WEBVTT

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For me they normally happen,
these career crises,

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often, actually, on a Sunday evening,

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just as the sun is starting to set,

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and the gap between my hopes for myself
and the reality of my life

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starts to diverge so painfully

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that I normally end up
weeping into a pillow.

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I'm mentioning all this --

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I'm mentioning all this because I think
this is not merely a personal problem;

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you may think I'm wrong in this,

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but I think we live in an age
when our lives are regularly punctuated

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by career crises, by moments
when what we thought we knew --

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about our lives, about our careers --

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comes into contact
with a threatening sort of reality.

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It's perhaps easier now than ever before
to make a good living.

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It's perhaps harder than ever before

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to stay calm, to be free
of career anxiety.

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I want to look now, if I may,
at some of the reasons

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why we might be feeling
anxiety about our careers.

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Why we might be victims
of these career crises,

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as we're weeping softly into our pillows.

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One of the reasons
why we might be suffering

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is that we are surrounded by snobs.

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In a way, I've got some bad news,

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particularly to anybody
who's come to Oxford from abroad.

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There's a real problem with snobbery,

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because sometimes people
from outside the U.K.

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imagine that snobbery
is a distinctively U.K. phenomenon,

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fixated on country houses and titles.

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The bad news is that's not true.

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Snobbery is a global phenomenon;
we are a global organization,

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this is a global phenomenon.

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What is a snob?

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A snob is anybody who takes
a small part of you,

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and uses that to come
to a complete vision of who you are.

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That is snobbery.

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The dominant kind of snobbery
that exists nowadays is job snobbery.

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You encounter it within minutes
at a party, when you get asked

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that famous iconic question
of the early 21st century,

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"What do you do?"

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According to how you answer that question,

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people are either incredibly
delighted to see you,

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or look at their watch
and make their excuses.

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(Laughter)

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Now, the opposite of a snob
is your mother.

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(Laughter)

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Not necessarily your mother,
or indeed mine,

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but, as it were, the ideal mother,

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somebody who doesn't care
about your achievements.

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Unfortunately, most people
are not our mothers.

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Most people make a strict correlation
between how much time,

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and if you like, love --

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not romantic love,
though that may be something --

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but love in general, respect --
they are willing to accord us,

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that will be strictly defined
by our position in the social hierarchy.

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And that's a lot of the reason
why we care so much about our careers

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and indeed start caring
so much about material goods.

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You know, we're often told
that we live in very materialistic times,

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that we're all greedy people.

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I don't think we are
particularly materialistic.

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I think we live in a society which has
simply pegged certain emotional rewards

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to the acquisition of material goods.

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It's not the material goods we want;
it's the rewards we want.

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It's a new way of looking at luxury goods.

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The next time you see somebody
driving a Ferrari, don't think,

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"This is somebody who's greedy."

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Think, "This is somebody who is incredibly
vulnerable and in need of love."

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(Laughter)

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Feel sympathy, rather than contempt.

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There are other reasons --

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(Laughter)

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There are other reasons why it's perhaps
harder now to feel calm than ever before.

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One of these, and it's paradoxical,

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because it's linked to something
that's rather nice,

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is the hope we all have for our careers.

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Never before have
expectations been so high

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about what human beings can
achieve with their lifespan.

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We're told, from many sources,
that anyone can achieve anything.

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We've done away with the caste system,

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we are now in a system where anyone
can rise to any position they please.

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And it's a beautiful idea.

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Along with that is a kind
of spirit of equality;

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we're all basically equal.

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There are no strictly-defined hierarchies.

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There is one really big problem with this,

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and that problem is envy.

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Envy, it's a real taboo to mention envy,

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but if there's one dominant emotion
in modern society, that is envy.

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And it's linked to the spirit of equality.

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Let me explain.

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I think it would be very unusual
for anyone here, or anyone watching,

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to be envious of the Queen of England.

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Even though she is much richer
than any of you are,

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and she's got a very large house,

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the reason why we don't envy her
is because she's too weird.

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(Laughter)

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She's simply too strange.

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We can't relate to her,
she speaks in a funny way,

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she comes from an odd place.

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So we can't relate to her,

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and when you can't relate
to somebody, you don't envy them.

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The closer two people are --
in age, in background,

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in the process of identification --
the more there's a danger of envy,

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which is incidentally why none of you
should ever go to a school reunion,

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because there is no stronger reference
point than people one was at school with.

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The problem of modern society is
it turns the whole world into a school.

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Everybody's wearing jeans,
everybody's the same.

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And yet, they're not.

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So there's a spirit of equality
combined with deep inequality,

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which can make for
a very stressful situation.

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It's probably as unlikely
that you would nowadays

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become as rich and famous as Bill Gates,

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as it was unlikely in the 17th century

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that you would accede to the ranks
of the French aristocracy.

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But the point is,
it doesn't feel that way.

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It's made to feel, by magazines
and other media outlets,

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that if you've got energy, a few bright
ideas about technology, a garage --

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you, too, could start a major thing.

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(Laughter)

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The consequences of this problem
make themselves felt in bookshops.

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When you go to a large bookshop
and look at the self-help sections,

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as I sometimes do --

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if you analyze self-help books
produced in the world today,

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there are basically two kinds.

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The first kind tells you, "You can do it!
You can make it! Anything's possible!"

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The other kind tells you how to cope with
what we politely call "low self-esteem,"

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or impolitely call,
"feeling very bad about yourself."

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There's a real correlation

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between a society that tells people
that they can do anything,

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and the existence of low self-esteem.

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So that's another way in which something
quite positive can have a nasty kickback.

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There is another reason why
we might be feeling more anxious --

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about our careers, about our status
in the world today, than ever before.

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And it's, again, linked to something nice.

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And that nice thing is called meritocracy.

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Everybody, all politicians
on Left and Right,

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agree that meritocracy is a great thing,

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and we should all be trying to make
our societies really, really meritocratic.

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In other words --
what is a meritocratic society?

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A meritocratic society is one in which,
if you've got talent and energy and skill,

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you will get to the top,
nothing should hold you back.

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It's a beautiful idea.

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The problem is, if you
really believe in a society

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where those who merit to get
to the top, get to the top,

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you'll also, by implication,
and in a far more nasty way,

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believe in a society where those
who deserve to get to the bottom

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also get to the bottom and stay there.

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In other words, your position in life
comes to seem not accidental,

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but merited and deserved.

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And that makes failure
seem much more crushing.

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You know, in the Middle Ages, in England,

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when you met a very poor person,

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that person would be described
as an "unfortunate" --

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literally, somebody who had not
been blessed by fortune, an unfortunate.

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Nowadays, particularly
in the United States,

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if you meet someone
at the bottom of society,

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they may unkindly be
described as a "loser."

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There's a real difference
between an unfortunate and a loser,

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and that shows 400 years
of evolution in society

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and our belief in who
is responsible for our lives.

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It's no longer the gods, it's us.
We're in the driving seat.

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That's exhilarating if you're doing well,

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and very crushing if you're not.

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It leads, in the worst cases --

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in the analysis of a sociologist
like Emil Durkheim --

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it leads to increased rates of suicide.

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There are more suicides
in developed, individualistic countries

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than in any other part of the world.

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And some of the reason for that

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is that people take what happens to them
extremely personally --

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they own their success,
but they also own their failure.

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Is there any relief
from some of these pressures

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that I've been outlining?

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I think there is.

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I just want to turn to a few of them.

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Let's take meritocracy.

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This idea that everybody deserves
to get where they get to,

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I think it's a crazy idea,
completely crazy.

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I will support any politician
of Left and Right,

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with any halfway-decent meritocratic idea;

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I am a meritocrat in that sense.

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But I think it's insane to believe

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that we will ever make a society
that is genuinely meritocratic;

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it's an impossible dream.

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The idea that we will make a society
where literally everybody is graded,

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the good at the top, bad at the bottom,

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exactly done as it
should be, is impossible.

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There are simply too many random factors:

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accidents, accidents of birth,

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accidents of things dropping
on people's heads, illnesses, etc.

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We will never get to grade them,

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never get to grade people as they should.

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I'm drawn to a lovely quote
by St. Augustine in "The City of God,"

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where he says, "It's a sin
to judge any man by his post."

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In modern English that would mean

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it's a sin to come to any view
of who you should talk to,

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dependent on their business card.

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It's not the post that should count.

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According to St. Augustine, only God
can really put everybody in their place;

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he's going to do that
on the Day of Judgment,

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with angels and trumpets,
and the skies will open.

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Insane idea, if you're
a secularist person, like me.

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But something very valuable
in that idea, nevertheless.

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In other words, hold your horses
when you're coming to judge people.

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You don't necessarily know
what someone's true value is.

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That is an unknown part of them,

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and we shouldn't behave
as though it is known.

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There is another source of solace
and comfort for all this.

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When we think about failing in life,
when we think about failure,

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one of the reasons why we fear failing

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is not just a loss of income,
a loss of status.

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What we fear is the judgment
and ridicule of others.

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And it exists.

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The number one organ of ridicule,
nowadays, is the newspaper.

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If you open the newspaper
any day of the week,

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it's full of people
who've messed up their lives.

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They've slept with the wrong person,
taken the wrong substance,

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passed the wrong piece of legislation --

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whatever it is, and then
are fit for ridicule.

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In other words, they have failed.
And they are described as "losers."

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Now, is there any alternative to this?

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I think the Western tradition shows us one
glorious alternative, which is tragedy.

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Tragic art, as it developed
in the theaters of ancient Greece,

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in the fifth century B.C.,
was essentially an art form

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devoted to tracing how people fail,

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and also according them
a level of sympathy,

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which ordinary life would not
necessarily accord them.

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A few years ago,
I was thinking about this,

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and I went to "The Sunday Sport,"

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a tabloid newspaper I don't
recommend you start reading

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if you're not familiar with it already.

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(Laughter)

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And I went to talk to them

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about certain of the great
tragedies of Western art.

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I wanted to see how they would seize
the bare bones of certain stories,

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if they came in as a news item
at the news desk on a Saturday afternoon.

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I mentioned Othello; they'd not
heard of it but were fascinated.

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(Laughter)

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I asked them to write
a headline for the story.

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They came up with "Love-Crazed
Immigrant Kills Senator's Daughter."

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Splashed across the headline.

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I gave them the plotline of Madame Bovary.

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Again, a book they were
enchanted to discover.

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And they wrote "Shopaholic Adulteress
Swallows Arsenic After Credit Fraud."

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(Laughter)

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And then my favorite --

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they really do have a kind of genius
of their own, these guys --

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my favorite is Sophocles'
Oedipus the King:

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"Sex With Mum Was Blinding."

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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In a way, if you like, at one end
of the spectrum of sympathy,

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you've got the tabloid newspaper.

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At the other end of the spectrum,
you've got tragedy and tragic art.

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And I suppose I'm arguing
that we should learn a little bit

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about what's happening in tragic art.

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It would be insane to call Hamlet a loser.

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He is not a loser, though he has lost.

00:11:04.697 --> 00:11:07.334
And I think that is the message
of tragedy to us,

00:11:07.358 --> 00:11:09.976
and why it's so very,
very important, I think.

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:13.976
The other thing about modern society
and why it causes this anxiety,

00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:16.976
is that we have nothing at its center
that is non-human.

00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:19.588
We are the first society
to be living in a world

00:11:19.612 --> 00:11:22.104
where we don't worship
anything other than ourselves.

00:11:22.128 --> 00:11:24.573
We think very highly of ourselves,
and so we should;

00:11:24.597 --> 00:11:27.890
we've put people on the Moon,
done all sorts of extraordinary things.

00:11:27.914 --> 00:11:31.207
And so we tend to worship ourselves.
Our heroes are human heroes.

00:11:31.231 --> 00:11:32.794
That's a very new situation.

00:11:32.818 --> 00:11:35.325
Most other societies have had,
right at their center,

00:11:35.349 --> 00:11:38.770
the worship of something transcendent:
a god, a spirit, a natural force,

00:11:38.794 --> 00:11:42.144
the universe, whatever it is --
something else that is being worshiped.

00:11:42.168 --> 00:11:44.240
We've slightly lost
the habit of doing that,

00:11:44.264 --> 00:11:47.032
which is, I think, why we're
particularly drawn to nature.

00:11:47.056 --> 00:11:50.312
Not for the sake of our health,
though it's often presented that way,

00:11:50.336 --> 00:11:52.976
but because it's an escape
from the human anthill.

00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:54.976
It's an escape from our own competition,

00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:56.976
and our own dramas.

00:11:57.000 --> 00:11:59.620
And that's why we enjoy looking
at glaciers and oceans,

00:11:59.644 --> 00:12:03.595
and contemplating the Earth
from outside its perimeters, etc.

00:12:03.619 --> 00:12:07.198
We like to feel in contact
with something that is non-human,

00:12:07.222 --> 00:12:10.976
and that is so deeply important to us.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:14.191
What I think I've been talking
about really is success and failure.

00:12:14.215 --> 00:12:16.644
And one of the interesting
things about success

00:12:16.668 --> 00:12:18.652
is that we think we know what it means.

00:12:18.676 --> 00:12:22.073
If I said that there's somebody
behind the screen who's very successful,

00:12:22.097 --> 00:12:24.474
certain ideas would
immediately come to mind.

00:12:24.498 --> 00:12:27.148
You'd think that person
might have made a lot of money,

00:12:27.172 --> 00:12:29.080
achieved renown in some field.

00:12:29.104 --> 00:12:30.433
My own theory of success --

00:12:30.457 --> 00:12:32.616
I'm somebody who's
very interested in success,

00:12:32.640 --> 00:12:34.121
I really want to be successful,

00:12:34.145 --> 00:12:36.327
always thinking,
how can I be more successful?

00:12:36.351 --> 00:12:40.332
But as I get older, I'm also very nuanced
about what that word "success" might mean.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:40.705 --> 00:12:42.919
Here's an insight
that I've had about success:

00:12:42.943 --> 00:12:44.824
You can't be successful at everything.

00:12:44.848 --> 00:12:47.111
We hear a lot of talk
about work-life balance.

00:12:47.135 --> 00:12:48.286
Nonsense.

00:12:48.310 --> 00:12:49.976
You can't have it all. You can't.

00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:54.475
So any vision of success
has to admit what it's losing out on,

00:12:54.499 --> 00:12:56.176
where the element of loss is.

00:12:56.200 --> 00:12:58.724
And I think any wise life will accept,

00:12:58.748 --> 00:13:02.524
as I say, that there is going to be
an element where we're not succeeding.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:02.548 --> 00:13:05.556
And the thing about a successful life
is that a lot of the time,

00:13:05.580 --> 00:13:09.470
our ideas of what it would mean
to live successfully are not our own.

00:13:09.494 --> 00:13:11.209
They're sucked in from other people;

00:13:11.233 --> 00:13:14.837
chiefly, if you're a man, your father,
and if you're a woman, your mother.

00:13:14.861 --> 00:13:18.226
Psychoanalysis has been drumming home
this message for about 80 years.

00:13:18.250 --> 00:13:21.757
No one's quite listening hard enough,
but I very much believe it's true.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:21.781 --> 00:13:24.899
And we also suck in messages
from everything from the television,

00:13:24.923 --> 00:13:26.709
to advertising, to marketing, etc.

00:13:26.733 --> 00:13:28.976
These are hugely powerful forces

00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:32.976
that define what we want
and how we view ourselves.

00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:35.976
When we're told that banking
is a very respectable profession,

00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:37.976
a lot of us want to go into banking.

00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:41.334
When banking is no longer so respectable,
we lose interest in banking.

00:13:41.358 --> 00:13:44.416
We are highly open to suggestion.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:44.440 --> 00:13:47.337
So what I want to argue for
is not that we should give up

00:13:47.361 --> 00:13:48.976
on our ideas of success,

00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:51.191
but we should make sure
that they are our own.

00:13:51.215 --> 00:13:52.976
We should focus in on our ideas,

00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:55.731
and make sure that we own them;

00:13:55.755 --> 00:13:58.176
that we are truly the authors
of our own ambitions.

00:13:58.200 --> 00:14:01.001
Because it's bad enough
not getting what you want,

00:14:01.025 --> 00:14:04.112
but it's even worse to have
an idea of what it is you want,

00:14:04.136 --> 00:14:06.176
and find out, at the end of the journey,

00:14:06.200 --> 00:14:09.364
that it isn't, in fact,
what you wanted all along.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:09.388 --> 00:14:10.976
So, I'm going to end it there.

00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:15.976
But what I really want to stress is:
by all means, success, yes.

00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:18.572
But let's accept the strangeness
of some of our ideas.

00:14:18.596 --> 00:14:21.341
Let's probe away
at our notions of success.

00:14:21.365 --> 00:14:24.976
Let's make sure our ideas of success
are truly our own.

00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:26.976
Thank you very much.

00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:33.284
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:42.698 --> 00:14:44.515
Chris Anderson: That was fascinating.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:44.539 --> 00:14:49.976
But how do you reconcile this idea

00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:52.770
of it being bad to think
of someone as a "loser,"

00:14:52.794 --> 00:14:57.632
with the idea that a lot of people like,
of seizing control of your life,

00:14:57.656 --> 00:15:00.561
and that a society that encourages that,

00:15:00.585 --> 00:15:02.976
perhaps has to have
some winners and losers?

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:05.651
Alain De Botton: Yes, I think
it's merely the randomness

00:15:05.675 --> 00:15:08.341
of the winning and losing process
that I want to stress,

00:15:08.365 --> 00:15:11.976
because the emphasis nowadays is so much
on the justice of everything,

00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:14.001
and politicians always talk about justice.

00:15:14.025 --> 00:15:17.433
Now I'm a firm believer in justice,
I just think that it's impossible.

00:15:17.457 --> 00:15:21.060
So we should do everything
we can to pursue it,

00:15:21.084 --> 00:15:24.520
but we should always remember
that whoever is facing us,

00:15:24.544 --> 00:15:26.687
whatever has happened in their lives,

00:15:26.711 --> 00:15:28.976
there will be a strong
element of the haphazard.

00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:31.216
That's what I'm trying to leave room for;

00:15:31.240 --> 00:15:33.306
otherwise, it can get
quite claustrophobic.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:33.330 --> 00:15:35.555
CA: I mean, do you believe
that you can combine

00:15:35.579 --> 00:15:37.864
your kind of kinder,
gentler philosophy of work

00:15:37.888 --> 00:15:40.976
with a successful economy?

00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:42.782
Or do you think that you can't,

00:15:42.806 --> 00:15:46.480
but it doesn't matter that much that we're
putting too much emphasis on that?

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:46.504 --> 00:15:47.976
AB: The nightmare thought

00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:51.976
is that frightening people
is the best way to get work out of them,

00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:55.412
and that somehow
the crueler the environment,

00:15:55.436 --> 00:15:57.801
the more people will rise
to the challenge.

00:15:57.825 --> 00:16:00.770
You want to think, who would you like
as your ideal dad?

00:16:00.794 --> 00:16:03.976
And your ideal dad is somebody
who is tough but gentle.

00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:06.213
And it's a very hard line to make.

00:16:06.237 --> 00:16:09.976
We need fathers, as it were,
the exemplary father figures in society,

00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:12.423
avoiding the two extremes,

00:16:12.447 --> 00:16:15.976
which is the authoritarian
disciplinarian on the one hand,

00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:20.801
and on the other,
the lax, no-rules option.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:20.825 --> 00:16:22.198
CA: Alain De Botton.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:22.222 --> 00:16:23.977
AB: Thank you very much.

00:16:24.001 --> 00:16:29.888
(Applause)