Cass Sunstein

Scholar

1954-09-21

American legal scholar known for influential work in constitutional law, administrative law, and behavioral economics. He served as administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs during the Obama administration. Sunstein has written widely on law, policy design, and decision-making, including coauthoring Nudge.

Quotes by Cass Sunstein

I am a huge Red Sox fan.
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They call soccer the beautiful game, but if I had to identify just one sport to show members of some alien species what the human race is all about, I'd nominate squash.
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I am a professional squash player, and I recently played badly - but as well as I could - in a professional squash tournament. A professional squash player might sound like someone who is in a food-tasting group, but it is a racquet sport.
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I think the arc of history is long, and it bends toward justice. And I think that's what the 'Star Wars' message is. You know, the dark side is in the human heart. And chaos is very troubling for an individual or for a culture, which can lead you to authoritarian leaders. But the arc of history is on the right side. I believe that.
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One of the things 'Star Wars' is most deeply about is fathers, sons, and redemption. In its own way, it points to the indispensability of paternal love, and it has a lot to say about the lengths to which people - boys or girls - will go to get it.
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The original 'Star Trek' series is the classic one. Its successor, 'The Next Generation,' is less lovable, but at its best, it's smarter.
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If you like dark movies or light movies, 'The Empire Strikes Back' is one of the great movies of all time. It's probably the greatest movie of all time. 'A New Hope' is a superb movie. It's probably the second-greatest movie of all time, but 'The Empire Strikes Back' is better.
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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.
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One lesson is that if you want to predict voter turnout, you should ask whether at least one candidate is attracting high levels of enthusiasm - not whether the stakes are high, or even perceived to be high. That fits the historical pattern.
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Research shows that if people are talking and listening to like-minded others, they become more dogmatic, more unified, and more extreme. Personalized Facebook experiences are a breeding ground for misunderstanding and miscommunication across political lines and, ultimately, for extremism.
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What's disgusting about genetic modification of food? I speculate that many people have an immediate, intuitive sense that what's healthy is what's 'natural,' and that efforts to tamper with nature will inevitably unleash serious risks - so-called Frankenfoods. The problem with that speculation is that it's flat-out wrong.
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Donald Trump has taken a battering ram to longstanding political norms - the unwritten conventions that make governance possible. But even before he decided to run for president, those norms were under assault.
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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.
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We live in a period in which political disagreements are routinely handed over to the courts. Whenever you think that the president is wrong, you might well cry out that he has violated the Constitution - and ask federal judges to rule accordingly.
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If there's a regulation that's saving 10,000 lives and costing one job, it's worth it.
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The U.S. is blessed with tremendously creative and imaginative law students at places like Chicago, Harvard, Columbia and Yale.
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