QotD: Activist Actors

It was never a practical project to silence the acting profession. These people are famous. Having acquired their fame, they then want to use their fame to do good, and in the process to become even more famous. This is only natural, especially when you consider that doing good and being heroic is what, according to the entertainments these people spend their lives making and acting in, life is all about. Trying to stop famous actors from expressing what they consider to be virtuous and heroic opinions in public is like trying to stop the wind from blowing or the sea from being wet.

Brian Micklethwait, "Minnie Driver and the changing meaning of goodness", Samizdata, 2005-08-01