The Breakdown of a Principle

and the possibility of restoring (and even extending) it

Much more than old wooden shacks are breaking down in our world. Even the principles of democracy and the rule of law are on the endangered list.

Two stories in the current news cycle illustrate graphically the nature of the breakdown that is taking place. One concerns allegations made against British comedian and podcaster Russell Brand. The other concerns new and convincing evidence that tech. companies have comprehensively mastered the art of controlling election outcomes.

The Stories:

In brief:

Russell Brand has been accused of rape. The circumstances of the case raise some questions. The allegations were brought forward anonymously via a Channel 4 documentary. Russell Brand used to work for Channel 4, and his volatility, use of hard drugs, and sexual promiscuity were well known to that company at the time. His exploits with women were even made a ‘feature’ of, to increase viewer interest.

Some have suggested that since the company is itself vulnerable to investigation for knowingly supporting questionable behaviour (whether in the end encompassing ‘illegal’ or not), they may want to ‘get in first’. The documentary they presented is also questionable in that more than one of Brand’s ‘old flames’ have come forward to say that they too were approached by the programme-makers, but when they said that Brand’s behaviour with them had been perfectly OK, their testimonies were left out of the documentary.

Add to that the fact that Brand’s recent and more independent broadcasting activities have been extremely inconvenient to very powerful people and institutions, and the question marks grow. So: serious question marks on Brand, and some significant question marks also on the context of the allegations.

At present, not only has Brand not been convicted of anything, he has not even been charged with anything. Nonetheless, the British government has written to some of the online platforms through which he presently earns a living, and requested that they prevent him from continuing to do so. Presuming guilt in other words, and seeking to apply punishment when there has been neither conviction, nor even charges.

When one of those companies (the video-streaming platform Rumble) declined that governmental request, on the grounds of ‘due process’, the government threatened to prevent to them from continuing to operate in the UK, and even to arrest its Canadian owners if they set foot in the UK.

Just to be very clear before I move to the next story, I am not claiming Russell Brand’s innocence. I am no more qualified to do that than the British parliament is to unilaterally proclaim his guilt. I am simply supporting the proper principles of the rule of law. And I am aware that in the eyes of some I will be seen as controversial merely for doing so.

The other story concerns tech. platforms using advanced techniques for mass manipulation of perceptions, and even for controlling the results of elections:

In 2018, some Google emails were leaked to the Wall Street Journal, in which employees spoke of the use of online ‘ephemeral experiences’ to shift political perceptions. ‘Ephemeral experiences’ means such things as:

• the search suggestions which flash up as one begins typing

• items which are shown in the results list for a search

• the order in which videos are shown on Youtube

• the ‘up next’ offering when one is watching a Youtube video

But the bigger story is that five years before that leak, research psychologist Robert Epstein had begun studying the way that the tech. platforms were already using exactly those things to create “shifts in thinking, behaviour and votes”.

The millions of tiny influences in question are ephemeral not only in terms of the brevity of their influence on a viewer, but in that there is no record of their existence afterward. Or there wasn’t, until Epstein and his team created some monitoring software called ‘America’s Digital Shield’, and installed it on the computers of nearly 12,000 volunteers distributed across all 50 U.S. states. Eleven years (and ongoing) into the research project, the team’s conclusions so far are:

• by 2015, the big tech. platforms were swinging ‘undecided’ voters to determine, in calculated manner, the outcome of elections in 25% of countries in the world.

• ‘ephemeral experiences’ are implicated in the indoctrination of children

• the targeted use of ‘ephemeral experiences’ at the time of the 2020 U.S. presidential election swung 6 million ‘undecided’ voters to Joe Biden. (Lest one senses possible partisan motive, let’s note that the man exposing this manipulation himself voted for Biden).

• In the 2022 mid-term elections, Google flashed up ‘Go Vote’ reminders to the population of Florida all day on election day. They were seen by 100% of known Democrats voters, but only 59% of known Republican voters. Consequence: An additional 450,000 to the Democrats. (Same qualifier as above regarding partisan perspectives- and remember too that Robert F Kennedy Jr. is presently also being marginalised by the big media companies).

The Principle that is Breaking Down

In truth the principle that is breaking down is the three-fold structure of society, which has evolved unrecognised for millennia, and now reaches the point where only our conscious participation can sustain and further advance it. Society is composed of three essential functions - making laws, trading commodities, and culture - working on the principles of equality, collaboration, and freedom respectively. Each of them, as it turns out, is also composed of three sub functions: ‘Law’ breaks down into the legislative, the executive and the judiciary. The trading of commodities is divided into producers, distributors and consumers. And ‘culture’, whether it is science, education, the arts, medicine, etc, is composed of research, teaching and practice.

What the Russell Brand story illustrates is the breakdown of the so-called ‘separation of powers’ into legislative, executive and judiciary. Effectively what is happening right now in the UK is that the ‘legislative’ is assuming for itself the powers of the ‘judiciary’ - without even the inconvenience of a trial. Similar things are now happening routinely in ‘Western democracies’, and that is deeply concerning.

The ‘ephemeral experiences’ story is one of a great many examples that could be put forward of corporate business involving itself directly in politics - which is contrary to the principle of keeping law, commerce and culture independent, even while interacting and mutually regulating. (It is also a core principle of fascism). Everywhere the commercial world is interfering in government - just as, indeed, government is interfering too much in the commercial world. There is only one solution to this, and to the great darkness it is rapidly bringing upon us. That, as I have argued elsewhere, it that institutions of government and institutions of corporate commerce must be balanced, and held to account, by ‘cultural institutions’,¹ beholden to neither of them.

Let’s note for example that if media companies were seen primarily as a cultural service, then their search algorithms could and should all be in the public domain. (Admittedly that implies, in the long term, the difficult challenge of their being independently funded and controlled by institutions in thrall neither to government nor commerce. Moves toward ‘search algorithms in the public domain’ however, could begin well before that goal is reached - like now, with the right pressure for legislation).

I’ll note that Robert Epstein’s project can equally be seen already as ‘cultural project’ - especially in as much as it is funded by donations. But it would be good if ultimately ‘cultural initiatives’ could prevent the civic bullet-wounds, rather that patching them up afterwards.

An Appeal

I sincerely hope that readers (and decent people everywhere) will respond to what I have written here not on the basis of whether or not they like Russell Brand, nor of whether they prefer the Democrat Party or the Republican Party, but on the basis of whether we should continue to operate our society according to the rule of law, and on the basis of fairly administered elections. I hope that people will align with Voltaire’s famous “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. I fear that not all do.

As for the quest of starting building ‘culturally controlled institutions’, it’s ambitious, yes - but the ambition is not nearly as extreme as the threat.

1. The aspiration for a third set of institutions, culturally based, and forming a counter balance to corporate and governmental power, is not new. It was naturally emerging, under the name of ‘civic society’ in the 19th century, but has now gradually been strangled. As it is revived in the 21st, it must become more extensive than ever it was before. I have touched upon this here and here.