It All Goes Back To Bill Cosby
In Life, The Universe, And Everything, the third instalment of the iconic Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series, an alien visitor describes a powerful cloaking technology that he’s using to hide his extremely conspicuous spaceship.
It’s called the “somebody else’s problem” field (SEP).
“An SEP is something that we can’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem […] it relies on people’s natural predisposition not to see anything they don’t want to, weren’t expecting, or can’t explain.”
In my article, Russell Brand And The Chamber of Open Secrets, I wrote about the SEP that seems to settle over celebrities accused of extremely conspicuous sexual assault. Bill Cosby, R Kelly, Harvey Weinstein, Russell Brand, I asked whether it’s time Hollywood stopped treating people like these as somebody else’s problem.
But Paul, and a surprising number of other people, were focused on a different question.
Paul:
I'm prepared to believe most and perhaps all of these kinds of allegations. In most cases, the visible affect of those accused seems to me to fit the crimes they are accused of. However, I'd like to see the following question addressed: Is the timing of media and legal attention on long-term abusers a function of their failure to adhere to certain political views? Is justice in this area dispensed according to the political "usefulness" of long-term abusers?
Steve QJ:
“Is the timing of media and legal attention on long-term abusers a function of their failure to adhere to certain political views?”
I've been really surprised by how many people are focused on this question.
I guess the simplest answer is, who cares? Yes, justice should be dispensed equally, but if we catch a disproportionate number of right wing rapists and pedophiles, that's still a bunch of pedophiles and rapists in prison.
But that said, no, I don't think the attention has anything to do with his politics. Firstly, because I don't think his political views are particularly controversial, there are hundreds of people on YouTube saying the same things he's saying.
Secondly, because none of the other rapists and abusers I mention in the article were expressing "certain political views" And they still ended up getting arrested after years of unchecked sexual abuse.
And thirdly, because women have been talking about this long before he started on YouTube.
I think what a lot of people are getting a sense of here is just how difficult it is for women to have sexual assault charges taken seriously. How long it takes. The weight of evidence that has to build up before anybody takes notice. And it's so surprising to think that it's this difficult, that it feels as if there must be some other mystery at play.
Paul:
“there are hundreds of people on YouTube saying the same things he's saying.”
Yes there are. But Brand has a large audience that he cultivated and curated towards a particular leftist set of views, an audience that he has recently been pulling out of that camp towards a right wing orientation. It's as if those dispensing justice from a political orientation have long been aware of his crimes but have held it all in abeyance, waiting for a time when there was a political advantage to making it all public. Yes, it was already "public," but what I mean is the giant, well funded, hours of total airtime kind of making it public that really matters.
Yes, it's really good that such predators are brought down. But we went through the whole "me too" thing and the accusations against Brand remained in the background as Brand continued to be politically useful. It's only now, well after "believe all women" came to a screeching halt nearly overnight after Tara Reed emerged with her accusations of similar behavior, that it is suddenly urgent to deal with Brand. And not to be one-sided about this, I also thought Tara Reed's sudden emergence was politically motivated by the right. It's not just the left, it's "win at all costs" politics on both sides.
And the manner of this "dealing with" is also wrong. He has been accused, not convicted. I've been a very strong supporter of strong penalties against abusers of women. Every woman I've known well enough in my life for confidences to be exchanged has told me such stories of her own experience. It's got to be at least 30% of men who have done such things at some point and to some degree. It's terrible! But before any penalties are imposed, a conviction must be secured. To impose penalties on the basis of mere accusations is a travesty of justice. And this is what is actually happening here, and in many other cases too. Sometimes the accused is shown to be innocent in a trial, and yet the process has ruined their life. Where is the justice in this?
All this is wrong on so many levels.
Steve QJ:
“And not to be one-sided about this, I also thought Tara Reed's sudden emergence was politically motivated by the right. It's not just the left, it's "win at all costs" politics on both sides.”
Yeah, the problem is, you're starting from the assumption that this is political and working backwards from there. But you haven't made the case that it was political.
Again, pretty much every single one of the other people I name in the article, and I left out a few other names, were apolitical. At least publicly. Yet they ended up being exposed in almost exactly the same way as Brand; years of rumours, women who came forward but were ignored, a bombshell documentary that ended up gaining widespread attention.
Sadly, there's nothing unusual about this.
And Brand doesn't describe himself as right-wing. In fact, in his most recent video denying the allegations, he describes being called right wing as, I can't remember his exact wording, but something akin to slander. I don't think he's right wing either. Whether in the true sense of the word or the hyperbolic "everybody who doesn't say "white supremacy" and "transphobic" often enough is 'far-right'" sense.
In fact, in word, if not in deed, he's pretty far-left: redistribution of wealth, love and acceptance for all, anti-fat cat, pro-working class. these are his main themes.
I don't think anybody saw him as a threat. Well, except women, apparently.
But all that said, yes, I agree with you completely that he should be tried and convicted before he's penalised. The court of public opinion is just the pitchfork mob by another name. I wrote an article on exactly this point on my Substack. As I said, the article wasn't so much about Brand as the culture that means those rumours can swirl for so long with nobody speaking up.
Paul:
“But you haven't made the case that it was political.”
I'm not trying to make this case. I began by saying I'd like to see this question addressed. I'd like to see a study done. All I have is circumstantial evidence, and sparse evidence at that. My hypothesis is that the timing skews to the political the more influential, (the larger the audience), the alleged abuser is. I'm not saying every prosecution is political. I'm saying there is a bias. It goes back to Bill Cosby, who was accused after he argued against cultural practices like wearing one's pants below the ass and single parent households. Oops - not the official narrative! All this is circumstantial of course. It could all be mere coincidence.
Steve QJ:
“It goes back to Bill Cosby, who was accused after he argued against cultural practices like wearing one's pants below the ass and single parent households.”
But do you really think there's any connection between Bill Cosby saying that black kids should pull up their pants and the fact that the multiple accusations against him were finally taken seriously? I don't mean to be rude, but doesn’t this seem absolutely ridiculous to you? Who would even be behind this? The Underground Association of Saggy Pants Enthusiasts?
Again, there's always going to be the potential to ask "why now?" If you look hard enough, there will always be something that could be viewed as "coincidental" about the exposure of a years-long history of sexual abuse. So if you want to see the question addressed, you first have to ask seriously if there's anything interesting about the question.
There's no reason to believe that Brand's politics, especially given how milquetoast and non-activist they are, had anything to do with the timing of this documentary. In fact, there's good reason to believe they didn't, given the history of allegations and the fact that documentaries like this take years to get approved and made. Sure, the more famous somebody is, the more motivated filmmakers will be to "expose" them. But that's not political. Which is why many apolitical and left-leaning figures were also taken down in the wake of #MeToo.
And again, all of this is framed by the question, "are we being unfair to certain rapists by paying more attention to their crimes when they question "the official narrative"?
And here we have to remember, if they're not rapists, they can question the narrative all they like. Maybe I'm not thinking deeply enough here, but I'm honestly not that worried about bias that leads to the conviction of rapists.
Paul:
“Who would even be behind this? The Underground Association of Saggy Pants Enthusiasts?”
No, this isn't at all what I mean. No organization is needed to delay justice until it "feels" like the right moment to go forward with it. All it takes is for the various people involved, the district attorney and the prosecutors, etc., to hold a particular bias. Given that bias, they aren't as motivated to prosecute someone who is amplifying a message they agree with as they are when someone isn't. They may not even be explicitly aware they are delaying justice due to bias as they juggle their schedules and priorities.
And it's not the fact that justice is eventually applied to abusers I'm complaining about. It's the flip side of it, the fact that justice is delayed so long as the abuser remains "useful" and has strong positive status in the media. It's this delaying of justice we should care about.
As this is not driven by any explicit conspiracy, the evidence for it will be inconsistent. There will be counterfactuals. I think those are almost always about less influential people. And then there are the very obvious smear campaigns. Elon Musk, another public figure with a huge following who is moving to the right, made the smear campaign against him easy for his detractors by being an asshole on Twitter.
Oh, and regarding Russel Brand moving to the right, this must be viewed against the backdrop of the left and right switching places on some issues. It should be clear that the left, or at least the Democratic party left in the US, is aligning with 'new money,' represented by philanthropists such as G. Soros and the Gates Foundation and companies including Apple, Google, etc., while the right is emerging as the populist voice of rural America and the impoverished. I'd say we are about half way through this transition today.
Steve QJ:
“the fact that justice is delayed so long as the abuser remains "useful" and has strong positive status in the media. It's this delaying of justice we should care about.”
And again, I'm trying to point out that you have offered nothing at all in support of this "fact". There are far more plausible and evidence-based explanations for why justice is delayed.
You're asserting that DAs and prosecutors are biased against people because of their political views without evidence, or worse, that they are less motivated to prosecute people they deem “politically useful," (you haven't fleshed out what this means either, how exactly was Brand "politically useful" during his 'ho phase"?) and you're building an argument based on that baseless assertion.
This, effectively, is what conspiracy thinking is. A failure to distinguish between your hunches and reality. A lack of rigour when it comes to seeking evidence for your positions. Or, in fact, a lack of concern that your positions aren't based on evidence.
I understand that political (and many other forms of) bias exist in the media. I understand that there's a strong (far-ish) left-wing bias on many media platforms today. But I also understand that many, many right wing voices thrive on these platforms, making millions of dollars, without being accused of rape.
Even Alex Jones, for God’s sake, was only brought down by his own disgusting smearing of the parents of the Sandy Hook victims. And guess what, that took years too.
As I said to Paul, I think the people struggling with this question are really struggling to believe it’s so difficult to convict a serial sexual abuser. If you’re a decent person—as I’m sure Paul is—this is hard to believe.
Especially given that women have been calling Brand out for years.
“There’s no way women would be ignored when they’ve been talking about this for so long,” they say. “There must be some other factor at play.”
But what if there is no other factor? What if there is no conspiracy?
What if it’s Brand’s predilection for sexual assault, not his milquetoast political views, that has landed him in trouble?
What if those hundreds of other “anti-establishment” voices have avoided Brand’s fate by using the “one simple trick” of not being rapists?
What if more of us, men and women, stopped treating sexual abuse as somebody else’s problem?
Your definition of conspiracy theory thinking is right on the money.
He says people are penalizing Brand with no evidence. I say people are lionizing Brand as an anti-establishment hero for no reason. Where are these penalties? He's getting 100 times more attention than normal.