"I know the difference between right and wrong, and I'm not going to equivocate on that"
About this Quote
It’s a line that tries to end the argument by turning morality into credentials: I can tell right from wrong, full stop, and I won’t play word games about it. Coming from a lawyer, that posture is loaded. The profession is built on equivocation in the literal sense - parsing definitions, weighing competing narratives, exploiting reasonable doubt. So when Robert Kardashian insists he won’t equivocate, he’s not just staking out a moral position; he’s distancing himself from the very tactics people assume lawyers use to blur the truth.
The specific intent reads as reputational self-defense. Kardashian is asserting an internal compass at the exact moment the outside world might doubt it. In the cultural memory, his name is tethered to the O.J. Simpson era - a case that turned the courtroom into national entertainment and made “legal strategy” feel indistinguishable from ethical compromise. The statement works because it tries to reclaim a clean, private self from a public spectacle that keeps insisting everything is spin.
Subtext: don’t confuse my role with my values. He’s signaling that participating in a defense, even a controversial one, doesn’t automatically mean endorsing every alleged act. It’s also a subtle demand for trust: if you believe I’m principled, you’ll accept my choices as duty rather than opportunism.
The rhetoric is blunt, almost declarative to the point of overcorrection. “I know” is certainty. “Difference” is binary. “Not going to” is performance - a vow made for an audience. In a media climate that rewards ambiguity, he’s betting that moral clarity reads as courage rather than naivete.
The specific intent reads as reputational self-defense. Kardashian is asserting an internal compass at the exact moment the outside world might doubt it. In the cultural memory, his name is tethered to the O.J. Simpson era - a case that turned the courtroom into national entertainment and made “legal strategy” feel indistinguishable from ethical compromise. The statement works because it tries to reclaim a clean, private self from a public spectacle that keeps insisting everything is spin.
Subtext: don’t confuse my role with my values. He’s signaling that participating in a defense, even a controversial one, doesn’t automatically mean endorsing every alleged act. It’s also a subtle demand for trust: if you believe I’m principled, you’ll accept my choices as duty rather than opportunism.
The rhetoric is blunt, almost declarative to the point of overcorrection. “I know” is certainty. “Difference” is binary. “Not going to” is performance - a vow made for an audience. In a media climate that rewards ambiguity, he’s betting that moral clarity reads as courage rather than naivete.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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