Charlton Heston on Winning the Cultural War
Episode description
The battle against "political correctness" isn't new. In this 1999 address presented at Harvard Law School, actor and social activist Charlton Heston decried political correctness as a kind of "cultural war...in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain accepted thoughts and speech are mandated."
He called on his audience to not "let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism."
Mr. Heston also criticized the media company Time/Warner for its role in selling and promoting a recording titled "Cop Killer," which celebrated the ambushing and of murdering police officers.
Charlton Heston appeared in nearly 100 films over the course of a 60-year career. In 1959, he won the Academy Award for best actor for his performance in Ben-Hur. From 1998 to 2003, he served as president of the National Rifle Association.
Charlton Heston died in 2008 at age 84.
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