I usually don't hold much truck with socialists. In my opinion, they have a ton in common with libertarians: two extreme views living in fairy tale land that are both unsatisfied with any form of compromise with their ideological "enemies" on the other side. For the record, in worldwide political terms (meaning outside of the contemporary American political system where we have a center right party, the Democrats, and an extreme right party, the Republicans. No seriously, the Democrats would align more closely with the current conservative party in most modern democracies.) I'm slightly left of center, but still definitely a centrist. But anyway, enough about me. Check this out. As I said, I usually don't agree all that much with socialists, but I find it hard to find much to disagree with here. On a side note, I didn't realize Brand was as intelligent and articulate as he is.
It's easy to look good when the interviewer is an idiot. Good find, though, definitely some interesting discussion there.
Are you basing that on knowledge of Paxman's work or the content of the interview itself? Paxman may be a bit self important, but he's certainly not an idiot.
I've never heard of Paxman, so it is simply an observation of him in this one interview. I think his responses to Brand demonstrated a fair amount of naivete, although to be fair, he may simply have been following that line to ease things for the audience.
Tut-tut. Paxman is a semi-divine being, sent amongst us to embarrass politicians. I have a lot of time for Brand. but I can't watch the video right now and will comment further later.
My take on it was he was laughing along to himself at Brand waxing lyrical about evil corporate overlords and elite class systems. The sort of bollocks we expect from Clooney and co. The only difference is that Brand is able to consider the process a bit more thoroughly and certainly articulate his thoughts. If you watch closely though, Paxman - when he's not pissing himself - is completely up to speed with Brand and engages him at will, challenging him when appropriate. The only surprising thing is how easy he goes on Brand. He certainly doesn't hold back when he's fronting the BBC's main current affairs programme Newsnight. He's taken many a politician and public figure down. Interestingly, the Independant tend to agree with you....... http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...t-he-made-paxman-look-ridiculous-8901524.html
I'm sure that had I more knowledge of the guy, I'd likely come up with a different take. Just how it seemed from the 10 minute exposure.
What will be interesting is if the Daily Mail run with it. Some of their most hated things........ - Celebrity posing real world questions – check - Drug addict – check - Booze addict – check - Sex addict - check - Russel Brand advocating political and social revolution – check If they cover it, theres going to be plenty cornflakes spat out tomorrow morning. A Stephen Glover angry editorial about it might even make it worthwhile buying the paper (or at least checking it out online)
Why do some people assume that libertarian (or socialist) philosophy is ONE narrow thing, as opposed to a spectrum of views in the same way that Republican or Democrat or whatever other political party one might find in Europe might be? The idea that "the thing I don't agree with is by definition 'extreme'" is tedious at best. I consider myself a libertarian more than anything else and readily admit that the extreme fringe of libertarian thought(which gets more publicity than the number of adherents justify) is unworkable in light of human nature.
So I watched it. It all seems very agreeable and uncontroversial to me, so the more of an airing it gets, the better, I suppose. But it's not that insightful either.
