Podcast brief

Colin Kaepernick and Ryan Holiday on Justice and Success

Colin Kaepernick and Ryan Holiday discuss what wealth and success obligate a person to do, and whether moral standing requires personal experience of injustice.

A Stoa brief of an episode from The Daily Stoic

Colin Kaepernick, 10 Years After Taking A Knee

With Colin Kaepernick Published September 17, 2026 1 hr 17 min

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The episode belongs to its makers. This page summarizes its arguments in Stoa's words and points to the moments where they are made. Brief updated September 29, 2026.

The brief

Colin Kaepernick and Ryan Holiday argue that success does not automatically make a person braver or more just. It can make a person more cautious, because there is now something concrete to lose.

Kaepernick says wealth attaches a cost to speaking out. Once you have money, you also have access and opportunity that money buys, and the fear of losing that access can override the pull of principle. This runs against the common assumption that financial security frees people to take risks for others. Holiday adds that before anyone can talk about giving back, they need to be honest about the role luck played in their own rise, and honest that other people's lack of success is not simply a personal failing. He notes that this honesty is a heavy thing to carry, which is part of why people who came from hard circumstances sometimes close off from those still in them.

The two also take up a harder question: does a person need to have personally suffered an injustice to have standing to speak about it. Holiday, invoking Rawls's veil of ignorance and a teaching he attributes to Jesus about how a society treats its least well off, argues that moral concern should not depend on personal position at all. Kaepernick agrees in substance but adds a qualification: lack of direct experience may be a reason someone should not lead a movement, even if it is no reason for them to stay silent or uninvolved.

The strongest tension in the conversation is exactly this line between speaking and leading. Holiday pushes further than Kaepernick, treating personal experience as basically irrelevant to moral concern, while Kaepernick insists it still matters for who should be out front. Kaepernick also describes deliberately keeping his own career interest separate from the protest movement, judging that mixing the two would have cost the movement its credibility even if it might have helped his own case. The conversation leaves the reader with a modest, usable point: not everyone can or should stand at the center of a public risk, but anyone can support the person who does.

Strongest arguments

Wealth tends to make people more cautious, not more courageous

11:11

Holiday and Kaepernick argue that having money attaches a dollar cost to speaking out, so instead of freeing people to act on principle, wealth often makes them more conservative and afraid of losing what they have. Kaepernick says society implicitly teaches people that losing money means losing access and opportunity, which creates a strong incentive never to risk it.

Honesty about luck is the first obligation of success

17:36

Holiday argues that before anyone can talk about giving back, they must first be honest that luck played a role in their success and that others' lack of success is not simply a personal failing. He says people who came from adversity sometimes close their hearts to those left behind because carrying that awareness is a heavy mental load.

Personal experience is not a precondition for moral concern

38:19

Holiday and Kaepernick reject the idea that only people who have personally suffered an injustice are entitled to speak about it, comparing this to saying wealthy people should not care about poverty or men should not care about women's rights. Kaepernick adds a caveat: lack of direct experience may mean someone should not lead a movement, but it does not disqualify them from contributing to it.

The veil of ignorance and the ethic of the least well off justify obligation to others

39:47

Holiday invokes a teaching he attributes to Jesus about how a society should be judged by how it treats those at the bottom, and pairs it with John Rawls's veil of ignorance, the idea that just policies are those you would choose without knowing where you would land in society. He argues this reframes moral obligation as impartial rather than dependent on personal position.

Keeping personal career interest separate from the movement's integrity

27:22

Kaepernick explains that he deliberately did not ask supporters to protest for his own job, because conflating his personal interest in returning to the NFL with the broader movement against police violence would have undermined trust in the work. He estimates that fighting more openly for his own reinstatement could have improved his career prospects but would have compromised the movement's credibility.

Injustice does not stay contained to one group

48:27

Holiday and Kaepernick argue that rights and systems of oppression are interconnected, so violating one group's rights, such as racially profiling people for immigration enforcement, eventually threatens everyone's rights. They connect this to Martin Luther King's claim that a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Support does not require being the one at the center of the storm

1:22:25

Kaepernick and Holiday close by noting that not everyone can or should be the person taking the public risk, but anyone can offer support and solidarity to those who do, and such gestures matter a great deal to the person taking the risk. Kaepernick illustrates this with stories of teammates and strangers who showed support in small but meaningful ways.

Disagreements

Whether lack of personal experience limits standing to speak or only to lead

38:19

Holiday pushes further than Kaepernick, suggesting outrage about injustice should not depend at all on personal experience of it. Kaepernick partially agrees but adds a qualification Holiday does not raise: someone without direct experience of an issue may not be the right person to lead on it, even if they can still contribute.

Concepts discussed

Justice Acting unjustly, including lying or pursuing pleasure as the good, is impiety against the rational nature that made us for each other.

Questions this episode answers

Why doesn't wealth automatically make people more willing to speak out on principle?
11:11

Kaepernick and Holiday argue that money attaches a cost to speaking up, so people who gain wealth often become more afraid of losing it rather than more courageous, contrary to the common assumption that financial security enables activism.
What is the first ethical obligation that comes with personal success?
17:36

Holiday argues the first obligation is honesty: acknowledging that luck contributed to one's success and that others' lack of success is not simply their own fault, before any question of giving back can be meaningfully addressed.
Does John Rawls's veil of ignorance justify caring about people unlike yourself?
41:14

Holiday explains Rawls's veil of ignorance as choosing political and moral principles without knowing where you would personally land in society, which he argues shows why people should care about others' circumstances even if those circumstances differ from their own.
Must someone personally experience an injustice to be entitled to speak about it?
38:19

Both speakers reject this idea, comparing it to saying wealthy people should not care about poverty, though Kaepernick adds that lack of direct experience can be a reason not to lead a movement, even while still being able to contribute to it.
How does personal conscience relate to justice as a virtue?
32:39

Holiday distinguishes justice as law and politics from a more basic layer, the personal standards one holds oneself to regardless of whether anyone is watching, calling this the bedrock level of justice sometimes referred to as conscience.
Why does Colin Kaepernick say he kept his personal career interests separate from his protest movement?
27:22

Kaepernick explains he refused to ask supporters to protest specifically for his reinstatement to the NFL because mixing his personal career interest with the broader movement against police violence risked undermining public trust in the movement's integrity.

Related primary passages

He who acts unjustly acts impiously. For since the universal nature has made rational animals for the sake of one another to help one another according to their deserts, but in no way to injure one another, he who transgresses her will, is clearly guilty of impiety towards the highest divinity.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.1 Read in context

The opening claim of the whole meditation: injustice is not a social lapse but a break with the rational order that made us for each other.

Sources

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations Primary text, Stoa library
The Daily Stoic, Colin Kaepernick, 10 Years After Taking A Knee Podcast episode, original episode