Jennifer Egan Quotes

Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don't seem to see this.

Once you “volunteer” and engage in self-censorship something happens to your conscience.

The public does not necessarily want to hear, much less to act on unsettling or disturbing findings… censorship can be, and is frequently supported by the majority of the population.

What Gramsci is all about is hegemony: you win the battle of ideas and it dominates.

Let’s be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they really believe? It scares me to death, and should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason. What does all of this mean? It means that telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can’t be far behind. Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America’s campuses? And why do you continue to tolerate it? Why do you, who’re supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression?

Censorship is the commonest social blasphemy because it is mostly concealed, built into us by indolence, self-interest and cowardice.

Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners.

The oppression of any people for opinion's sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important.

I think what we have in this country is a little more dangerous in a way because it can't be seen fully. It's sorta internal censorship. We censor each other.

'Prison Notebooks' gives me a basic understanding of how power can influence people through cultural products and intellectual groups, so they will voluntarily support the hegemony.

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.

For an entire populace, change, growth, and spontaneity were dangerous. Acting upon a personal desire, whispering a hidden longing, revealing your true feelings - all the human actions we think of as essential to a character - had be censored by the self lest they be punished by the state.

I think that when we start thought-policing people and idea-policing people, then that's crossing a line. And I think, you know, everybody's so afraid of this imaginary line of thought police that they forget their own personal safety.

Our schools too often want to shut people up so they can't talk about real solutions. People who think differently tend to clam up because they think something is wrong with their ideas.

Censorship always defeats it own purpose, for it creates in the end the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.

If I were to say what I really think I would be arrested or shut away in a lunatic asylum. Come on, I am sure that it would be the same for everyone.

We're led to believe everybody opposes it and disagrees with political correctness, but yet everybody's scared to death of it. So who is it? Well, it's the power structure wherever you happen to be.

I think the enemy is self-censorship. In a free society the biggest danger is that you're afraid to the point where you censor yourself.

Political Correctness doesn't change us, it shuts us up.

Some people still believe you should just fall in line with what's going on - and that's scary. It makes a mockery of freedom of speech.

I worry that we are approaching a time when that which is shocking is squeezed out by the Stalinism of political correctness.

Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.

I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war against fascism.

Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred.