Monday 15 February 2016

Ah, the voice of the people



“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
- Isaac Asimov

“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.

"Democracy is best when not everyone can be heard all the time. If we are constantly reminded of all the stupid things that people say and think, it becomes rather difficult to remember the good and noble arguments for everyone to be able to participate and decide.”
- Johan Hakelius

"[Twitter has become] a stalking ground for the sanctimoniously self-righteous who love to second-guess, to leap to conclusions and be offended - worse, to be offended on behalf of others they do not even know. It’s as nasty and unwholesome a characteristic as can be imagined. It doesn’t matter whether they think they’re defending women, men, transgender people, Muslims, humanists... the ghastliness is absolutely the same. It makes sensible people want to take an absolutely opposite point of view."
- Stephen Fry, on quitting the "social" network after being vilified for sharing a joke with a friend at the BAFTAs.

2 comments:

  1. i visit twitter once in a blue moon. same with instagram. i think i may even follow stephen (and i don't follow many people). of course, fry is right. the rest of them can go fuck themselves. i cannot understand what is happening to the world.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The world is exactly as it always has been - full of arseholes as well as erudite people. It's just that in our multi-media age, platforms like Tw*tter provide a perfect place for the arseholes to shout loudest. Jx

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