1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,000 For me they normally happen, these career crises, 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:05,000 often, actually, on a Sunday evening, 3 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:07,000 just as the sun is starting to set, 4 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:10,000 and the gap between my hopes for myself, 5 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:14,000 and the reality of my life, start to diverge so painfully 6 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:17,000 that I normally end up weeping into a pillow. 7 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:19,000 I'm mentioning all this, 8 00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:22,000 I'm mentioning all this because I think this is not merely a personal problem. 9 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:24,000 You may think I'm wrong in this, 10 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:26,000 but I think that we live in an age when our lives are regularly 11 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:28,000 punctuated by career crises, 12 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:30,000 by moments when what we thought we knew, 13 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:32,000 about our lives, about our careers, 14 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:36,000 comes into contact with a threatening sort of reality. 15 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:39,000 It's perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living. 16 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:42,000 It's perhaps harder than ever before 17 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:45,000 to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety. 18 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:47,000 I want to look now, if I may, 19 00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:49,000 at some of the reasons why 20 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:52,000 we might be feeling anxiety about our careers. 21 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:54,000 Why we might be victims of these career crises, 22 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:58,000 as we're weeping softly into our pillows. 23 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:01,000 One of the reasons why we might be suffering 24 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:03,000 is that we are surrounded by snobs. 25 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:06,000 In a way, I've got some bad news, 26 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:09,000 particularly to anybody who's come to Oxford from abroad. 27 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:11,000 There is a real problem with snobbery. 28 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:13,000 Because sometimes people from outside the U.K. 29 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:15,000 imagine that snobbery is a distinctively U.K. phenomenon 30 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:18,000 fixated on country houses and titles. 31 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:20,000 The bad news is that's not true. 32 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:22,000 Snobbery is a global phenomenon. 33 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:24,000 We are a global organization. This is a global phenomenon. 34 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:26,000 It exists. What is a snob? 35 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:29,000 A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you 36 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:32,000 and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. 37 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:34,000 That is snobbery. 38 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:36,000 The dominant kind of snobbery 39 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:38,000 that exists nowadays is job snobbery. 40 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:40,000 You encounter it within minutes at a party, 41 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:43,000 when you get asked that famous iconic question 42 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:46,000 of the early 21st century, "What do you do?" 43 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:48,000 And according to how you answer that question, 44 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:50,000 people are either incredibly delighted to see you, 45 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:52,000 or look at their watch and make their excuses. 46 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:53,000 (Laughter) 47 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:56,000 Now, the opposite of a snob is your mother. 48 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:58,000 (Laughter) 49 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:01,000 Not necessarily your mother, or indeed mine, 50 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:03,000 but, as it were, the ideal mother, 51 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:05,000 somebody who doesn't care about your achievements. 52 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:07,000 But unfortunately, most people are not our mothers. 53 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:10,000 Most people make a strict correlation between how much time, 54 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:12,000 and if you like, love -- not romantic love, 55 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:14,000 though that may be something -- 56 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:16,000 but love in general, respect, 57 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:19,000 they are willing to accord us, that will be strictly defined 58 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:21,000 by our position in the social hierarchy. 59 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:24,000 And that's a lot of the reason why we care so much about our careers 60 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:28,000 and indeed start caring so much about material goods. 61 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:31,000 You know, we're often told that we live in very materialistic times, 62 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:33,000 that we're all greedy people. 63 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:35,000 I don't think we are particularly materialistic. 64 00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:37,000 I think we live in a society 65 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:39,000 which has simply pegged certain emotional rewards 66 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,000 to the acquisition of material goods. 67 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:45,000 It's not the material goods we want. It's the rewards we want. 68 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:47,000 And that's a new way of looking at luxury goods. 69 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:49,000 The next time you see somebody driving a Ferrari 70 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:51,000 don't think, "This is somebody who is greedy." 71 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:54,000 Think, "This is somebody who is incredibly vulnerable and in need of love." 72 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:59,000 In other words -- (Laughter) 73 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:01,000 feel sympathy, rather than contempt. 74 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:03,000 There are other reasons -- 75 00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:04,000 (Laughter) 76 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:06,000 there are other reasons why it's perhaps harder now 77 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:08,000 to feel calm than ever before. 78 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:11,000 One of these, and it's paradoxical because it's linked to something that's rather nice, 79 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:14,000 is the hope we all have for our careers. 80 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:16,000 Never before have expectations been so high 81 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:19,000 about what human beings can achieve with their lifespan. 82 00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:22,000 We're told, from many sources, that anyone can achieve anything. 83 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:24,000 We've done away with the caste system. 84 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:26,000 We are now in a system where anyone can rise 85 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:28,000 to any position they please. 86 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:30,000 And it's a beautiful idea. 87 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:34,000 Along with that is a kind of spirit of equality. We're all basically equal. 88 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:36,000 There are no strictly defined 89 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:38,000 kind of hierarchies. 90 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:40,000 There is one really big problem with this, 91 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:42,000 and that problem is envy. 92 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:45,000 Envy, it's a real taboo to mention envy, 93 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:48,000 but if there is one dominant emotion in modern society, that is envy. 94 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:52,000 And it's linked to the spirit of equality. Let me explain. 95 00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:55,000 I think it would be very unusual for anyone here, or anyone watching, 96 00:03:55,000 --> 00:03:57,000 to be envious of the Queen of England. 97 00:03:57,000 --> 00:04:00,000 Even though she is much richer than any of you are. 98 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:03,000 And she's got a very large house. 99 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:07,000 The reason why we don't envy her is because she's too weird. 100 00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:09,000 She's simply too strange. 101 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:11,000 We can't relate to her. She speaks in a funny way. 102 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:13,000 She comes from an odd place. 103 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:17,000 So we can't relate to her. And when you can't relate to somebody, you don't envy them. 104 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:20,000 The closer two people are, in age, in background, 105 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:23,000 in the process of identification, the more there is a danger of envy -- 106 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:26,000 which is incidentally why none of you should ever go to a school reunion -- 107 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:29,000 because there is no stronger reference point 108 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:31,000 than people one was at school with. 109 00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:34,000 But the problem, generally, of modern society, is that it turns the whole world 110 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:36,000 into a school. Everybody is wearing jeans, everybody is the same. 111 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:38,000 And yet, they're not. 112 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:41,000 So there is a spirit of equality, combined with deep inequalities. 113 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:44,000 Which makes for a very -- can make for a very stressful situation. 114 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:46,000 It's probably as unlikely that you would nowadays 115 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:48,000 become as rich and famous as Bill Gates, 116 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:50,000 as it was unlikely in the 17th century 117 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:53,000 that you would accede to the ranks of the French aristocracy. 118 00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:55,000 But the point is, it doesn't feel that way. 119 00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:58,000 It's made to feel, by magazines and other media outlets, 120 00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:01,000 that if you've got energy, a few bright ideas about technology, 121 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:05,000 a garage, you too could start a major thing. 122 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:06,000 (Laughter) 123 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:09,000 And the consequences of this problem make themselves felt in bookshops. 124 00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:12,000 When you go to a large bookshop and look at the self-help sections, 125 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:14,000 as I sometimes do, 126 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:16,000 if you analyze self-help books that are produced 127 00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:18,000 in the world today, there are basically two kinds. 128 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:21,000 The first kind tells you, "You can do it! You can make it! Anything is possible!" 129 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:24,000 And the other kind tells you how to cope 130 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:27,000 with what we politely call "low self-esteem," 131 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:29,000 or impolitely call "feeling very bad about yourself." 132 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:31,000 There is a real correlationship, 133 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:35,000 a real correlation between a society that tells people that they can do anything 134 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:37,000 and the existence of low self-esteem. 135 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:39,000 So that's another way in which something that is quite positive 136 00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:41,000 can have a nasty kickback. 137 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:44,000 There is another reason why we might be feeling more anxious, 138 00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:48,000 about our careers, about our status in the world today, than ever before. 139 00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:50,000 And it is, again, linked to something nice, 140 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:53,000 and that nice thing is called meritocracy. 141 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:55,000 Everybody, all politicians on Left and Right, 142 00:05:55,000 --> 00:05:57,000 agree that meritocracy is a great thing, 143 00:05:57,000 --> 00:06:01,000 and we should all be trying to make our societies really, really meritocratic. 144 00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:05,000 In other words, what is a meritocratic society? 145 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:07,000 A meritocratic society is one in which 146 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:09,000 if you've got talent and energy and skill, 147 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:11,000 you will get to the top. Nothing should hold you back. 148 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:14,000 It's a beautiful idea. The problem is 149 00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:16,000 if you really believe in a society 150 00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:19,000 where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, 151 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:22,000 you'll also, by implication, and in a far more nasty way, 152 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:25,000 believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom 153 00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:28,000 also get to the bottom and stay there. 154 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:31,000 In other words, your position in life comes to seem not accidental, 155 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:33,000 but merited and deserved. 156 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:36,000 And that makes failure seem much more crushing. 157 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:38,000 You know, in the Middle Ages, in England, 158 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:40,000 when you met a very poor person, 159 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:43,000 that person would be described as an "unfortunate" -- 160 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:47,000 literally, somebody who had not been blessed by fortune, an unfortunate. 161 00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:49,000 Nowadays, particularly in the United States, 162 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:51,000 if you meet someone at the bottom of society, 163 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:54,000 they may unkindly be described as a "loser." 164 00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:57,000 There is a real difference between an unfortunate and a loser, 165 00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:00,000 and that shows 400 years of evolution in society 166 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:03,000 and our belief in who is responsible for our lives. 167 00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:06,000 It's no longer the gods, it's us. We're in the driving seat. 168 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:08,000 That's exhilarating if you're doing well, 169 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:10,000 and very crushing if you're not. 170 00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:13,000 It leads, in the worst cases, in the analysis of a sociologist 171 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:17,000 like Emil Durkheim, it leads to increased rates of suicide. 172 00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:20,000 There are more suicides in developed individualistic countries 173 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:22,000 than in any other part of the world. 174 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:24,000 And some of the reason for that is that people take what happens 175 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:26,000 to them extremely personally. 176 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:30,000 They own their success. But they also own their failure. 177 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:32,000 Is there any relief from some of these pressures 178 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:34,000 that I've just been outlining? 179 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:36,000 I think there is. I just want to turn to a few of them. 180 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:38,000 Let's take meritocracy. 181 00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:41,000 This idea that everybody deserves to get where they get to, 182 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:44,000 I think it's a crazy idea, completely crazy. 183 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:46,000 I will support any politician of Left and Right, 184 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:48,000 with any halfway decent meritocratic idea. 185 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:50,000 I am a meritocrat in that sense. 186 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:52,000 But I think it's insane to believe that we will ever 187 00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:56,000 make a society that is genuinely meritocratic. It's an impossible dream. 188 00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:58,000 The idea that we will make a society 189 00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:00,000 where literally everybody is graded, 190 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:02,000 the good at the top, and the bad at the bottom, 191 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:04,000 and it's exactly done as it should be, is impossible. 192 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:06,000 There are simply too many random factors: 193 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:08,000 accidents, accidents of birth, 194 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:11,000 accidents of things dropping on people's heads, illnesses, etc. 195 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:13,000 We will never get to grade them, 196 00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:15,000 never get to grade people as they should. 197 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:18,000 I'm drawn to a lovely quote by St. Augustine in "The City of God," 198 00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:22,000 where he says, "It's a sin to judge any man by his post." 199 00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:24,000 In modern English that would mean 200 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:26,000 it's a sin to come to any view of who you should talk to 201 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:28,000 dependent on their business card. 202 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:30,000 It's not the post that should count. 203 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:32,000 According to St. Augustine, 204 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:34,000 it's only God who can really put everybody in their place. 205 00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:36,000 And he's going to do that on the Day of Judgment 206 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:38,000 with angels and trumpets, and the skies will open. 207 00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:41,000 Insane idea, if you're a secularist person, like me. 208 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:43,000 But something very valuable in that idea, nevertheless. 209 00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:47,000 In other words, hold your horses when you're coming to judge people. 210 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:50,000 You don't necessarily know what someone's true value is. 211 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:52,000 That is an unknown part of them. 212 00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:55,000 And we shouldn't behave as though it is known. 213 00:08:55,000 --> 00:08:58,000 There is another source of solace and comfort for all this. 214 00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:01,000 When we think about failing in life, when we think about failure, 215 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:03,000 one of the reasons why we fear failing is not just 216 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:05,000 a loss of income, a loss of status. 217 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:09,000 What we fear is the judgment and ridicule of others. And it exists. 218 00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:11,000 You know, the number one organ of ridicule 219 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:13,000 nowadays, is the newspaper. 220 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:15,000 And if you open the newspaper any day of the week, 221 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:17,000 it's full of people who've messed up their lives. 222 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:20,000 They've slept with the wrong person. They've taken the wrong substance. 223 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:22,000 They've passed the wrong piece of legislation. Whatever it is. 224 00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:25,000 And then are fit for ridicule. 225 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:28,000 In other words, they have failed. And they are described as "losers." 226 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:30,000 Now is there any alternative to this? 227 00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:32,000 I think the Western tradition shows us one glorious alternative, 228 00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:35,000 and that is tragedy. 229 00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:38,000 Tragic art, as it developed in the theaters of ancient Greece, 230 00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:40,000 in the fifth century B.C., was essentially an art form 231 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:43,000 devoted to tracing how people fail, 232 00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:47,000 and also according them a level of sympathy, 233 00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:51,000 which ordinary life would not necessarily accord them. 234 00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:52,000 I remember a few years ago, I was thinking about all this, 235 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:54,000 and I went to see "The Sunday Sport," 236 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:57,000 a tabloid newspaper that I don't recommend you to start reading 237 00:09:57,000 --> 00:09:59,000 if you're not familiar with it already. 238 00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:01,000 I went to talk to them 239 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:04,000 about certain of the great tragedies of Western art. 240 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:06,000 I wanted to see how they would seize the bare bones 241 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:09,000 of certain stories if they came in as a news item 242 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:12,000 at the news desk on a Saturday afternoon. 243 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:14,000 So I told them about Othello. They had not heard of it but were fascinated by it. 244 00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:15,000 (Laughter) 245 00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:18,000 And I asked them to write the headline for the story of Othello. 246 00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:21,000 They came up with "Love-Crazed Immigrant Kills Senator's Daughter" 247 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:23,000 splashed across the headline. 248 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:25,000 I gave them the plotline of Madame Bovary. 249 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:27,000 Again, a book they were enchanted to discover. 250 00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:32,000 And they wrote "Shopaholic Adulteress Swallows Arsenic After Credit Fraud." 251 00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:33,000 (Laughter) 252 00:10:33,000 --> 00:10:35,000 And then my favorite. 253 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:37,000 They really do have a kind of genius all of their own, these guys. 254 00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:39,000 My favorite is Sophocles' Oedipus the King: 255 00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:42,000 "Sex With Mum Was Blinding" 256 00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:45,000 (Laughter) 257 00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:47,000 (Applause) 258 00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:50,000 In a way, if you like, at one end of the spectrum of sympathy, 259 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:52,000 you've got the tabloid newspaper. 260 00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:55,000 At the other end of the spectrum you've got tragedy and tragic art, 261 00:10:55,000 --> 00:10:57,000 and I suppose I'm arguing that we should learn a little bit 262 00:10:57,000 --> 00:10:59,000 about what's happening in tragic art. 263 00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:02,000 It would be insane to call Hamlet a loser. 264 00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:05,000 He is not a loser, though he has lost. 265 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:07,000 And I think that is the message of tragedy to us, 266 00:11:07,000 --> 00:11:10,000 and why it's so very, very important, I think. 267 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:12,000 The other thing about modern society 268 00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:14,000 and why it causes this anxiety 269 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:17,000 is that we have nothing at its center that is non-human. 270 00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:19,000 We are the first society to be living in a world 271 00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:22,000 where we don't worship anything other than ourselves. 272 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:24,000 We think very highly of ourselves, and so we should. 273 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:27,000 We've put people on the moon. We've done all sorts of extraordinary things. 274 00:11:27,000 --> 00:11:29,000 And so we tend to worship ourselves. 275 00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:31,000 Our heroes are human heroes. 276 00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:33,000 That's a very new situation. 277 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:35,000 Most other societies have had, right at their center, 278 00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:37,000 the worship of something transcendent: a god, 279 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:39,000 a spirit, a natural force, the universe, 280 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:42,000 whatever it is, something else that is being worshiped. 281 00:11:42,000 --> 00:11:44,000 We've slightly lost the habit of doing that, 282 00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:46,000 which is, I think, why we're particularly drawn to nature. 283 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:49,000 Not for the sake of our health, though it's often presented that way, 284 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:53,000 but because it's an escape from the human anthill. 285 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:55,000 It's an escape from our own competition, 286 00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:57,000 and our own dramas. 287 00:11:57,000 --> 00:11:59,000 And that's why we enjoy looking at glaciers and oceans, 288 00:11:59,000 --> 00:12:03,000 and contemplating the Earth from outside its perimeters, etc. 289 00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:07,000 We like to feel in contact with something that is non-human, 290 00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:11,000 and that is so deeply important to us. 291 00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:14,000 What I think I've been talking about really is success and failure. 292 00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:17,000 And one of the interesting things about success 293 00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:19,000 is that we think we know what it means. 294 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:21,000 If I said to you that there is somebody behind the screen 295 00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:24,000 who is very very successful, certain ideas would immediately come to mind. 296 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:26,000 You would think that person might have made a lot of money, 297 00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:29,000 achieved renown in some field. 298 00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:31,000 My own theory of success -- and I'm somebody 299 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:34,000 who is very interested in success. I really want to be successful. 300 00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:36,000 I'm always thinking, "How could I be more successful?" 301 00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:38,000 But as I get older, I'm also very nuanced 302 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:40,000 about what that word "success" might mean. 303 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:42,000 Here's an insight that I've had about success. 304 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:45,000 You can't be successful at everything. 305 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:47,000 We hear a lot of talk about work-life balance. 306 00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:50,000 Nonsense. You can't have it all. You can't. 307 00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:52,000 So any vision of success 308 00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:54,000 has to admit what it's losing out on, 309 00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:56,000 where the element of loss is. 310 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:59,000 I think any wise life will accept, 311 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:02,000 as I say, that there is going to be an element where we are not succeeding. 312 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:04,000 Thing about a successful life 313 00:13:04,000 --> 00:13:06,000 is, a lot of the time, our ideas 314 00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:09,000 of what it would mean to live successfully are not our own. 315 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:11,000 They are sucked in from other people: 316 00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:13,000 chiefly, if you're a man, your father, 317 00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:15,000 and if you're a woman, your mother. 318 00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:18,000 Psychoanalysis has been drumming home this message for about 80 years. 319 00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:21,000 No one is quite listening hard enough, but I very much believe that that's true. 320 00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:23,000 And we also suck in messages 321 00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:25,000 from everything from the television, to advertising, 322 00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:27,000 to marketing, etc. 323 00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:29,000 These are hugely powerful forces 324 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:33,000 that define what we want and how we view ourselves. 325 00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:36,000 When we're told that banking is a very respectable profession 326 00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:38,000 a lot of us want to go into banking. 327 00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:41,000 When banking is no longer so respectable, we lose interest in banking. 328 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:44,000 We are highly open to suggestion. 329 00:13:44,000 --> 00:13:47,000 So what I want to argue for is not that we should give up 330 00:13:47,000 --> 00:13:49,000 on our ideas of success, 331 00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:51,000 but we should make sure that they are our own. 332 00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:53,000 We should focus in on our ideas 333 00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:56,000 and make sure that we own them, 334 00:13:56,000 --> 00:13:58,000 that we are truly the authors of our own ambitions. 335 00:13:58,000 --> 00:14:00,000 Because it's bad enough, not getting what you want, 336 00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:03,000 but it's even worse to have an idea 337 00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:06,000 of what it is you want and find out at the end of a journey, 338 00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:09,000 that it isn't, in fact, what you wanted all along. 339 00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:11,000 So I'm going to end it there. 340 00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:14,000 But what I really want to stress is 341 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:16,000 by all means, success, yes. 342 00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:18,000 But let's accept the strangeness of some of our ideas. 343 00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:21,000 Let's probe away at our notions of success. 344 00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:25,000 Let's make sure our ideas of success are truly our own. 345 00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:27,000 Thank you very much. 346 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:43,000 (Applause) 347 00:14:43,000 --> 00:14:45,000 Chris Anderson: That was fascinating. How do you reconcile 348 00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:50,000 this idea of someone being -- 349 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:53,000 it being bad to think of someone as a loser 350 00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:57,000 with the idea, that a lot of people like, of seizing control of your life. 351 00:14:57,000 --> 00:15:00,000 And that a society that encourages that 352 00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:03,000 perhaps has to have some winners and losers. 353 00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:06,000 Alain de Botton: Yes. I think it's merely the randomness 354 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:08,000 of the winning and losing process that I wanted to stress. 355 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:10,000 Because the emphasis nowadays is so much 356 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:12,000 on the justice of everything, 357 00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:14,000 and politicians always talk about justice. 358 00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:17,000 Now I am a firm believer in justice, I just think that it is impossible. 359 00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:19,000 So we should do everything we can, 360 00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:21,000 we should do everything we can to pursue it. 361 00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:23,000 But at the end of the day we should always remember 362 00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:26,000 that whoever is facing us, whatever has happened in their lives, 363 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:29,000 there will be a strong element of the haphazard. 364 00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:31,000 And it's that that I'm trying to leave room for. 365 00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:33,000 Because otherwise it can get quite claustrophobic. 366 00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:35,000 CA: I mean, do you believe that you can combine 367 00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:37,000 your kind of kinder, gentler philosophy of work 368 00:15:37,000 --> 00:15:41,000 with a successful economy? 369 00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:43,000 Or do you think that you can't? 370 00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:45,000 But it doesn't matter that much that we're putting too much emphasis on that? 371 00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:48,000 AB: The nightmare thought 372 00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:52,000 is that frightening people is the best way to get work out of them, 373 00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:55,000 and that somehow the crueler the environment 374 00:15:55,000 --> 00:15:57,000 the more people will rise to the challenge. 375 00:15:57,000 --> 00:16:01,000 You want to think, who would you like as your ideal dad? 376 00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:04,000 And your ideal dad is somebody who is tough but gentle. 377 00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:06,000 And it's a very hard line to make. 378 00:16:06,000 --> 00:16:10,000 We need fathers, as it were, the exemplary father figures in society, 379 00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:12,000 avoiding the two extremes, 380 00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:16,000 which is the authoritarian, disciplinarian, on the one hand, 381 00:16:16,000 --> 00:16:20,000 and on the other, the lax, no rules option. 382 00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:22,000 CA: Alain de Botton. 383 00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:24,000 AB: Thank you very much. 384 00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:34,000 (Applause)