WEBVTT

00:00:01.014 --> 00:00:02.301
Hello, everybody.

00:00:02.325 --> 00:00:06.449
I'm honored to be here to talk to you,

00:00:06.473 --> 00:00:11.656
and what I'm going to talk about today
is luck and justice

00:00:11.680 --> 00:00:13.602
and the relation between them.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:14.373 --> 00:00:15.530
Some years ago,

00:00:15.554 --> 00:00:18.952
a former student of mine called me

00:00:18.976 --> 00:00:21.014
to talk about his daughter.

00:00:21.038 --> 00:00:23.473
It turns out his daughter
was a high school senior,

00:00:23.497 --> 00:00:28.521
was seriously interested
in applying to Swarthmore,

00:00:28.545 --> 00:00:29.847
where I taught,

00:00:29.871 --> 00:00:35.323
and he wanted to get my sense
of whether she would get in.

00:00:35.347 --> 00:00:39.681
Swarthmore is an extremely
hard school to get into.

00:00:39.705 --> 00:00:42.378
So I said, "Well, tell me about her."

00:00:42.402 --> 00:00:44.135
And he told me about her,

00:00:44.159 --> 00:00:46.706
what her grades were like,
her board scores,

00:00:46.730 --> 00:00:49.366
her extracurricular activities.

00:00:49.390 --> 00:00:51.446
And she just sounded like a superstar,

00:00:51.470 --> 00:00:53.580
wonderful, wonderful kid.

00:00:54.119 --> 00:00:56.164
So I said, "She sounds fabulous.

00:00:56.188 --> 00:00:58.850
She sounds like just the kind of student

00:00:58.874 --> 00:01:02.140
that Swarthmore would love to have."

00:01:02.164 --> 00:01:05.428
And so he said, "Well, does that mean
that she'll get in?"

00:01:06.035 --> 00:01:08.034
And I said, "No.

00:01:08.762 --> 00:01:13.042
There just aren't enough spots
in the Swarthmore class

00:01:13.066 --> 00:01:14.757
for everybody who's good.

00:01:14.781 --> 00:01:18.764
There aren't enough spots at Harvard
or Yale or Princeton or Stanford.

00:01:18.788 --> 00:01:23.256
There aren't enough spots
at Google or Amazon or Apple.

00:01:23.280 --> 00:01:28.100
There aren't enough spots
at the TED Conference.

00:01:28.124 --> 00:01:30.340
There are an awful lot of good people,

00:01:30.364 --> 00:01:33.478
and some of them
are not going to make it."

00:01:34.621 --> 00:01:37.207
So he said, "Well, what are we
supposed to do?"

00:01:38.073 --> 00:01:40.956
And I said, "That's a very good question."

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:41.833 --> 00:01:44.100
What are we supposed to do?

00:01:44.124 --> 00:01:48.185
And I know what colleges
and universities have done.

00:01:48.209 --> 00:01:51.146
In the interest of fairness,

00:01:51.170 --> 00:01:56.113
what they've done is
they've kept ratcheting up the standards

00:01:56.137 --> 00:02:02.230
because it doesn't seem fair
to admit less qualified people

00:02:02.254 --> 00:02:04.841
and reject better qualified people,

00:02:04.865 --> 00:02:09.141
so you just keep raising
the standards higher and higher

00:02:09.165 --> 00:02:11.394
until they're high enough
that you can admit

00:02:11.418 --> 00:02:15.684
only the number of students
that you can fit.

00:02:15.708 --> 00:02:22.186
And this violates a lot of people's sense
of what justice and fairness is.

00:02:22.210 --> 00:02:25.188
People in American society
have different opinions

00:02:25.212 --> 00:02:28.995
about what it means
to say that some sort of process is just,

00:02:29.019 --> 00:02:32.813
but I think there's one thing
that pretty much everyone agrees on,

00:02:32.837 --> 00:02:35.927
that in a just system, a fair system,

00:02:35.951 --> 00:02:37.846
people get what they deserve.

00:02:38.322 --> 00:02:40.994
And what I was telling my former student

00:02:41.018 --> 00:02:45.160
is that when it comes
to college admissions,

00:02:45.184 --> 00:02:49.294
it just isn't true that people
get what they deserve.

00:02:49.318 --> 00:02:52.828
Some people get what they deserve,
and some people don't,

00:02:52.852 --> 00:02:56.002
and that's just the way it is.

00:02:56.026 --> 00:02:59.649
When you ratchet up requirements
as colleges have done,

00:02:59.673 --> 00:03:02.673
what you do is you create
a crazy competition

00:03:02.697 --> 00:03:05.062
among high school kids,

00:03:05.086 --> 00:03:08.384
because it's not adequate to be good,

00:03:08.408 --> 00:03:10.411
it's not adequate to be good enough,

00:03:10.435 --> 00:03:14.111
you have to be better than everybody else
who is also applying.

00:03:14.135 --> 00:03:16.302
And what this has done,

00:03:16.326 --> 00:03:18.108
or what this has contributed to,

00:03:18.132 --> 00:03:21.680
is a kind of epidemic
of anxiety and depression

00:03:21.704 --> 00:03:25.138
that is just crushing our teenagers.

00:03:25.162 --> 00:03:28.491
We are wrecking a generation
with this kind of competition.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:28.890 --> 00:03:30.660
As I was thinking about this,

00:03:30.684 --> 00:03:33.743
it occurred to me
there's a way to fix this problem.

00:03:34.096 --> 00:03:35.877
And here's what we could do:

00:03:37.056 --> 00:03:39.573
when people apply to college,

00:03:39.597 --> 00:03:45.481
we distinguish between the applicants
who are good enough to be successful

00:03:45.505 --> 00:03:47.324
and the ones who aren't,

00:03:47.348 --> 00:03:50.889
and we reject the ones who aren't
good enough to be successful,

00:03:50.913 --> 00:03:54.646
and then we take all of the others,
and we put their names in a hat,

00:03:54.670 --> 00:03:56.962
and we just pick them out at random

00:03:56.986 --> 00:03:58.921
and admit them.

00:03:58.945 --> 00:04:02.548
In other words, we do
college admissions by lottery,

00:04:02.572 --> 00:04:08.224
and maybe we do job offers
at tech companies by lottery,

00:04:08.248 --> 00:04:09.605
and -- perish the thought --

00:04:09.629 --> 00:04:14.024
maybe we even make decisions
about who gets invited to talk at TED

00:04:14.048 --> 00:04:15.276
by lottery.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:15.672 --> 00:04:17.676
Now, don't misunderstand me,

00:04:17.700 --> 00:04:22.206
a lottery like this is not
going to eliminate the injustice.

00:04:22.230 --> 00:04:26.410
There will still be plenty of people
who don't get what they deserve.

00:04:26.434 --> 00:04:28.568
But at least it's honest.

00:04:28.592 --> 00:04:34.738
It reveals the injustice for what it is
instead of pretending otherwise,

00:04:34.762 --> 00:04:37.964
and it punctures the incredible
pressure balloon

00:04:37.988 --> 00:04:42.170
that our high school kids
are now living under.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:42.847 --> 00:04:46.673
So why is it that this perfectly
reasonable proposal,

00:04:46.697 --> 00:04:48.892
if I do say so myself,

00:04:48.916 --> 00:04:51.165
doesn't get any serious discussion?

00:04:51.776 --> 00:04:53.215
I think I know why.

00:04:53.663 --> 00:04:56.522
I think it's that we hate the idea

00:04:56.546 --> 00:05:03.092
that really important things in life
might happen by luck or by chance,

00:05:03.116 --> 00:05:07.694
that really important things in our lives
are not under our control.

00:05:07.718 --> 00:05:09.127
I hate that idea.

00:05:09.151 --> 00:05:12.239
It's not surprising
that people hate that idea,

00:05:12.263 --> 00:05:15.970
but it simply is the way things are.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:16.759 --> 00:05:21.516
First of all, college admissions
already is a lottery.

00:05:21.540 --> 00:05:25.102
It's just that the admissions officers
pretend that it isn't.

00:05:25.126 --> 00:05:27.243
So let's be honest about it.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:27.267 --> 00:05:28.716
And second,

00:05:28.740 --> 00:05:32.129
I think if we appreciated
that it was a lottery,

00:05:32.153 --> 00:05:36.575
it would also get us to acknowledge
the importance of good fortune

00:05:36.599 --> 00:05:38.939
in almost every one of our lives.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:38.963 --> 00:05:41.419
Take me.

00:05:41.981 --> 00:05:46.688
Almost all the most significant
events in my life have occurred,

00:05:46.712 --> 00:05:47.912
to a large degree,

00:05:47.936 --> 00:05:49.615
as a result of good luck.

00:05:50.779 --> 00:05:54.078
When I was in seventh grade,
my family left New York

00:05:54.102 --> 00:05:56.519
and went to Westchester Country.

00:05:56.543 --> 00:05:58.162
Right at the beginning of school,

00:05:58.186 --> 00:06:01.456
I met a lovely young girl
who became my friend,

00:06:01.480 --> 00:06:03.873
then she became my best friend,

00:06:03.897 --> 00:06:06.789
then she became my girlfriend,

00:06:06.813 --> 00:06:09.243
and then she became my wife.

00:06:09.267 --> 00:06:11.329
Happily, she's been my wife now

00:06:11.353 --> 00:06:13.456
for 52 years.

00:06:13.480 --> 00:06:17.257
I had very little to do with this.
This was a lucky accident.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:18.056 --> 00:06:19.525
I went off to college,

00:06:19.549 --> 00:06:25.009
and in my first semester, I signed up
for a class in introduction to psychology.

00:06:25.033 --> 00:06:27.129
I didn't even know what psychology was,

00:06:27.153 --> 00:06:29.880
but it fit into my schedule
and it met requirements,

00:06:29.904 --> 00:06:31.079
so I took it.

00:06:31.103 --> 00:06:33.429
And by luck, the class was taught

00:06:33.453 --> 00:06:38.215
by a superstar introductory
psychology teacher, a legend.

00:06:38.767 --> 00:06:42.012
Because of that, I became
a psychology major.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:42.036 --> 00:06:43.861
Went off to graduate school.

00:06:43.885 --> 00:06:45.765
I was finishing up.

00:06:45.789 --> 00:06:48.546
A friend of mine who taught
at Swarthmore decided

00:06:48.570 --> 00:06:51.373
he didn't want to be a professor anymore,

00:06:51.397 --> 00:06:54.489
and so he quit to go to medical school.

00:06:55.072 --> 00:06:57.630
The job that he occupied opened up,

00:06:57.654 --> 00:07:00.430
I applied for it, I got it,

00:07:00.454 --> 00:07:02.951
the only job I've ever applied for.

00:07:02.975 --> 00:07:06.378
I spent 45 years teaching at Swarthmore,

00:07:06.402 --> 00:07:10.812
an institution that had an enormous impact
on the shape that my career took.

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:10.836 --> 00:07:12.879
And to just give one last example,

00:07:12.903 --> 00:07:16.716
I was giving a talk about
some of my work in New York,

00:07:16.740 --> 00:07:20.813
and there was somebody in the audience
who came up to me after my talk.

00:07:20.837 --> 00:07:22.229
He introduced himself.

00:07:22.253 --> 00:07:23.878
He said, "My name is Chris.

00:07:23.902 --> 00:07:26.212
Would you like to give a talk at TED?"

00:07:27.370 --> 00:07:30.094
And my response was, "What's TED?"

00:07:31.090 --> 00:07:33.356
Well, I mean, he told me,

00:07:33.380 --> 00:07:37.338
and TED then wasn't what it is now.

00:07:37.362 --> 00:07:38.825
But in the intervening years,

00:07:38.849 --> 00:07:41.149
the talks I've given at TED
have been watched

00:07:41.173 --> 00:07:43.756
by more than 20 million people.

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:44.278 --> 00:07:46.713
So the conclusion is, I'm a lucky man.

00:07:46.737 --> 00:07:48.533
I'm lucky about my marriage.

00:07:48.557 --> 00:07:50.251
I'm lucky about my education.

00:07:50.275 --> 00:07:52.403
I'm lucky about my career.

00:07:52.427 --> 00:07:58.521
And I'm lucky to have had a platform
and a voice at something like TED.

00:07:58.545 --> 00:08:00.673
Did I deserve the success I've had?

00:08:00.697 --> 00:08:02.482
Sure I deserve that success,

00:08:02.506 --> 00:08:05.318
just as you probably deserve your success.

00:08:05.342 --> 00:08:10.757
But lots of people also deserve
successes like ours

00:08:10.781 --> 00:08:12.718
who haven't had it.

NOTE Paragraph

00:08:13.620 --> 00:08:16.276
So do people get what they deserve?

00:08:16.300 --> 00:08:18.310
Is society just?

00:08:19.042 --> 00:08:20.754
Of course not.

00:08:20.778 --> 00:08:26.794
Working hard and playing by the rules
is just no guarantee of anything.

00:08:26.818 --> 00:08:31.118
If we appreciate the inevitability
of this kind of injustice

00:08:31.142 --> 00:08:33.718
and the centrality of good fortune,

00:08:33.742 --> 00:08:36.171
we might ask ourselves

00:08:36.195 --> 00:08:38.251
what responsibilities do we have

00:08:38.275 --> 00:08:44.056
to the people we are now celebrating
as heroes in this time of the pandemic

00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:47.591
when a serious illness
befalls their family

00:08:47.615 --> 00:08:51.593
to make sure that they remain whole
and their lives aren't ruined

00:08:51.617 --> 00:08:55.641
by the cost of dealing with the illness?

00:08:55.665 --> 00:08:59.466
What do we owe people who struggle,

00:08:59.490 --> 00:09:02.867
work hard and are less lucky than we are?

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:03.507 --> 00:09:05.641
About a half century ago,

00:09:05.665 --> 00:09:09.522
the philosopher John Rawls wrote a book
called "A Theory of Justice,"

00:09:09.546 --> 00:09:14.808
and in that book, he introduced a concept
that he called "the veil of ignorance."

00:09:14.832 --> 00:09:16.422
The question he posed was:

00:09:16.446 --> 00:09:22.126
If you didn't know what your position
in society was going to be,

00:09:22.150 --> 00:09:26.166
what kind of a society
would you want to create?

00:09:26.190 --> 00:09:27.898
And what he suggested

00:09:27.922 --> 00:09:30.995
is that when we don't know
whether we're going to enter society

00:09:31.019 --> 00:09:32.838
at the top or at the bottom,

00:09:32.862 --> 00:09:36.660
what we want is a society
that is pretty damn equal,

00:09:36.684 --> 00:09:38.530
so that even the unlucky

00:09:38.554 --> 00:09:43.333
will be able to live decent,
meaningful and satisfying lives.

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:43.357 --> 00:09:49.338
So bring this back, all of you lucky,
successful people, to your communities,

00:09:49.362 --> 00:09:56.340
and do what you can to make sure
that we honor and take care of

00:09:56.364 --> 00:10:00.369
people who are just as deserving
of success as we are,

00:10:00.393 --> 00:10:02.269
but just not as lucky.

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:02.293 --> 00:10:03.707
Thank you.