Bill Maher is concerned that the “woke revolution” isn’t looking at the big picture of how it could all play out in history, saying that the movement needs “to study the part of revolutions where they spin out of control because the revolutionaries get so drunk on their own purifying elixir, they imagine they can reinvent the very nature of human beings.”
On Friday’s “Real Time With Bill Maher,” the host and comedian argued that “communists thought selfishness could be cast out of human nature,” adding that “Russian revolutionaries spoke of the new Soviet man who wasn’t motivated by self-interest, but instead wanted to be part of a collective.” That is a motivation he believes can be found in today’s America.
“The problem with communism and with some very recent ideologies here at home is that they think you can change reality by screaming at it, that you can bend human nature by holding your breath. But that’s the difference between reality and your mommy,” he said. “Lincoln once said that you can repeal all past history, but you still cannot repeal human nature. But he’s canceled now.”
Maher spoke of how the Chinese revolutionary, Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, thought he could “rewrite” humans by ordering his citizens to “throw off ‘the Four Olds’ – old thinking, old culture, old customs and old habits,” he said. “So your whole life went in the garbage overnight, no biggie. And those who resisted were attacked by an army of purifiers called the Red Guard who went around the country putting guns caps on people. Whoever didn’t take to being a new kind of mortal being, a lot of pointing and shaming went on. Oh, and about a million dead and the only way to survive was to plead insanity for the crime of being insufficiently radical.”
He went on to warn, “We do have our own Red Guard here, but they do their rampaging on Twitter.”
But, he said, there once was a musician who wrote a song called “Revolution,” but it was not in praise of one. That musician was John Lennon.
“The people who didn’t really listen to it thought it was a ‘rah rah’ call for revolution. No, it was the opposite,” he said. “The lyrics are: you say you want a revolution. Well, you know, we all want to change the world, but if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anybody. Anyhow, there’s a guy who understood how good intentions can turn into the insane arrogance of thinking your revolution is so f—ing awesome and your generation is so mind-bendingly improved that you have bequeathed the world with a new kind of human. You’re welcome.”
You can watch Maher’s entire New Rules segment in the clip at the top.
