On Monday I wrote about the need to change the culture that enabled predators like Russell Brand to abuse women. I don’t normally return to the same topic twice in a week, but I have been so deeply disheartened by some of the reaction to what has happened that I feel it is really important to do so.
Russell Brand was, frankly, even before we knew that he was a rapist, a bit of a prat that too many people were dazzled by. His ability to string together florid sentences that sounded impressive when delivered rapidly but fell apart under any serious scrutiny should always have been seen more as an impressive party trick than as a symbol of political leadership. But we all fall for flashy things and snake oil at times and that is true whatever our politics or stances on divisive issues.
The conversation we should be having
But instead of having the really difficult conversation about how we all work together to change the culture, far too many have fallen back into their day-to-day fights with their regular opponents. Those on the left who have fallen out over other issues have used Brand’s crimes to attack those who supported his turn to Labour politics in 2015 from Ed Miliband to Owen Jones. Those whose fight remains between left and right have used different elements of Brand’s journey of political grift from left to right to attack each other as they supported different stances he took as he moved from the radical left to the MAGAsphere.
Brand’s crimes are disgusting. His sentence is right and fair. His crimes and the impact they had on his victims are what should be front and centre of any conversation.
When we move on immediately into point scoring we push past those victims in our rush to twist the debate back to our own obsessions. We surely leave them wondering why it is more important to talk about the ‘who’ of what went so terribly wrong in the enabling of Brand rather than the ‘what’.
It is far too easy to do this but every time we do, we move away from a far more useful conversation about how we can and should change our society, our culture and the institutions that uphold both.
It is certainly true that too often we are willing to overlook the flaws of those who agree with us. The sense that they are ‘one of ours’ is a natural part of what leads us to do so. This is where the natural instinct of tribalism can become poisonous – when the tribe becomes more important than the needs of the individuals within it. All of which is something we all need to be consistently conscious of.
Consistency
But it is only if we are consistent that we can actually achieve the kind of change that is needed. If we are willing to either overlook the flaws of those on ‘our side’ or only highlight the flaws of those we stand against we make the argument about us and them – not about what we all need as a collective.
One of the reasons I am a democratic socialist is that I believe we need to come together as a society to agree on shared guardrails to curb the worst impulses of us all to create a better and fairer society. I do not believe in championing and enabling a ‘Wild West’, laissez-faire society where the strong or powerful can do as they like.
This is why we have laws and regulations – because we have agreed that certain elements of human behaviour must be deemed as too far outside of the norm and have collectively decided that there must be individual punishments for behavior we decide is criminal or wrong.
Achieving this is a constant struggle against those who would prefer a society that enables the powerful to oppress the powerless. That is the fight Labour politics exists to champion. How we best achieve this, and what this means as society changes, is a constant debate we should all be engaged in.
Questions for ourselves first
We will not do this through jumping immediately to point scoring. The immediate sugar rush of feeling superior will do nothing to help the next victims of an enabling culture. When we make this discussion about the failings of individual champions of Brand – be that Jones or Tucker Carlson – we fail his victims and, worse, fail the next victims and the next and the next and the next.
We all have to ask ourselves why it was easy to overlook what we knew then about Brand’s attitude to women. We all have to ask ourselves what trade-off we were willing to make and why. That includes the people who are getting heat about it now. But if we just make it about vilifying them rather than talking with everyone – those we love and those we loathe – about how we change the culture, we will avoid the much harder and much more important conversations we need to have.