Howard Jacobson Quotes

This epidemic of student demands for 'safe places' to protect against threatening words and ideas would make a great science fiction film, but unbelievably, events seem to be outpacing the political imagination.

The PC rebellion is about a reaction against the media academic complex, which tells us what to say - or else.

I think that we have strayed into very dangerous territory where people are not allowed to express a negative opinion.

It's very worrying at this time in the world that any point of view should be prohibited, that's banned, there are heretics that should be burned at the stake.

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.

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

My view on Democrats is that they're fascists disguised as liberals, or liberal moderates. You're not allowed to say anything they don't agree with. You're not allowed to do anything.

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.

Jews have been harmed by the threats to freedom of opinion and debate, the punishments for candor, and the decline in rigorous standards in the academy that have accompanied progressive hegemony, which insists upon the sacrosanct status of affirmative action and other policies favored by the left.

A society in which people feel they have a legitimate right to stop someone expressing their views on campus simply because they are unfashionable or unpopular is rather chilling.

I realized very quickly that the main thing that the left was not in favor of was free speech - that there was an intolerance about different ideas and opinions.

The fatal danger of our times today is a growing intolerance and suppression of both opinions and evidence that differ from the prevailing ideologies that dominate institutions, ranging from the academic world to the corporate world, the media and governmental institutions.

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?

Political correctness kills discussion.

Criticism in the universities, I'll have to admit, has entered a phase where I am totally out of sympathy with 95% of what goes on. It's Stalinism without Stalin.

There's been an incredible censorship in America and throughout the world, but particularly in America where students aren't even allowed to critically think about evolution, the issue of origins; they are not allowed to hear other points of view; they are taught incorrectly about science and taught that evolution is fact.

Instead of educating students, these professors are trying to indoctrinate them.

The new soft totalitarianism that is advancing on the left wants to have a state religion It is an atheist, nihilistic religion - but it is a religion that is obligatory for all.

Here's a nation, one of the founding pillars was freedom of speech and freedom of expression. And yet, we have imposed upon people restrictions on what they can say, on what they can think. And the media is the largest proponent of this, crucifying people who say things really quite innocently.

I lived near Santa Cruz for ten years, and the whole time, it bothered me what an exclusionary definition of 'inclusion' was in force. Social censure was applied to those who expressed unpopular or uncomfortable ideas.

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 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.

Free speech has a very small constituency on the modern campus, particularly if the speaker under attack is conservative.

In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.

You have no right to erect your toll gate upon the highways of thought.