Jonathan Haidt on cancel culture

I'm a big fan of the philosopher John Stuart Mill who said, "He who knows only his side of the case knows little of that."  That is, in order to really understand anything we have to look at multiple perspectives, we have to have different viewpoints pushing against each other.  That's what we do in universities.  And that's what we've always done in my career as a professor, until around 2014-2015.  All of a sudden, it became much more hazardous to question.

If you questioned, if you even tweeted about a study that challenged the received wisdom on race, gender, transgender - there are a couple of sacred issues - if you even suggested there was another side, huge social sanctions would rain down on you on Twitter and other platforms.  And here's the key thing: When people feel even a little bit of intimidation, when they think, "if I speak up, terrible things are going to happen to me of unknown size" (it could be nothing, it could be a thousand tweets).  It's that little bit of intimidation - that's what makes people go silent.  And when critics go silent, the group gets stupid.

~ Jonathan Haidt, social psychiatrist, NYU Stern School of Business, "'Uniquely Stupid:' Dissecting the Past Decade of American Life," Amanpour and Company, 4:40 mark, April 18, 2022

Jim Grant on free speech being under threat in America

[T]here’s a cyclicality, there’s an episodic quality to our politics.  I don’t think these are end times politically.  I think it’s worrying, for example, that freedom of speech seems to be back on its heels as much as it has ever been.   I think freedom of speech, in America, was not quite so endangered even in the ’30s as it is now.  That is genuinely frightening.  I’m frightened by it.

~ Jim Grant, "Living Economic History: Q&A with Jim Grant," The Coffee Can Portfolio, December 10, 2020

George Orwell on journalism

Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.

~ George Orwell

Albert Einstein on authority

Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

~ Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein
1979

Benjamin Franklin on dissent

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.

~ Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin
1869

Theodore Roosevelt on patriotism and dissent

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

~ Theodore Roosevelt, 25th president

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
1922-1925

Lincoln on the role of education in molding servile citizens

Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.

~ Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln
1965-1968

Thomas Jefferson on dissent

Dissention is the greatest form of patriotism.

~ Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson
1867