Never have found Russell Brand particularly interesting or funny but then I don’t recall ever watching or reading anything he’s done, so largely a non entity from my point of view. Watched the bulk of the Paxman interview though and fair play to him, his objections and broad goals are valid enough. Just ridiculous that he was being asked to play the role of political scientist though, he’s a comedian and not much more. Even more ridiculous that the internet seems to have been punctuated by people heaping praise on him and seeking to deify him as some sort of political authority for the disillusioned. Misses the point a bit. As most people know in tedious depth I believe in revolution myself and I have my own notions of what a new system would look like but the trick is to segregate my beliefs from the objections. No one figure is here to offer the great answers to the world’s ills. Once those ills are acknowledged the field is wide open on how we deal with them, of course I’ll defend my views but the debate around all of us forming our own opinions is the distillation for a final product which may actually work. If anyone claims to have the absolute and undeniable truth to give you then kick ’em in the balls and walk away, they don’t, not Russell Brand, not me (alas) and certainly not a political class defined by shared interests.
Also, never talk about paradigms outside of academia, makes you sound like a prick.