Van Jones Quotes

There's been an amazing backlash for the last decade in America: political correctness. In many ways, I think that, while we've been remarkably violent in our media, there's been a real schizophrenia. In private, on the Internet, and on public-affairs shows or talk radio, we're way more explicit than we've ever been. But traditional Hollywood has been much more frightened than it ever was in the '70s about presenting things that could be perceived as politically incorrect.

As much good as it does, social media can also encourage stupidity and degradation.

Particularly on social media, there is that level of detachment, some people feel like they can say whatever pops in their head .

You know, it's really strange now with the Internet, with everyone having an unsolicited, anonymous opinion.

Almost anything is better than three network TV outlets completely controlling the national discourse with their nightly broadcasts. We've moved a long way from that, and that's important.

I just think the Internet has made us ruder.

Somebody ought to do on article on you, on your damn profession, your 1st Amendment.

People feel emboldened to say things on the Internet they wouldn't in person.

I'm a young woman who lives in a world of social media; I'll post boring things too!

We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore.

I'm like, If you do something dumb, I'll write about it. If you put something out there, to me it's like you're kind of asking for it.

Social media sometimes feels like a vehicle for one-dimensional sniping, more than true criticism.

Social media is not a fad because it's human.

Look at social media. It's what we do, right?

So this is why I can't agree with "don't feed the trolls." When millionaire celebrity broadcasters and entire publications start trolling, ignoring them isn't really an option anymore. They are gradually making trolling normative. We have to start feeding the trolls: feeding them with achingly polite emails and comments, reminding them of how billions of people prefer to communicate with each other, every day, in the most unregulated arena of all: courteously.

When you look at things like social media, that's an immensely powerful tool that I'm all in favor of. I think it's amazing. It's a powerful tool, and it's one that we're, as a species, still grappling with learning to use. It's like we've grown an extra tail and we inadvertently lash out and knock over all of the furniture.

In many ways, the media today makes dictatorship impossible. But it also makes democracy intolerable.

Free speech is one of our fundamental principles and it's pretty hard to speak freely when people are yelling at you when it's your turn. That would never be allowed in a classroom or in any other kind of meeting.

I haven't found anything that I've wanted to say that I couldn't do through either the Internet or the reality shows that I've done.

There's always going to be a tradeoff between trolling and anonymity, and I guess that's the way life will be. And you can manage it, but you can't cure it.

When the world goes mad, one must accept madness as sanity; since sanity is, in the last analysis, nothing but the madness on which the whole world happens to agree.

Political correctness is the the inability to state certain truths because they may offend certain people

So by giving people a tool that they can share and benefit from, it's a form of media that isn't controlled by Rupert Murdoch or the guys at Viacom. It is a form of media that is earned every single time it spreads.

We thought Donald Trump was leaving that world of entertainment and climbing over the wall into politics. In fact, what he did was he pulled the world of politics into the world of reality television.

In fact, it's become politically important to offend people, because we have to fight back against this notion that being offensive should be against the law or something, and that everyone supposedly deserves "respect" for their often dopy views.