Cass Sunstein Quotes
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On reflection, some things do super well because they hit with the time. Some things do super well because they are able to activate a kind of echo chamber or bandwagon or cascade - they didn't particularly hit with the time. Some things are just too astonishingly good to not hit the top. Those three explanations, with respect to the Star Wars phenomenon, seem to me all to pass the plausibility test, and to explore them, with respect to Star Wars, I think casts light not just on the saga of our time, but also on everything about our culture.
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The 'cash for clunkers' program was a big success in part because it gave people the sense that the economy was moving.
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Probably, if we looked at Da Vinci or Michelangelo with care, we'd see a historical particularity that the work is not treated as having. It's certainly true of Shakespeare.
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I'm also a big Bob Dylan fan. The songs on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan - which is one of his best early albums - they grow out of some of his difficulties with Suze Rotolo, and "Hard Rain," people say it had to do with the Cuban missile crisis - probably not. He denied it. I believe him, but it certainly had to do with the time.
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I would reject the distinction between a Keynesian moment and a behavioral moment.
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Liberals are sometimes defined as people who can't take their own side in an argument.
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It's very common to say that Star Wars in the late '70s, that was kind of perfect for Cold War culture and the aftermath of Vietnam in the '60s to have an upbeat, hopeful, cartoonish tale of a hero's journey. I think those explanations are easy to offer and almost always wrong.
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My role in the government was not to think about narratives and consistency with narratives, but think of the human consequences of rules.
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My friend jewelry designer Courtney Crangi has been obsessed with Star Wars all her life and has seen the movies 150 times. When we first started talking about it, I was amazed that her knowledge made mine - which was even then pretty impressive - seem pathetic. And I think there are a couple of reasons for this. One is that the leader of the rebellion is Princess Leia. American theatergoers had never seen a princess like that. She's not a delicate flower, she's not passive, she's often the only one who has a clue.
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If you have a regulation that's going to save hundreds of thousands of lives annually and not cost very much, that sounds like a very good idea.
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Great works - and I think Star Wars is a great work - are easily susceptible to multiple plausible interpretations. Some of them are pretty nutty, but the idea that we should see it as profoundly feminist, or as a deeply Christian tale, or as a Freudian exercise... I think all of those have some truth.
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Wikipedia works because those who know the truth are usually more numerous and committed than those who believe in a falsehood.
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We might have new issues involving information technology for example, or new questions arising out of the war on terror, or new issues arising from natural disasters that can't be anticipated.
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Well, I've liked Star Wars since the late '70s. I liked it a lot.
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So, you could often say things are terrible and that accounts for what happened, or things are really bright, and that accounts for what happened. Often, the real explanation for what happened is much more subtle and interesting and involves maybe small shocks or what a couple people did on a Wednesday morning that changed the arc of history.
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For the Sanders supporters, there's a thought that the people who are well off are doing really great, and the system is systematically unfair, and that's a very deeply felt and serious objection to the current situation.
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If you take anything that succeeded, just imagine it succeeding 10 years before or 10 years after, you could almost always make, with the same plausibility, the "it fit the times" argument.
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There are bursts of things like Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan or Franklin Delano Roosevelt or same-sex marriage that change very much what we thought we were all about.
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Somewhat more broadly, I will suggest that animals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives, to prevent violations of current law.
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Sometimes, the word 'voluntary' is a little complicated.
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I'm interested in how the Internet spreads information.
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I have talked to Barack Obama about Star Wars recently, in the Oval Office, and he is definitely a fan. Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution creates executive privilege, and as for government regulation and information policy, so too for Star Wars, I will not disclose discussions in private with the President of the United States.
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Star Wars may be kind of a cartoon, but the original trilogy depicts a political paralysis which breeds an interest in a strong leader who will make a significant break with the past. And Hillary Clinton is a person - whether you like it or not - of extraordinary experience. I don't know if we ever had a presidential candidate with that level of political experience. There's no learning curve for her. And that, in some periods, would be a huge plus. In the end, I think it will be a significant plus for her now.
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Those subject to capital punishment are real human beings, with their own backgrounds and narratives. By contrast, those whose lives are or might be saved by virtue of capital punishment are mere 'statistical people.' They are both nameless and faceless, and their deaths are far less likely to be considered in moral deliberations.