Speaking on a recent episode of his “Club Random” podcast, liberal comedian Bill Maher explained that he is no longer willing to appear for his comedy performances on college campuses because the students on those campuses are so unwilling to hear anything with which they don’t already agree, making performing comedy unenjoyable.
That came when he was speaking with Ray Romano, the famous comedian and star of “Everybody Loves Raymond” on his “Club Random” podcast on the Sunday, June 9 broadcast of the show. The two discussed comedy and cancel culture, with Maher explaining why he thinks anti-free speech college kids aren’t worth dealing with.
Explaining their refusal to listen to conflicting viewpoints, he said, “They don’t want to hear anything they don’t already agree with.” He continued, saying that he doesn’t want to be the one who has to deal with trying to pry their brains open to new ideas. In his words: “They don’t want their minds pried open, and you know what? Let somebody else do it.”
Romano pushed back a bit, saying that about half the audience would likely enjoy a Maher university performance, while the other half would, as he said, despise it and refuse to listen to it once he got non-politically correct. He said, referring to the different sides, “You would have half this way and half this way, maybe.”
Maher, responding, said that the reality of the matter is that, rather than supporting him, the college kids and their closed minds would be involved in protesting against him were he to try performing. “First of all, they would protest before I even got on the campus,” he said. He continued, referencing an incident when he was protested at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2014, “I was uninvited when I was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Berkeley graduation and then re-invited, but today, are you kidding?”
Then, continuing on that same point, Maher said that college kids today would act in much the same manner, protesting and going ballistic on campus rather than listening to new ideas, even if such ideas are moderate and humorously framed. He said, “These kids? That would be the first thing they would do. They don’t want to hear anything they don’t already agree with.”
Maher then further explained why he doesn’t want to deal with going to a college campus and dealing with students protesting him, saying, “I’m not going to hold my tongue when they embrace stupid ideas. And of course, then they’ll just say the tritest, easiest, most erroneous thing lobbed at people like us is: ‘you’re old, now it’s about just get off my lawn.'”
He added, “You put zero amount of thinking into the actual point I’m making. You didn’t engage with the actual idea.” He continued, “What about the idea? Am I right? Should we bring communism back because I think it’s a bad idea? Maybe because I remember what happened the first time and you don’t, and you don’t care to learn.”
Watch him here:
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