Wit & Attitude Quote by Lawrence Lessig

Lessig’s line is a warning shot at the invisible machinery of authority: the beliefs so “obvious” that questioning them gets you labeled unstable. Power, he suggests, doesn’t merely enforce rules; it drafts reality itself, making certain premises feel like common sense rather than ideology. The phrase “runs with ideas” is doing quiet work here. It implies momentum, a current. Once an idea is treated as self-evident, institutions can sprint on it without stopping to justify the starting point.

The barb is in “only the crazy would draw into doubt.” Lessig isn’t mocking doubt; he’s diagnosing how dissent gets pathologized. If power can frame skepticism as mental defect, it doesn’t have to argue. It can delegitimize. That’s a modern tactic, especially in technocratic societies: you don’t imprison the heretic; you brand them unserious, conspiratorial, unwell. The policing happens socially before it ever reaches law.

Context matters: Lessig’s career sits at the intersection of law, the internet, and political reform. He has spent decades pointing out how systems quietly normalize assumptions about who gets to speak, who gets to own culture, and how money translates into policy. Read through that lens, the quote is less about “crazy people” and more about the comfort of settled narratives: corruption as “just politics,” copyright maximalism as “protecting creators,” surveillance as “safety.”

The intent is strategic: if you want to change power, you don’t start by debating policies. You start by attacking the premises everyone is afraid to question.