Russellsell brands really about might be sort of an environmental theme and sort of mechanization of modern life and and patterns and and so on so it's not a it's not a logical argument that's being made but there's uh an evocative intuitive message that's getting transmitted so um yeah so that's the positive spin of what russell brand does in fact he described himself probably more accurately than we did you know in terms of that sort of solipsistic kind of delving into the into the mind uh yeah i don't think we're saying anything about him that he hasn't said about himself so yeah and there i mean we played the clip of him addressing about his tendency towards egoism.

But in general, him and Rich Roll do have a self-awareness like in a J.P. Searzy and kind of way about the communities that they're involved with, the spiritual new agey or wellness communities and how that they can be self-parodies of themselves. So here's a clip of them talking about spiritual people who go a bit far. Like, because when you meet people, well, I have transcended to, yeah, come on, let's get. Or the, or the, the, the, the self-proclaimed enlightened person that just hugs you a little bit too long. A bit too much staring and a bit too much hugging.

There's more to this than staring and hugging. So, yeah, look, they're certainly aware of the sillier aspects and the kind of traps that people fall into in this sort of enlightened kind of game. Yeah. I think, you know, one of the things that we come across is that people often make these kind of game yeah so i i think you know one of the things that we come across is that people often make these kind of point that where they where they highlight that they're aware of what gurus do or whatever the field that they're involved in they're aware of the traps of them and they kind of poke fun at them but the thing is that they don't always specify then

afterwards how they're not guilty of doing that, right? It's kind of like if you just invoke awareness of it, that's all. You just need to show that you know there are people like that and then that means that you aren't that. Are you saying, Chris, this is analogous to the person who says, now a lot of people will say this is a conspiracy theory, but... It is that, or like the case where we've had people talk about some conspiracy for a couple of hours and then at the end say, no, I don't know if that's true, or I'm not, I don't want

to advance that that's correct, but I'm just asking questions, right? Yes, it's just a hypothesis we're um investigating but i will say that the there is a level of self-awareness in terms of where his specific niches in amongst gurus as he describes here like the thing i think i can contribute is by being sincere but funny by continuing to acknowledge this is ridiculous this is stupid this is ridiculous this is stupid this is happening in limitless space don't take it too seriously like you know that's the thing that i'm trying to stay focused on because you know like in a world where we've got eckhart's

whole we've got tony robbins we've got all these people that are sort of profound powerful communicators that know how to do this stuff and i think well there's no like you know all like any of us i suppose if we are authentic and true to ourselves then it's gonna get taken care of yeah yeah i mean so at times you're right he's um he's quite you know self-aware doesn't take himself too seriously like he doesn't in seriousness describe himself as a as an enlightened guru or a digital jesus but you know at other times in going through those personal narratives, which, you know, he spends a lot of time talking to Rich about his spiritual progress and how he's evolved as a human and so on. And I've got to say, a lot of the time, it does sound very pretentious

and self-absorbed. And he's not alone in that. A lot of people do this. He was describing this transition of how he stopped being extremely sexually promiscuous and eventually settled down and got married and had been married for a few years and had a child. I mean, that's not hugely unusual, but just the way he framed that was as like it was stepping up to a higher spiritual plane or something. I just found it extremely pretentious. I mean, there is a lot of discovering that the world is not about pure hedonistic pleasure and theme, and this being parceled as, know i mean my god man can you believe it yeah i can i can't believe it and i didn't need spend 20 years as a celebrity themed for sex and drugs and rock and roll to realize that so no many people many people figure

that out in their own way and don't make such a big deal about it but so yeah okay so so i guess what we can't say being being fair is that um he's his style his presentation his manner is a big part of who he is and it's a big part of what he of what he sells and what he has to offer and he's kind of builds these spiritual narratives and weaves them around his life and i have seen other gurus do this a lot as well um for instance in australia there was a a new age health guru who was just just cancelled just a couple of days ago a very 2020 comment yeah it was it was just cancelled, actually. Oh, was it?

Yeah, just cancelled. Oh, it's like getting a splinter or something. Yeah, no, he was cancelled because he, look, after a long period of saying increasingly crazy stuff about, like he was selling a $15,000 electronic cure for COVID. Good, good, good stuff. Yeah, like it wasn't good. What else was he doing? That's right. This was after saying for a long time that COVID wasn't real, and that he chose not to believe that we could be contagious beings that actually were just vehicles for a virus to transmit itself. He said, this very new agey way, I choose to think of myself as not that.

So that was, anyway, I could go on. But long story short, when you hear this guy talk, by the way, he was cancelled, to finish the story, he was cancelled for, he eventually tweeted a neo-Nazi cartoon. Don't they all, Matt? Don't they all? You know, who hasn't tweeted an accidental neo-Nazi cartoon in this 2020 era it's just it's just something you know just something you do yeah yeah he said it was accidental and so he lost

a lot of sponsorship deals and product placements and so on maybe he gained some other interesting funds that he can monetize so that yeah you never know you never know so anyway my the point of the story is that if you hear this guy talk it's the same kind of thing it's it's this amazingly self-absorbed talk about his journey and and and his learnings and and and and all of the the sort of he's a celebrity chef actually and um and and into the paleo diet and all that stuff so all the stuff that he's actually talking about he it's all woven in with his own personal transcendent journey, sitting sort of cross-legged on the couch and being very smiley. Yeah, so it's a style.

And I think Russell Brand does it too. Yeah. And, well, at the minute, his kind of gig and why he's on Ritual's podcast, apart from just having a chat, is to promote his new book, which is focused on applying the 12 steps as a more general tool of awakening rather than purely a system for overcoming addiction. And here he attempts to not invoke Alcoholics Anonymous, even though everybody associates a 12-step program

with Alcoholics Anonymous. And Rich Roll pulls him on this. Yeah, how I've done it is I never say which fellowships, if any, I go to. But it's almost like a technicality. You know?

We're calling it the secret society. We all know what we're talking about here. Yeah. I also like that. Yeah. You don't need to say that. But yeah. Oh, and yeah, I suppose I should just play this clip where he outlined his view about

why 12 step programs are a broader philosophical system that's useful to people. When I break down the 12 steps, it's essentially a tool for awakening, even in its own terms, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. So I feel that the way I've come to regard it is that substance misuse is a carapace, a holding pattern for even within the confine of the steps. Right. So that's just like the basic level and you can apply it much higher. Now, I don't want to criticize Russell, Brandt or anyone really for advocating a program

to help overcome addiction, especially one that's based on their personal experience, right? Maybe lots of people have had help from 12 step programs and most people know there is a religious aspect to it with the higher power and whatnot. But I will note that, you know, 12 step programs and Alcoholics Anonymous, as far as I'm aware, they're freely available and they're they're systems with groups that you can join. Right. And with literature that is freely accessible online. So it does feel a little bit like this isn't just all about the good of humanity. This is repackaging an existing

addiction program and then selling it in a book. So I'm not going to blame anyone for capitalizing on their insight and promoting it. But it's just that i think it's fair to say there is a motive here which is at least a little bit related to profiting yeah but that can't be right because he's like a super big you know he's in favor of socialist revolution so i'm sure he couldn't be thinking about that but but the main thing i want to say is are you saying that he is rebranding that aa content chris i mean we've had me say that brand is building his brand and now with the rebounding pun i think i think we've reached peak peak punish for this episode but uh i think he's got competition yeah as you know yeah yeah we're doing we're doing well we're doing well yeah so what he's been doing i guess is um he's made that

connection between this idea with alcoholics anonymous that um you've got to find this higher power to transcend this you know focus on on the addictive substance that is providing the focal point for life i think you've seen the connection there between the eastern mystical ways of thinking which is to see sort of all kinds of hedonic behavior as as a kind of treadmill that you have to kind of liberate yourself from and he's um yeah you know he's he's rebranded it and given it his own spin and writing books and so on. So, yeah. Well, so let's take a turn to a little bit more about his philosophical system or the insights he wants to impart.

And I think a good clip to play for this is one where he's, you know, in previous weeks, we've heard people discuss the limitations of materialism. Jordan Peterson was big on that and so was JPCers. So here's Russell's take on that. Yes, this seems correct to me. And that rationalism is bloody good to understand engineering good to understand material good to understand science to organize things but to allow it to become the preeminent philosophical perspective is dangerous because it excludes the unknowable and the unknowable is almost everything yes so so what he's doing is he's very charitably saying that you know materialist materialistic knowledge is good

but the ineffable and the unknowable is almost everything. So yeah, maybe not that important after all. It's like that nice little disclaimer where you can say like, look, I'm not against rationalism. I'm not against science. These are important things. The only thing they don't really address is everything. That's everything that's important to life

and meaning and the world. But they can build bridges. They can build bridges they can build bridges and bridges are good bridges are good yeah so he does remind me a lot of jbp here um it doesn't doesn't he um because he's he in the same way jordan peterson is is um is quite happy to talk about you know sciencey things and acknowledges the material world knowledge is exists but it's very quick to say that that's just kind of the shadows on the cave and that underlying the material world is a deeper theological level of meaning which actually drives

everything and that's the real level that really matters um and really here we have russell brand saying almost exactly the same thing, just using slightly different language. Yes, indeed. Now, Matt, as we covered at the start, you are Bregmanian in your intellectual outlook when you're not a gay space communist. Yes. So I want to see if you will endorse Russell Brandism as well, and his dissatisfaction with the material consumerist world so so let's play his uh musings on that and see if we can convert you okay the material or this he says this is this is uh just crumbs don't settle for crumbs i want to be at the banquet to recognize that anything that occurs within this limited bandwidth whether it's uh sort of lamborghinis or limitless orgies it's nothing

it's taking place on a pinhead you know but then we have access to some kaleidoscopic experience but does take discipline that's the one so much yeah yeah Okay. Okay. I have thoughts. So look, what's kind of annoying about that is that I think it's a real straw man to say that most people in modern society are concerned with orgies and Lamborghinis. Maybe in the circles brand moves. But I get that most of us are working to make money and pay mortgages and pay for school fees and so on. And maybe people do prioritize getting a luxury SUV a little bit too much.

But I think for the most part, people do care an awful lot about the other people in their lives and having some free time to have nice experiences and so on i don't think that how he's painting modern life these days is very fair you know maybe it applies to people superstars and donald trump and maybe russell brand before he found enlightenment but i think i don't think most of us are in that position well what you described just sounds so alien to me my my lamborghini hedonist authorities are you know the reason i get up in the morning and what you're describing you know having kids and uh colleagues or interest in having like some value systems and meaning in your life what is that that's that's an alien concept can i come visit because it's really i'm really sick it's really boring my life i've i've seen

your pina colada pool party photos so don't try and pull the rug over my eyes i know what you guys get up to in australia yeah it's true we haven't i've watched neighbors yeah we do we haven't we haven't we kick back occasionally yeah so look i don't mind people being utopian i like utopianism i like utopian sci-fi and i think it's actually pretty cool to use that as a bit of a guiding staff or thinking about more practical policies that might help us move things slightly slightly more towards uh luxury space communism but um i don't like russell brand's utopianism because it is just so wishy-washy and vague to especially it's just it just doesn't sound very authentic coming from russell brandy though because look, everyone, you're going to be more

spiritual. Everyone should just forget about really what people are worried about is the practicalities in life, like having some kind of retirement, saving up for university things, or just being able to go on a bit of a holiday with the family. I mean, the vast majority of people are in that situation. Occasionally, you might be able to go and have some pina coladas and some sexy times by the pool you know but that's okay you know you could do that too russell brad certainly had his fair share of that so why not me chris that's my question to you i got more insight into your pool parties than i was but um yeah so there's this part in the conversation where to kind of link this spiritual talk to more earthly matters.

They do get round to politics towards the end of the podcast for the last 20 minutes or so. And there's this section where Rich Roll is, you know, we've talked about people setting up binaries of good guys and bad guys in previous weeks and how this is useful for rallying people to your side. And in a sort of self-aware way, Rich Roll invokes in the context of Trump and the Democrats or left and right in America, some Star Wars imagery here. Here we go. It's like dark and light. It is Joseph Campbell. It's like Star Wars that's happening right now. And it's a race to the finish with the ticking clock being like the environmental crisis that we're facing at the moment. Now, the reason I wanted to play that, apart from just enjoying Star Wars references, is that Russell Brand's reaction to that highlights where he's slightly taking a different perspective, I think.

So let me just play that. Yes, the fact that we are individuals is an attractive argument because we really do seem like we are individuals wrapped in bags of skin. It's hard to imagine that it is perhaps more important and inverted commas more true that we are one that the consciousness that you experience in the consciousness i experience in the consciousness all of us in this room are experiencing is the same phenomena merely disrupted by more superficial uh what do i say apparel like that we're the same we are one so can you detect a slight difference there yeah i um i'm struggling to figure out what he's saying though about us

can you can you can you can you decode that for me chris yeah i think that's like a kind of pan-psychism view about that there's a universal consciousness in the universe and it's kind of this view of we are the universe trying to understand itself so we are just embodiments of consciousness temporary bags of flesh and that right wing or left wing what does it matter we're all gonna die and feed into dust. So like these petty differences that we have are just superficial dressing. And he spells this out again in a part where he's discussing Obama and Trump and the forces that brought them into being, which maybe it will help you understand this beautiful philosophy better, Matt, if I play that clip, and then let's see how you're doing after this consciousness download for you. Please do. I would never belittle or dismiss people that have reverted to national,

ethno-nationalistic and sort of patriotic and patriarchal, even if not explicitly so, ideologies. Because what the, like, I feel like that it's naive even to look at, how can you divorce Trump from Obama? There was like one minute Obama was president, one minute later Trump was president. So there's an obvious relationship and corollary. And prior to that, you know, these things are like,

they are happening in relationship with one another. And the feelings of, I feel this, all things that happen on the material plane are a reflection of subtler energies that are taking place in the consciousness and being of individuals. And these energies become systemized. If enough people feel angry and antagonized, then they will respond to beacons or corroborate or attract that energy. Yeah, I see it now. Yeah, so in this kind of worldview,

then things or people like Trump are manifestations of negative energy that are sort of swirling around. He said he won't criticize ethno-nationalism. Well, look, I'm maybe a bit more charitable to what I think he's trying to say there, which is a little bit similar to what Sam Harris was actually saying in that talk where, you know, sometimes people make bad decisions

or what we think of bad decisions in voting for Republicans, for instance, currently. Yeah, so i guess you can see where his spiritual kind of point of view is taken in which is this 10 000 meter view up in the sky and from from that kind of you know really elevated perspective where as you said we're all just spiritual beings momentarily instantiated in physical form and there's this tapping into metaconsciousness that pervades the universe, right? When you look at things from that kind of level,

then the idea is that all of this stuff that happens in the world of, I think they call it Maya, is that right? Maya, that's the kind of Indian thing? Yeah, Maya or Mara. Anyway, samsara right kind of bad dissatisfaction the the material realm that is ultimately unsatisfying yeah exactly and in you know in the sort of western tradition there's that you know you have the eternal forms and the stuff that really matters and just then you have the epiphenomenal nonsense that's happening each

day and it's all a big distraction from what's from what's really important and like when you have that point of view it just i mean i get it but it means you're not you can't really say anything sensible about the mundane world anymore because it's all just completely unimportant from that perspective. So, you know, unfortunately what that can lead to is that very easy both sides of the rhythm, nothing matters, where Biden and Trump are just instantiations of different types of positive or negative energy, and it just stops you from saying, you know, being able to have any kind of, I think, intelligent opinion about these mundane material matters. What do you think?

Yeah, because, I mean, I think we've talked about before that you can always present these things in more defensible versions, right? You can say, well, he's just pointing out that, you know, there was a reaction to Obama's presidency, which led to the rise of a figure like Trump and right-wing populism. And in that sense, there clearly was a reaction to Obama's presidency. But I think that taking that thousand mile view, it kind of detaches you from the reality, which is like, what did that reaction manifest as? And Trump was the leader of the birther movement, right? Which said that Obama was not a US citizen and which many Republican people went along

with. And he's hardly changed his position on those kind of issues since he's been president so i i'm not saying that therefore anybody who voted for trump was a racist or that kind of thing but more that dealing with those grimy realities the political the actual like campaigns and talking points and policies and stuff, and the differences between political parties, I'm not so sure that it's inconsequential for people or that it's more important to view them as disembodied energies, manifestations,

because there's always the great person of history or the product of the times, right? Like, is trump just a symptom or is he somebody that's driving society and i and you can take different perspectives on that but i i do think that if you completely disregard individual personalities you're you're missing quite a bit right to try and understand trumpism without trump yeah yeah and i guess you know on your point that there's always a reasonable interpretation but then there's the interpretation that they're kind of hinting at and they're kind of emphasizing with

the more flowery metaphors and which is actually more in keeping with the general theme of what they generally like to talk about and you know this is true of the other gurus we've covered so there's this reasonable interpretation and then there's the kind of interpretation that's kind of more interesting and more sexy and more mind blowing. Now, what invariably seems to be the case is that the reasonable interpretation is always really trite and boring. Like it's true, but it's just unimportant. Like, like, so my reasonable interpretation of what he's saying is that, look, all of that political stuff, it it's all it's all a lot of fuss and nonsense um someone like me i live in a small town in australia my everyday life it actually doesn't affect my everyday life

a great deal whether biden or trump or and is in the white house and i probably pay attention to twitter and the news too much right probably should pay attention to so that's the reasonable one but that's that's obvious you know what i mean that's just not a very interesting take but it gets spiced up and you know this is true of i think all of the other gurus we've looked at but then that sort of version which is kind of a motten bailey thing is spiced up by this in in brand's case here this you know ultra spiritual um uh interpretation which is more interesting but it's it's silly it's not reasonable yeah i mean i basically agree with all that so i i don't have anything to contradict but i do have a clip that risks flogging a dead horse um but that's what this podcast is all about that's

our brand chris it is flogging the girls dead horse corpses that was our kind of title but there's this part where he's talking about a native american activist and their view about the limitations of the Western political categories and how it relates to Brand's view. So here we go. This is him summarizing that. Marxism and capitalism, these are different sides of the same coin. Both assume that the land is something to be plundered. Both assume an industrialized and therefore post-industrial society.

Both of those systems are resource-based. both assume an industrialized and therefore post-industrial society both of us have sort of both of those systems are resource-based so we look at things from a very very narrow perspective even when we consider ourselves to be considering a broad gamut of political ideas it's a very very narrow spectrum spectrum yeah so that's that's more of what we were just talking about in terms of all these things that you think are very important, that there are very big differences, are actually just different manifestations of the same thing. And we need to have an entirely different perspective, a third way, a middle way that steps outside all of these. Yeah. And I mean, I also think that it is fair to say in some ways that Marxism and capitalism are systems that are parties organized by religious groups and by environmental groups and libertarians,

God help us all. Yeah, you're right. I think it's a bit of a straw man to say that the current political landscape, especially these days, is just a simple dichotomy between socialist and capitalist free market discussions. And it's also a straw man to say that the political discussions are entirely focused on material strategies. That's not my experience of tuning into the news.

There's a huge amount of debate about a news, it's, you know, this huge amount of debate about a whole range of things, as you said, including, you know, issues, especially in the United States, on, you know, religion and morality and topics related to that, nothing to do with economics. The environmental parties, the Green Party here in Australia that does reasonably well, and these sort of populist, nationalist parties that are all about maintaining this sort

of um traditional cultural values or homogeneity so yeah he's it's not a very accurate description but the other aspect of it that's a little bit annoying is that it's it's it reminds me of eric weinstein and people like that who dismiss the political dichotomy that exists at the moment and then positions themselves as above all of that and providing a mind-blowing new perspective that sheds all of those assumptions and tired old partisan arguments that are happening between these two sides. But they're just very vague and insubstantial when it comes to well what exactly are what exactly is your um alternative third way that's the bit they never really seem to get to

apart from gesturing wildly in in brand's case about a spiritual reawakening and the other thing the final thing that annoys me the final thing on my rant is that yeah you know in its worst version it's like the the the wint tweet which we talk about a lot where the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke there's actually zero difference between good and bad things you're imbecile you fucking moron now yeah i think about that tweet a lot because a lot of these hot takes seem to to fit that so well and in his case he's saying there's zero difference between capitalism and communism and yeah yeah yeah you know if i had to have one thing tattooed to my head it might be that tweet but uh to counter To counter your claim, Matt, here is Russell outlining what his system will propose.

Okay, so maybe you're wrong. Maybe he does have answers. Look, I'm always open to being proven wrong. But populism in itself, I don't think is a bad thing. People becoming popularly interested in politics, people thinking, I can get involved in this. Really, the more people have direct control over the things that impact their lives, the better. It's just a kind of anarchism. Communities governed and controlled by the people that live within them. Schools governed and

controlled by the people that use them. Hospitals governed and controlled. This is, of course, there needs to be some, I suppose, there needs to be some kind of centrist systems. People tell me armies, roads, police forces, etc. But i feel that the principle should be minimized decentralized community oriented populist i think so yeah i i before i get your reaction to that i just want to point out that i think russell brand does not know what populism is because at the start of that, he seems to be like, you know, who could object to populism? It just means that people are interested in something that's popular. And I don't think that's what popularism exactly is in a political manifestation. As far as I understand, it's promoting that the elite or a specific group is responsible for the ills of society and that you speak for the people, not that elite, and that you will deliver people from this exploitative class.

Yeah, yeah. Well, look, I mean, so I got to say, I liked that little thing at the end with that sort of hesitant, at least I think so. I found that endearing. But okay, so look, in a sense, that's good. He's at least spelling something out that is different from... It sounds like anarcho-libertarianism, no? Or something like that. Well, that's what I was going to say. That was going to be my comment. And I know that what we try not to do is get in there with our milquetoast centrist opinions

about things. But I mean, if you look at the thing that he's describing, which is this complete community autonomy, can be nice, yeah, can be good, you know. You've got school boards and people participating and maybe electing their local sheriff or whatever, which I think they're doing in a lot of places in the States. But, you know, it can also go really bad, yeah.

Like, these closed autonomous communities can go very strange can't they like they can end up with like there's never been no there's never been any case of that happening i'm not sure what you're what you're even referencing no i just i yeah so this is the milquetoast centrist in me talking but it just seems horribly naive to be talking about anarcho-libertarianism with autonomous communities and so on. Well, I did like the breath, like people tell me that we need a government and roads and police, but it's just like, well, I suppose so. But yeah, look, you can have a revolutionary philosophy if you want that many people do. But I just don't get the impression that Russell Brand's version of this is well mapped out beyond a dissatisfaction with the current system.

I think he's much more comfortable in saying what the system won't involve. It won't involve exploitation. It won't involve exploitation, it won't involve inequalities, and what it will involve is all idealistic, fuzzy-duzzy, lovely stuff, and not how it will deal with things like crime or exploitation or like, you know... A minimum wage, for instance, you know, workers' for instance you know workers rights um how do you fund universities is there free education and you know just the list goes on i mean like you said he's not comfortable talking about that stuff he does it occasionally which is why we clipped it but as you say he's much more comfortable talking about the problems with the current system and

and personal spiritual awakening. That's his comfort zone, I think. Yeah. So to kind of round things off, maybe we can turn and drag him down to the messy political realities of 2020, because they finish off the discussion with a rather contemporary topic regarding the platforming of people with extreme views or conspiracy theorists and whether that's a good thing or whether it's unfairly demonized or so on. And I have a lot of views on this. So maybe to start with, we can play his view of Alex Jones and his appearance on Rogan.

It's like, would you have Alex Jones on your podcast? I sort of... You would, right? See, I probably wouldn't, but I understand. Because sometimes I sort of adore something about Alex Jones. But there's something about him, he's a bullion. He's kind of... I kind of like it

like you know like that one him on rogue at that time i was like i couldn't i got like a half an hour into it and i couldn't i couldn't finish it because it was so bananas yeah because he's out there isn't he and i thought i've seen pathetic i've met alex a couple of times and i suppose i only part company when this is the thing i'm trying to do is like that if you have a spiritual life it is for you it's not something that you would inflict inflict on other people yeah yeah you know i remember that statement so uh first of all i think anybody's saying you know the only place where i part part with Alex Jones. If you can say that, you've got problems, because there should be a whole host of areas

where you part ways with Alex Jones. And it's not just the conspiracy theorizing. In some ways, that's his least objectionable part. It's more that he's an extreme right-wing, xenophobicobic racist guy. That's like one of the main concerns. And then also that, you know, the Sandy Hook stuff targeting the parents, that's more symptom than the mean thing to attack Alex with. with. It's the fact that he promotes conspiracies without any concern for their consequences, that he encourages his audience, some portion of which are unstable individuals, towards violence and

towards harassing people. And I feel like Joe Rogan and Russell Brand are both similar and they see him as like this funny character who, you know, just says wacky things and, oh, nobody takes him serious, except people do take him serious. And he does make tons of money from his audience, shilling them products, you know, supplements they don't need, which often involve demonizing things like vaccines or offering coronavirus miracle cures. So he isn't this jovial, funny figure. If you listen to his content, it's pretty damn dark. There's a lot of Holocaust deniers that appear on his podcast. Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know what's going on, of course, Chris, which is that Russell Brand is a performer, and he senses and respects that Alex Jones is a performer as well. And so he likes the style from an aesthetic point of view. And I guess the other thing that he's got in common with Joe Rogan is that he's not a very critical thinker. He likes wild and crazy ideas and to have his mind blown, and Alex Jones also provides that. So I think you're right, thinker you know he likes wild and crazy ideas and to have his mind blown and alex jones also

provides that so i think you're right and i think the issue is is that it points to a very superficial understanding or evaluation of people and ideas like russell brands is evaluating in that little segment and he talks about other people other characters too he talks about candice owens um we'll get there we'll get to them yeah at that really superficial level of hey i like their style and it was really entertaining and they blew my mind okay let me let me just interrupt you and play the clip so the listeners can hear his uh analysis of Candice Owens. E.G., I had Candice Owens on the podcast, and I found her to be absolutely adorable. Yeah. So that's another good example, and it's that you see

that kind of similar theme with some figures in the ExoDark web, which is more like, well, you know, never mind all that. They raised some interesting ideas and it's really interesting to think about this yeah that's that can be just a really superficial cop-out which just avoids any of the real problems with alex jones which i thought you did a very good job of enumerating there you've clearly you clearly have strong opinions about yeah. Yeah, I have one or two, but, and Candace Owens is in a similar sphere, but I, this focus on the interpersonal friendliness, right. And that the,

when you meet someone and they're not Darth Vader, or they're not a snarling Nazi, this seems to be this prevalent take that people have this image that like for somebody to be promoting a harmful ideology or intolerant doctrine or to be racist, that they have to be physically spitting at anybody who has a different skin color. It's this cartoon image where they expect the person to be horrific in person if they are promoting like an intolerant ideology. And that isn't true, right? That's part of the point is that people can be charismatic, can be interpersonally charming, can even package their ideas in such a way that they don't sound that objectionable. But then when they have a specific audience or when you look

into their ideas or the kind of groups that the followings that they're gathering, they're much darker than that. And it isn't enlightened to ignore that in the favor of the interpersonal, friendly interaction. In fact, that's the shallow approach to looking at the individuals it's not really seeing them yeah um it is it is shallow and superficial uh so i don't think it's um i think it's an indication of someone who pays more attention to style over substance yeah and i i'm to his credit rich role does make this point um this is him doing so but as a podcast host that makes you rife for manipulation you know what I mean if you have a charismatic

person sitting across from you who represents a point of view that is something you disagree with it's very easy for me to become you know swayed by their personality I've heard other people say that character defect of wanting to feel connected to another human being.

I do want to feel connected to other human beings. I do, I do. Like, you just hear Russell Brando kind of reacting as if like, oh, that's an interesting idea. Somebody could try to manipulate you, you know, by being nice. It's like, have you not fought this through before you know that's the objection right i think i think he doesn't recognize it because he not i don't think he's manipulative per se but i think he's a performer and i think he um interpersonally very engaged and engaging

so he does actually exist completely in that world of interpersonal engagement and impressions. So I think it kind of blows his mind a little bit to think about, well, what else is there apart from that? Yeah, that's a weird contradiction, right? Because he's all about those deeper levels and spiritual realities, and we shouldn't be focused on this superficial shell. And then when it comes to people and the substance and ideas, the point is, well, but look, they're friendly and kind.

And, you know, we shouldn't judge people just by their ideologies, as if what really matters is if people shake your hand well and are polite. Right? Yeah. Okay. So the last clip of this kind of thing is him describing Steve Bannon. And I think it encapsulates all the points

that we've just made. I keep talking about this and I probably shouldn't. I sort of watched Steve Bannon on the internet do an address of the Oxford Union because I thought, right, this is that Steve Bannon that I've heard about how bad he is. Let's watch him on the Oxford Union. I mean, it's almost as a piece of theatre.

You should watch it. He arrives in a rain-spattered Mac. You can hear the protesters in Oxford, like, chanting, get him out of there, get him out of there. He sort of comes in like sort of a gumshoe detective. And he just goes, and like, for about an hour, he doesn't say anything I disagree with. He talks about the financial crash, the implications of it,

the corruption, the relationships between the financial industry and Washington. He doesn't at any point go, and that's why this group of people should be excluded or these people should be excluded. He doesn't talk about religions or races or gender or sex or economic classes. All he talks about is elites. And in it, he said, one thing that I really agreed with, you know, populism is the future. All that's being decided is whether it's left-wing or right-wing populism. That's the only thing that we're debating right now.

Yeah, it's interesting that, isn't it? So I guess the first thing that's interesting is how the first thing he talks about is Bannon's presentation, yeah, his style, which as we talked about. The unsplattered muck. Yeah, that's right. So just as a performer he he he appreciates that that's the thing that that matters and um i guess steve bannon or steve

bannon's ideas do intersect with russell brand's a little bit in terms of being uh very much about populism even though we're not quite sure if russell brand understands what populism is yeah it's just popular yeah and the anti-elitism point i actually thought that was perceptive although maybe not you know intentionally stated by him but like that's a lot of what connects all these people that we uh different people that we are looking at is whether or not they're members of the elite right like we're talking here about a millionaire actor married at one point to Katy Perry,

but yet he's able to be anti-elitist in the same way Trump was, in the same way Eric Weinstein, managing director of an investment firm, is able to be, to kind of promote themselves as anti-elitist. yeah it's it's kind of impressive how much work that does in 2020 for setting yourself up as somebody to be heated right if you can just criticize things and point out that elites are not to be trusted

then you you kind of get like this sheen onto yourself that you are therefore not of that class. And yeah, and I'm not convinced by it. And I agree totally with the whole thing about basically viewing Steve Bannon as a Columbo-esque feature. I don't think that's the point. And I'm repeating myself, but just his inability to consider that the ideas are being packaged for a given audience. That's, it just, it blows my mind.

Yeah. Yeah. Look, I think a lot of people are drawing from that well, and the well is that anti-elite kind of feeling. And the elites are this vague, shadowy cabal, right? Just like slightly different definition of who counts counts as elite depending on who's the one making the claim but everyone from from from trump to russell brand to the other gurus to whoever is are all anti-elite and are all positioning themselves as as a source of truth

and knowledge outside of these orthodox sources whether it's academia or the mainstream media or whatever so yeah it's it's that's the really interesting dynamic that i see here and it doesn't it doesn't seem to matter i mean and russell brent is kind of he's on point a little bit to say that yeah it's all about populism and left and right doesn't matter anymore because in a sense that's kind of true you know like it is true i wish it wasn't but i i don't think that's he seems to be viewing that as well that isn't that a great development i'm like no that's horrifying it is horrifying it's not it's not good um but yeah i think but the people who relish it are the people who are looking to

cash in on that you know to become that to become that source of that trusted source of expertise and and wisdom or spiritual guidance or whatever they're they're the ones that are definitely pushing this bandwagon of you can't trust experts you can't trust elites you can't trust orthodox institutions and so on yeah so they're playing a dangerous game i don't think i don't, I think most of them are just grifters. Like, you know, Trump is obviously an elite, right? He doesn't want to actually have a socialist revolution. Russell Brand might, but I don't know.

I suspect he's pretty comfortable and would prefer to stay that way. I think what they really want to do is cash in and build up that groundswell of anti-institutional, anti-elite, whatever the hell elite means, sentiment. Look, I just want to flag here, Matt. I'm supposed to be the cynical one, and that's you saying that they don't believe anything they're saying. They just want to cash in. Just placing a flag there for the listeners to pay attention to.

So I think we've probably mined the depths of Russell Brand's deep philosophical systems for all their worth. But we actually usually do have a segment before we finish earlier than this where we say some nice things about the people. And maybe we did say they're funny, and particularly Russell Brand is funny. But I do have one nice thing I can end with before we get to the summaries. Maybe you can think of something. There's this segment talking about conspiracies. And I always kind of heartened to hear this.

And I don't believe in conspiracy in the sense of malevolent cabals, but I just feel that there are sort of sustaining systems and interests that won't be broken unless there is reasonable opposition. And that reasonable opposition can only come from, I suppose, organization, rejection, rebellion. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah, that's nice yeah not yeah that's good that's not it's always good to be not positing shadowy cabals and and and the message that you know there are systemic biases or there are structures in place that make political change difficult and we should be aware of them and not give up i kind of agree agree with that. So that's nice. And if I just ignore

all the rest of the stuff around that, then fair enough. Also, he's doing an MA, he mentions at SOAS, which he also describes as progressive and incredibly forward thinking and enlightened. And just to note that I have a masters from so as as well so there we go there's another connection what what is what is so as tell us we don't know look oh i see right yes yes you're not uh privy to all my internal thoughts i'm sorry matt uh so us is the school of oriental and african studies which is the kind of the most left wing university in the uk which i as a die-hard far-left radical of course went to um for my undergraduate and one of the masters so so there we go cool okay well nice things to say nice things um

yeah so look well he's he's quite handsome and he's in good shape. That's true. Is that true? That's true. Yep. Yep. Yep. Look, probably the best thing I can do is to qualify some of my criticism, the same, that Russell Brand is exactly the same as other people

that are, I guess, proposing alternative ways of thinking and promoting populism and looking for a revolution that kind of makes a break with all of these orthodoxies and so on. I think there's a wide range of people doing it. There is this one particular aspect which I've emphasised that I think they all have in common and it's not that's not good but i don't think russell brand is doing it in uh in a in a highly political or uh or a malevolent way he's you know he's he's just um he's doing his job in a way you know his self-defined job as a as an artist as a performer as an entertainer as a as

a writer of sort of autobiographical self-help books and as a as a performer, as an entertainer, as a writer of sort of autobiographical self-help books, and as a personality, an internet or media personality. He's doing his thing and that's how he's making his contribution, by giving his best shot at providing this sort of novel insights. So the problem is I just don't think there's much to his insight. It's this spiritual, very vague, broad, spiritual awakening stuff, mystical stuff that's kind of cribbed from Alcoholics Anonymous or various Eastern religions. It's hard for me to pull out valuable ideas that he's putting forward, but know he seems he seems like a reasonably nice guy like yeah sometimes he yeah he reminds me of myself and my friends in some ways when 19 years

old at university smoking pot and and talking about the system man and higher consciousness or whatever but he's also like someone who's on methamphetamine at the same time. So he's like just wild and talking at a thousand miles an hour with this intensity that's a bit exhausting, but also mesmerizing. We've got more insight into your drug usage and teenage pool party history now. I didn't inhale, Chris. I didn't inhale. But I did talk shite when I was Chris. I didn't inhale. But I did talk shite when I was 19. I admit it.

I'm talking shite now, but slightly less. A different brand. A different brand of shite. And I don't mean that as a pun. That's not a pun. It's hard not to say brand, isn't it? I mean, it comes out. It's getting harder. It's getting harder.

Yeah. So, look, that's me. I think my nice things kind of turned into my summary there a little bit so we might move on to that eh yeah well i i don't really have much i think i've ranted and re-lived that various other parts so i think i would just say in closing that i think he has a level of self-awareness and humor, which can be a good thing and which is more than we've seen with the other guru figures that we've looked at. And yes, it is used as a deflection at times and a way to kind of step back from making some quite extreme points or whatever.

But on the other hand, just being able to laugh at yourself is is notable that counts for that counts for an awful lot doesn't it i mean it goes a long way to redeeming him in my definitely it makes him you know more likable definitely and the other thing is that i i think that neither of us are arguing that in the modern era or even, you know, past eras that people seeking out meaning in their lives in whatever form that takes for spirituality or political movements or, you know, by following the teachings of Jordan Peterson, whatever they may be. I want to say that I'm not dismissing that as a motivation or as a thing that is necessarily bad for people to want, right? That they shouldn't think about grander things or bigger topics, or they shouldn't be dissatisfied with the daily

grind. There isn't anything wrong with that, just like there's nothing wrong with believing in revolutionary political politics, as long as it doesn't involve killing people and that kind of thing. But the issues that I take are more with the rhetorical tools that people slip into and the way that other forms or other positions are demonized or presented as super shallow.

And you know that the majority of the world, what it's engaged with is meaningless. And the things that interest Russell Brand are the things that the majority of the world would benefit from being interested in. I'm not sure that holds for tons of reasons. But yeah, he is what he is. I don't hate him as much as the first time I've seen him on Big Brother's Little Brother. I think he's got better from when he was encouraging everyone not to vote.

So there's some progress, you know, spiritual progress in the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good summary to summarize my main problem with him it's a bit of a fancy term to use but there's this term called ontological confusions which is to apply a kind of reasoning that's suitable in in one frame of reference or realm of things um to to another one So a classic case is applying the properties of people or living beings to material objects, right? So it's a particular kind of delusion. Kind of what Russell Brand does is in doing these sorts of things

where you take this spiritual thinking and then you apply it to something like politics, what you end up with is some just half-assed anarcho-syndicalist commune thing which isn't really thought through just because it's a bad application. So lots of people are religious, lots of people are into doing meditation and some kind of spirituality whatever and that's not my bag i prefer as you know i prefer the cocktails by the pool myself but hey um each to their own i guess my only or my main issue with someone like

russell brand is when they apply that stuff to to everything and making it this all-encompassing that stuff to everything and making it this all-encompassing philosophy that doesn't really help when you're trying to answer questions about society or politics or whatever. Well, there you go. That is Russell Brand decoded in all his many aspects and loquacious mannerisms. But so with him done and out of the way and not a short episode, I would mention, but who, who have we got next, Matt? Who have we teased earlier that we're going to address? I have completely forgotten, Chris. That's right. That's right, Matt. So this, this is just me setting them

for myself indeed matt we are going to deal with scott adams the famed cartoonist of dilbert fame who is apparently excelling himself in the post-election environment and became a kind of guru trump whisperer decoding how his tweets and statements were actually profound 20-dimensional chess strategy so so we're going to have a look at him next and and yeah i'm sure that will be incredibly enjoyable. Yeah, okay, that sounds good. I can't wait. I can't wait to listen to all his opinions about conspiracies and Donald Trump and Democrats and race, I think. He's got opinions about too.

Who knows? Well, yeah, so you know what time it is, Mark. It's the end of the podcast. It's time to say goodbye, Chris. And everyone's waiting for you to say it. Well, look, I'm going to disappoint because just to fit the theme, I'll say namaste. Namaste.

Namaste, Chris. Baba. You can always cut that, of course. Let's see. Cut that, of course.