Cass Sunstein Quotes & Sayings

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. — Cass Sunstein

The sky is always falling or the sky is always bright. In some ways, this is really morning in America and we don't see it. People are living longer, the economy is doing pretty well. On the other hand, there are some ways of thinking in the current situation that make it look not so good, including our Star Wars prequels - like legislature, meaning they're talking a lot, not doing a lot. — Cass Sunstein

As a matter of history, the Fourteenth Amendment was not understood to ban segregation on the basis of race. — Cass Sunstein

I started to read as obsessively about Star Wars as I once did about Kant - and still do about behavioral economics and behavioral psychology. — Cass Sunstein

Some of the Hulk movies have been merely okay. I think the thing to do ... there has to be some stab that makes it something we haven't seen before. — Cass Sunstein

If there's a regulation that's saving 10,000 lives and costing one job, it's worth it. — Cass Sunstein

I would reject the distinction between a Keynesian moment and a behavioral moment. — Cass Sunstein

I love The Matrix, especially the first one. — Cass Sunstein

When I was an academic, I'd sometimes get a little feeling of excitement when I had an idea that was, I hoped, fresh. And whether anyone should act on that idea is a very different question. — Cass Sunstein

A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government. — Cass Sunstein

Almost all gun control legislation is constitutionally fine. And if the court is right, then fundamentalism does not justify the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. — Cass Sunstein

I strongly believe that the Second Amendment creates an individual right to possess and use guns for purposes of both hunting and self-defense. — Cass Sunstein

If Star Wars had been released in the late '60s, or late '80s, or late '90s, adjusting for technology, it fits spectacularly well. — Cass Sunstein

It's hard to get me out of the office. — Cass Sunstein

Well, I've liked Star Wars since the late '70s. I liked it a lot. — Cass Sunstein

My role in the government was not to think about narratives and consistency with narratives, but think of the human consequences of rules. — Cass Sunstein

We often see a temper of the times connection, and it's just like a fairy tale. It's not true. — Cass Sunstein

I got into the genesis of Star Wars, and the tale seemed to me endlessly fascinating. — Cass Sunstein

Most problems are best solved privately, not through government. There's a problem of discourtesy in the world, which is best handled through social norms, which are indispensable. But you wouldn't want the government to be mandating courtesy. — Cass Sunstein

The U.S. is blessed with tremendously creative and imaginative law students at places like Chicago, Harvard, Columbia and Yale. — Cass Sunstein

The middle class is not doing well, and trade policy might have something to do with that, and so someone who is going to be fixated on those things, who has a business background, has some appeal. — Cass Sunstein

A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people. — Cass Sunstein

Today, we are announcing that agencies are releasing their final regulatory reform plans, including hundreds of initiatives that will reduce costs, simplify the system, and eliminate redundancy and inconsistency. — Cass Sunstein

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. — Cass Sunstein

We ought to ban hunting, I suggest, if there isn't a purpose other than sport and fun. That should be against the law. It's time now. — Cass Sunstein

Democrats want to use government power to make people's lives go better; Republicans respond that people know more than politicians do. We think that both might be able to agree that nudging can maintain free markets, and liberty, while also inclining people in good directions. — Cass Sunstein

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. — Cass Sunstein

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. — Cass Sunstein

Groups become more extreme and entrenched in their beliefs and polarized from others when members only exchange information that reinforces their views and filter out all else or never learn of alternatives. Thus they narrow their options, and magnify each other's prejudices and misconceptions. This trend leads to blind spots in decision making and to extreme behavior, even terrorism. — Cass Sunstein

This part of the 21st century is preoccupied with risk, and there's a lot that law can do to make lives longer and healthier. — Cass Sunstein

Those who believe in climate change, as I do, I think it's also fair to say that they are more receptive to confirming evidence than disconfirming evidence. They happen to be right, but their motivations are in play also. — Cass Sunstein

The idea that Taylor Swift would become the giant pop icon of 2015, 2016 - she's really good, but I don't think it's written in the stars. — Cass Sunstein

I'm interested in how the Internet spreads information. — Cass Sunstein

If I may discuss the idea of explosion. The number of regulations issued in the last two years is approximately the same as the number issued in the last two years of the Bush administration. — Cass Sunstein

Faust seems to have exerted a big influence on Star Wars. You know, the "give up your soul for immortality" or something. — Cass Sunstein

I have argued in favor of a reformulation of First Amendment law. The overriding goal of the reformulation is to reinvigorate processes of democratic deliberation, by ensuring greater attention to public issues and greater diversity of views. — Cass Sunstein

The fear of loss is an engine of horrors, but also a source of the greatest forms of heroism. There's not a lot of art that puts that in bold letters. It's psychologically very interesting and acute, I think. That's not the central reading, I think, of the New Testament. — Cass Sunstein

I am proud to say that the Federalist Society was founded in part at the University of Chicago, and one of its best characteristics has been an attack on liberal shibboleths by looking at real consequences and specific problems and by asking what law actually does. — Cass Sunstein

Game Of Thrones is arguably the hottest thing on television. — Cass Sunstein

Once we know that people are human and have some Homer Simpson in them, then there's a lot that can be done to manipulate them. — Cass Sunstein

There is no liberty without dependency. That is why we should celebrate tax day. — Cass Sunstein

I think that every state in the union should recognize same-sex marriage. — Cass Sunstein

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. — Cass Sunstein

And so it's no surprise that people who object to the death penalty on pure moral grounds also think it has no deterrent effect, and people who like the death penalty on grounds of retribution tend to think it has deterrent effects. They like that, and they believe that. I think with climate change we're seeing very much the same thing where those who deny climate change, they don't like that, and they don't believe it. — Cass Sunstein

How do things, whether they are movies, or plays, Hamilton, or people, ideas - how do they become transformative or iconic? That is in some ways what the actual Star Wars saga gets at, with the tale of the rise and the fall of the empire and the rise and the fall of Republics. — Cass Sunstein

Liberals are sometimes defined as people who can't take their own side in an argument. — Cass Sunstein

I'll tell you an explanation that I find commonly overrated and speculative in the extreme: the idea that things that succeed in popular culture do that because they hit the temper of the times. — Cass Sunstein

The opening scene in A New Hope, when you see the huge ship, it goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on ... that is like a joke of awesomeness. — Cass Sunstein

I think it may be that the fans of your least-favorite political candidate, whoever it is, are much more likable and light-side types than you might think going in. One way to reach them is to talk about Star Wars. — Cass Sunstein

I dealt with people with diverse political views. If you find people who are your political opponents, and talk to them for an hour, chances are you're going to like them, and they're not full of hate. — Cass Sunstein

I think it's a very firm part of human nature that if you surround yourself with like-minded people, you'll end up thinking more extreme versions of what you thought before. — Cass Sunstein

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. — Cass Sunstein

So, I subscribe to the following reading: Star Wars is an essentially Christian tale. — Cass Sunstein

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. — Cass Sunstein

There are some lawyers who think of themselves as basically instruments of whoever their clients are, and they pride themselves on their professional craft. — Cass Sunstein

There's a big difference between the role of an academic and the role of someone in government. That's a cliche, but in academic life if you say things that are common sense and people nod their heads, it's not very useful. You're not adding anything. — Cass Sunstein

Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas, such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to ignore them, are explored in this light. — Cass Sunstein

Catholicism is a wide tent in terms of political and legal positions. We could have nine Catholics on the Supreme Court and a great deal of diversity toward the law. — Cass Sunstein

The 'cash for clunkers' program was a big success in part because it gave people the sense that the economy was moving. — Cass Sunstein

I am a huge Red Sox fan. — Cass Sunstein

A lot of people are focused on climate change as a defining challenge of our time. A lot of people think it is a non-problem, at least in the United States. — Cass Sunstein

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. — Cass Sunstein

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. — Cass Sunstein

My own view is that institutions are a glory, and for all their imperfections, something really to be proud of. It is true that things can be a lot better than they are. It's okay to emphasize that. — Cass Sunstein

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. — Cass Sunstein

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. — Cass Sunstein

It's deeply human to do both the worst things and the best things because of your fear of loss. — Cass Sunstein

There is no proportional representation requirement in the Equal Protection Clause. — Cass Sunstein