"I'm not politically correct"
About this Quote
"I'm not politically correct" is a preemptive strike disguised as a personality trait, and Kary Mullis knew exactly how it lands when spoken by a famous scientist with a Nobel aura. It doesn’t just signal disagreement with certain norms; it frames any pushback as prudish censorship rather than substantive critique. The genius of the line is its asymmetry: it demands maximal tolerance for the speaker while granting minimal obligation to be careful, precise, or humane.
In Mullis’s mouth, the phrase also functions as brand management. He cultivated the swaggering iconoclast persona - the lab’s lone cowboy who “tells it like it is.” That posture plays well in a culture that romanticizes scientific brilliance as proof of broader wisdom, even when the topic shifts from biochemistry to social policy or public health. Declaring oneself “not politically correct” borrows the moral charge of dissent, casting conventional decency as conformity and the speaker as courageous for merely refusing it.
Context matters: late-20th-century “political correctness” became a catchall grievance, especially for people who felt newly accountable for language and power. Mullis, who was openly contrarian on multiple fronts, could use the phrase as a solvent that dissolves expectations - of collegiality, of evidence standards outside his lane, of the difference between skepticism and attention-seeking.
Subtext: I’m about to say something you’ll hate, and if you object, you’re the problem. That’s not scientific rigor. It’s rhetorical insurance.
In Mullis’s mouth, the phrase also functions as brand management. He cultivated the swaggering iconoclast persona - the lab’s lone cowboy who “tells it like it is.” That posture plays well in a culture that romanticizes scientific brilliance as proof of broader wisdom, even when the topic shifts from biochemistry to social policy or public health. Declaring oneself “not politically correct” borrows the moral charge of dissent, casting conventional decency as conformity and the speaker as courageous for merely refusing it.
Context matters: late-20th-century “political correctness” became a catchall grievance, especially for people who felt newly accountable for language and power. Mullis, who was openly contrarian on multiple fronts, could use the phrase as a solvent that dissolves expectations - of collegiality, of evidence standards outside his lane, of the difference between skepticism and attention-seeking.
Subtext: I’m about to say something you’ll hate, and if you object, you’re the problem. That’s not scientific rigor. It’s rhetorical insurance.
Quote Details
| Topic | Sarcastic |
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