Free Speech Activists

"I had to force myself to concentrate, and to breathe, and to keep from saying and meaning “to hell with it” during the endless months that I was possessed by dread and terror. And I was barely able to do it. More than half the time I believed that I was going to die in one of the many hospitals in which I resided. And I believe that if I had fallen prey to resentment, for example, I would have perished once and for all—and that I am fortunate to have avoided such a fate."

"Much that is great starts small, ignorant, and useless. […] But today’s beginner is tomorrow’s master."

"You do not choose what interests you. It chooses you. Something manifests itself out of the darkness as compelling, as worth living for; following that, something moves us further down the road, to the next meaningful manifestation—and so it goes, as we continue to seek, develop, grow, and thrive. It is a perilous journey, but it is also the adventure of our lives. Think of pursuing someone you love: catch them or not, you change in the process."

"Who dares wins—if he does not perish. And who wins also makes himself irresistibly desirable and attractive, not least because of the development of character that adventure inevitably produces. And this is what makes us forever more than rabbits."

"There is a high goal, a mountain peak, a star that shines in the darkness, beckoning above the horizon. Its mere existence gives you hope—and that is the meaning without which you cannot live."

"We have been telling [young people] for decades to demand what they are owed by society. We have been implying that the important meanings of their lives will be given to them because of such demands, when we should have been doing the opposite: letting them know that the meaning that sustains life in all its tragedy and disappointment is to be found in shouldering a noble burden."

"Like God, however, ideology is dead. The bloody excesses of the twentieth century killed it."

"If you aim at nothing, you become plagued by everything."

"Making something beautiful is difficult, but it is amazingly worthwhile. If you learn to make something in your life truly beautiful—even one thing—then you have established a relationship with beauty. From there you can begin to expand that relationship out into other elements of your life and the world. That is an invitation to the divine. That is the reconnection with the immortality of childhood, and the true beauty and majesty of the Being you can no longer see. You must be daring to try that."

"Buy a piece of art. Find one that speaks to you and make the purchase. If it is a genuine artistic production, it will invade your life and change it. A real piece of art is a window into the transcendent, and you need that in your life, because you are finite and limited and bounded by your ignorance. […] It is for such reasons that we need to understand the role of art, and stop thinking about it as an option, or a luxury, or worse, an affectation. Art is the bedrock of culture itself. It is the foundation of the process by which we unite ourselves psychologically, and come to establish productive peace with others. As it is said, “Man shall not live by bread alone” (Matthew 4:4). That is exactly right. We live by beauty. We live by literature. We live by art. We cannot live without some connection to the divine—and beauty is divine—because in its absence life is too short, too dismal, and too tragic."

"Beauty leads you back to what you have lost. Beauty reminds you of what remains forever immune to cynicism. Beauty beckons in a manner that straightens your aim. Beauty reminds you that there is lesser and greater value. Many things make life worth living: love, play, courage, gratitude, work, friendship, truth, grace, hope, virtue, and responsibility. But beauty is among the greatest of these."

"I would say with regard to critical thought, and to some degree with regard to productive thought, an indeterminate proportion of that is dependent on speech. I don't think it's unreasonable to point out that thought is internalized speech. And that the dialectical process that constitutes critical thinking is internalized speech. […] The quality of our thoughts is actually dependent on our ability to speak our minds."

"I believe that when these podcasts work properly, the reason they are compelling, to the degree they manage to be compelling, is because what people are observing and participating in is the process by which two people mutually transform one another towards a higher good, so we are both struggling to make things clear and to approach something that we don't have yet, but it's in that struggle that motivation rises."

"You might think, "Well, compassion is a virtue." Yes, it's a virtue, but any uni-dimensional virtue immediately becomes a vice, because real virtue is the intermingling of a number of virtues and their integration into a functional identity that can be expressed socially. Compassion can be great if you happen to be the entity towards which it is directed. But compassion tends to divide the world into crying children and predatory snakes. So if you're a crying child—hey, great. But if you happen to be identified as one of the predatory snakes, you better look the hell out. Compassion is what the mother grizzly bear feels for her cubs while she eats you because you got in the way."

"The future is the place of all potential monsters."

"You should be able to do things that you wouldn't do. That's the definition of a genuinely moral person. They could do it, but they don't."

"The richest province in Canada is poorer than the poorest state in the United States"

"Jordan B. Peterson: The earliest political memory I have, it was when Robert Kennedy was shot. I don't know how old I was, probably four or five. I watched his funeral and I thought, "I'm going to have a funeral like that." [question from off-camera]: What made you think you would have a funeral like that? Jordan B. Peterson: I have no idea—I have no idea why I thought that. [question from off-camera]: What struck you about the funeral? Jordan B. Peterson: That it was—well, that it was a very large public event. That there was a lot of grief that was associated with it. That was the first thing that really, kind of, had an impact on me, I suppose, that was part of the outside political world, but I was pretty young when that happened."

"And the fact that in the United States [...] the students have been essentially handed a bill of indentured servitude here for their student loans is absolutely beyond comprehension. It seems to me that the bureaucracy has basically conspired to determine how to pick the pockets of the students' future earnings and they do that by offering them an extended adolescence with no quality control."

"Proof itself, of any sort, is impossible, without an axiom (as Gödel proved). Thus faith in God is a prerequisite for all proof."

"First stop lying, then start speaking the truth."

"One of the things that struck me as near miraculous about music, especially in a rather nihilistic and atheistic society, is that it really does fill the void that was left by the death of God. And it's partly because you cannot rationally critique music. It speaks to you, it speaks of meaning, and no matter what you say about it, no matter how cynical you are, you cannot put a crowbar underneath that and lift it up and toss it aside."

"Competence can step in where popularity cannot go."

"To me there is nothing more important in a democracy than free speech and debate. We should debate everything, we should talk about everything, we should engage ideas we aren't comfortable with, and we should let the best ideas win, that's how a healthy society based on rational ideas and a secular government should work, but too often these days it's simply isn't what's happening, and while the far right in this country went off the deep end a while ago, what I've really been affected by is seeing my side, the people on the Left cherry-picking, fact stifling, debate and labeling everyone they disagree with a racist, a bigot, a homophobe, or worse. These aren't liberal principles, much less are they the ideals our founders intended for us to use when they started this country."

"Authoritarians love authoritarianism."

"Free speech – proper, full-blooded free speech – is the lifeblood of any progressive politics and of any progressive transformation of society. If we treasure the one, we must treasure the other."

"The demand from [identity politics] is that we should respect not just the person qua person but also his or her beliefs. It’s a demand that undermines individual autonomy, both by constraining the right of people to criticise others’ beliefs and by insisting that individuals who hold those beliefs are too weak or vulnerable to stand up to criticism, satire or abuse. Far from according them respect, the politics of identity treats people less as autonomous beings than as vulnerable victims needing special protection."

"In plural societies, it is both inevitable and important that people offend the sensibilities of others. Inevitable, because where different beliefs are deeply held, clashes are unavoidable. Almost by definition such clashes express what it is to live in a diverse society. And so they should be openly resolved [rather] than suppressed in the name of ‘respect’ or ‘tolerance’. And important because any kind of social change or social progress means offending some deeply held sensibilities."

"To accept that certain things cannot be said is to accept that certain forms of power cannot be challenged. ...This is why free speech is essential not simply to the practice of democracy, but to the aspirations of those groups who may have been failed by the formal democratic processes; to those whose voices may have been silenced by racism, for instance. The real value of free speech, in other words, is not to those who possess power, but to those who want to challenge them. And the real value of censorship is to those who do not wish their authority to be challenged. The right to ‘subject each others’ fundamental beliefs to criticism’ is the bedrock of an open, diverse society. Once we give up such a right in the name of ‘tolerance’ or ‘respect’, we constrain our ability to challenge those in power, and therefore to challenge injustice."

"The university is a space for would-be adults to explore new ideas, to expand their knowledge, to interrogate power, to learn how to make an argument. A space within which students can be challenged, even upset or shocked or made angry."

"They would take our drugs and money, as they pick our pockets"

"Cause slavery was abolished, unless you are in prison"

"As protests in Atlanta escalated toward looting and clashes with police, Run the Jewels’ Killer Mike appeared at the mayor’s press conference to deliver an emotional speech pleading with protestors not to vandalize their city. The rapper, the son of an Atlanta police officer, said that while he has “a lot of love and respect for police officers,” mentioning that police department’s “original eight” African-American officers in the 1940s. “Here we are 80 years later, and I watched a white officer assassinate a black man, and I know that tore your heart out” Killer Mike said."

"They declared the war on drugs like a war on terror"

"I think the times are forever and always. The oligarchs are always making slaves of us. We're always resisting. Rome would have crumbled 200 years earlier if not for the circus. If there is no entertainment, if there is no distraction, or [people asking] what's the next fucking app? If none of that happens, and you're left to see the world for what it really is... raw. We're in a fucking jungle, all the time. Now because I happen to represent a group of people that happen to be on the lowest rung of that ladder, in the most brutal capitalistic system in the world, we always see the jungle. Even though you can distract yourself with [many things] the jungle is still fucking going on. What [happened this summer is] everybody started paying attention at the same time. Like Nina Simone said, "It's an artist duty to represent the times." I'm glad that the words [from the new album] are hitting people. But they're always true. Before Eric Garner and "I can't breathe" it was true. Post Eric Garner "I can't breathe" it's true. And unless we can do something to resist the state and its tyranny over us, using our fellow citizens as authority figures to the most brutal extent, those songs will always be relevant. It's just when the people choose to pay attention. That's the difference. There is no "going to the movies." There is no distracting yourself from what's going on right now because everybody is the fuck inside. I'm glad they got it."

"After I'm done with an album, I'm already thinking about the next. Watching the Michael Jordan [documentary "The Last Dance"] really helped me understand I'm not insane. In my mind, everybody's sleeping on me. That's what I tell myself to get myself ready. I'm like y'all motherfuckers still don't get how dope Run the Jewels is, and here the fuck we go again. I'm gonna feel like that every Run the Jewels record because I don't ever want to get complacent. I always want to push."

"I’m mad as hell. I woke up wanting to see the world burn yesterday, because I’m tired of seeing black men die. He casually put his knee on a human being’s neck for nine minutes as he died like a zebra in the clutch of a lion’s jaw... So that’s why children are burning it to the ground. They don’t know what else to do. And it is the responsibility of us to make this better right now. We don’t want to see one officer charged, we want to see four officers prosecuted and sentenced."

"We don’t want to see targets burning, we want to see the system that sets up for systemic racism burnt to the ground... I am duty-bound to be here to simply say: That it is your duty not to burn your own house down for anger with an enemy. It is your duty to fortify your own house, so that you may be a house of refuge in times of organization. And now is the time to plot, plan, strategize, organize, and mobilize... It is time to beat up prosecutors you don’t like at the voting booth. It is time to hold mayoral offices accountable, chiefs and deputy chiefs. Atlanta is not perfect, but we’re a lot better than we ever were, and we’re a lot better than cities are."

"I love CNN… but I gotta say to CNN right now: Karma’s a mother. Stop feeding fear and anger every day. Stop making people feel so fearful and give them hope. I’m glad [protestors] only took down a sign and defaced a building, and they’re not killing human beings like that policeman did. I’m glad that they only destroyed some brick and mortar and they didn’t rip a father from a son, they didn’t rip a son from a mother, like the policeman did."

"The fact is that the choice between Socialism-from-Above and Socialism-from-Below is, for the intellectual, basically a moral choice, whereas for the working masses who have no social alternative it is a matter of necessity. The intellectual may have the option of "joining the Establishment" where the worker does not; the same option holds also for labor leaders, who, as they rise out of their class, likewise confront a choice that did not exist before. The pressure of conformity to the mores of the ruling class, the pressure for bourgeoisification, is stronger in proportion as personal and organizational ties with the ranks below become weak. It is not hard for an intellectual or bureaucratized official to convince himself that permeation of and adaptation to the existing power is the smart way to do it, when (as it happens) it also permits sharing in the perquisites of influence and affluence."

"They claim Xinjiang belongs to China. So they shouldn't treat it like a colony. Don't be a predator and a conqueror. You treat them as your enemy."

"From top to bottom, the Communist Party can't get through a single day without telling lies."

"The lesson from the Cold War is, if you give in to totalitarian impulses once, new demands follow... The West prevailed in the Cold War because we stood by our fundamental values and did not appease totalitarian tyrants."

"When I was about 8 or 9, I was a massive Michael Jackson fan and I wish I had known at the time that I was his type."

"Can I just say, my routine about raping and f*****g Holly Willoughby was part of a very long routine about whether or not it's OK to do a joke about that, and I look at it from both sides, there are pluses and minuses."

"["Lines you wouldn't hear in a superhero movie"] Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Whatever it is it's heading straight for the World Trade Center!"

"[Talking about Richard Hammond's high-speed dragster crash] That should be the anti-speeding advert. It should be footage of Richard Hammond trying to remember his own wedding day.[Mimicking Richard Hammond] "She was wearing black... or was it red? Am I married?""

"The thing that nobody really said about Rebecca Adlington is that she looks pretty weird. She looks like someone who's looking at themselves in the back of a spoon."

"["Lines you wouldn't hear in a superhero movie"] What's that Joker, you'll be back? Somehow I don't think you will be."

"3 Million for the funeral of Margaret Thatcher? For 3 Million you could give everyone in Scotland a shovel, and we could dig a hole so deep we could hand her over to Satan in person."