tv Book TV CSPAN February 14, 2015 5:15pm-6:01pm EST
5:15 pm
book, called "the theory of moral sentiments." maybe the greatest self-help book you have never read. what i try to do in my book holiday how adam smith can change your life" is give you a window smith's psychology, economics, and apply them to modern life. what i want to do tonight is give you an idea of what adam smith can teach us about ourselves and the world around us. i want to start with a story. i was in london last week -- it's been this year for sure. and it was kind of a whirlwind trip. never been in london before, and i gave a talk at a place called the royal society of arts. the royal society of arts is very old. used to be called something like the royal society for encouraging manufacturing the arts and commerce and enough it's just called the royal society of arts and the goal is
5:16 pm
to encourage creativity and ideas and it's a wonderful place and che have speakers and i gave to talk. and before my talk i'm in a room off to the side and they put out things to eat and drink couch and a couple of chairs, nondescript room. and off in the corner is an enormous green leather chair. it's this wide, it's got beautiful wooden arms has this gorgeous carving on the top and vase, the presidents or presidential chair says this chair was designed by william chambers -- he is a famous architect of his day. he had built and designed somerset house, the building a few blocks from where i was talking. and he had designed this chair. and it says the president's chair, comma, 1759. and i got kind of excited for reasons. one, 1759 was the first year
5:17 pm
that the theory of world sentiments was published. second i'd been told before my talk that adam smith had been a member hoff the royal society of arts. so it was possible that adam smith had sat in this very chair in 1759 when his book came out. the book that i was writing about. and i was so excited that wouldn't it be fun to sit in this chair, the same chair my bottom could sit in the same place that adam smith's bottom had also been. but there was a sign that says, do not sit in the chair. but there was no one in the room. so what did i do? i want to suggest two things. first, that adam smith has a deep understanding of why i wanted to sit in the chair.
5:18 pm
which is fundamentally a little peculiar. let's be honest. and secondly, whether i sat in the chair or not -- i want you to think about whether you would have sat in the chair and -- i'm an economist, perhaps i sat in the chair, or maybe i didn't. to understand i want to -- the psychology of this, i want too tell a story from my book that i used to help see smith's insight into celebrity. you think in 1759 there cooperate be that much celebrity. no cable tv. no talk shows. no magazines. but smith was really aware of how compulsively and obsess receive live interested we are in famous people and here's a story that from modern times that helps get at smith's insight. ted williams, perhaps the greatest baseball player of all time had a very distinctive car. he had a cadillac coup deville
5:19 pm
cream colored and he had a buddy, an everyday guy his buddy and friend great to have somebody who wasn't always fawning on him and was just his buddy. jimmy carroll. jimmy carroll used to drive ted william around in the car and when ted was out of town sometimes jimmy would boar row the car. one of night jimmy hat a state he asked ted williams ' before he left town, i've got a date can take your car? sure, says ted. so he take the car picks up the date. goes to the restaurant, pulls into the parking lot and a police car pulls up behind him and says are you a baseball player? and he says no. why? he says because you're driving ted williams' car show. police knew ted williams' car hitch probably was speeding all the time. never got a ticket. but his car was very well nope among the boston police. finally, jimmy carroll convinced them he didn't steal the car,
5:20 pm
it's okay. the cop says okay no problem. then he says, while you're in the restaurant, would it be okay if i sat in the car? jimmy carroll said no problem. so jimmy carroll goes into the restaurant. comes out of the restaurant an hour later and the cop is in the car, with five of his friends. they're just sitting in the car. like me. wanted to sit in the same -- doesn't really -- it's embarrassing why -- what is the thrill? what is the excitement of sitting in ted williams' car? if he had been in the car i understand it. he's not in the car. adam smith was not in the chair. okay? so what is the appeal? what smith says that celebrity draws us -- we're so attracted to it, he says the man of rank and distinction is observed by all the world.
5:21 pm
everybody is eager to look at him. and can see at laos by sympathy that joy and -- his actions are the objects of the public care. so what smith says we live vie tearously through famous people. we imagine what their lives must be like. he says this helps us understand how sad we get when famous people die. listen to what smith said. unbelievable. and he talks about the emotional investment we make in people. remember, development know us, can't see us. and yet we have this connection to them. and he calls them the great. by the great he means famous people. when we consider the condition of the great in those colors meaning delusioner in -- in which the imagination is apt to paint it, seems to be almost the abstract idea of a perfect and happy state. this imagining they have this
5:22 pm
perfect life. it's the very state which in all our waking dreams and idle revelries we sketched out to ourselves as the final object of all our desires so we see this perfect life that could have been me. that's what was hoping for. we feel, therefore peculiar sympathy with the satisfaction of those who are in it. we favor all their inclinations and forward all their wishes what pity we think, that anything should spoil and corrupt so agreeable a situation. and then smith says and that's why rate so hard for us to see them die. he says we could even wish them immortal and seems hard that death should put an end to such perfect enjoyment. it's cruel, we think, in nature to compel them from their exalted stations to that humble but hospitallable home which has provided for all her children,
5:23 pm
meaning death. everything that hurts them the emotional connection we have to their misfortunes, their tragedies, their -- is ten times greater than we have for other people. so we have this ridiculous, irrational, obsession with greatness, and we have it with people who are rich people who are famous people who are powerful. talks about how when kings die or kings are assassinated and of course in our time. politics are killed we have an emotional reaction far out of line with what you think would be relative to our people -- people we know in our lives. so smith understood that back in 1759, people listen to famous people even if they didn't have much to say, and even now kim kardashian is breaking the internet as i speak. so i would say imagine right
5:24 pm
now, while i'm giving this class or this talk if angelina joe schmo brad pitt wandered into the back of the haul because they always wanted to know more about smith, and they're in the back, off to the side and taking notes. how long would it be before the lecture was totally disrupted? they would be much more interesting than anything i would say. i would we more interested in them. we would be obsessed with wanting to see what they were looking, what were they wearing? so, of course i wanted to sit in the chair. now, one might suggest based on the caricature of smith he was about greed, naked self-interest, that he believed that greed is good. yet there's nothing about that in "the wealth of nations" and the opposite is true in" the theory of moral sentiments." he counsels against being attracted to the pursuited of money and power and the evils of
5:25 pm
corruption of ambition. many economists would say sit in the chair because the costs zero because now one will see you. this benefits are the thrill you get from sitting in the charity. smith i don't think would have agreed. he did not see selfyearness as a virtue. he saw human beings has self-about, and the wealth of nations ills about our interactions across face, dealing commercially with stricken -- strangers interested how trade led to legislation and led to prosperity and allowed some nations to be wealthy and some nations not be. but in the theory of mobile sent. s he is interested in our real estates with our family, friends and the people around us. smith's perspective is that -- this single sentence captures in many ways the essence of his ideas of what makes us tick. smith says man natural live desires not only to be loved but
5:26 pm
to be lovely. man naturally desires not only to be loved but to be lovely. meaning not the everyday meaning of those two words, loved and lovely we have-but in smith's time loved meant honored, respected, admired, worthy of attention. people would pay attention to you. lovely meaning worthy of being honored, respected and admired being praiseworthy. so he says deep down what we really care about, what really creates true happiness, is that we are respected and honored by those around us and we earn that honor and respect truly and honestly. so it's a very deep thought when you've apply it to yourself. when you apply it to other people as well you start to see how a lot of times the way we enter act with people are pushed and influenced by that very natural human desire be to honored, respected, loved and praised.
5:27 pm
we also want to be lovely. so did i sit in the he chair? it's not lovely to shirt in the chair. the reason it says don't sit in the chair because if everybody who is a guest of the royal society of arts sat in the chair, after a while the chair wouldn't be there so it's selfish and wrong to sit in the chair. no one will see me, i could probably get away with it, but it's the wrong thing to do, and if i want to be lovely it's not just what other people see me do. if i want to be loved i do care a lot about what other people think but i also want to be lovely. i want to away that love. i want to be truly a good person, and so, therefore, have a desire even when no one is watching, i am watching. and i will know whether i was honorable or not. so i didn't sit in the chair. if i did i want tell you because i want be to loved. right? i wish i had the videotape but i didn't sit in the chair.
5:28 pm
so smith its trying to give us the origins of our con husband and says something very -- conscious and says something very radical. your conscious doesn't come from religion. your conscience doesn't come from your parents, your upbringing. your conscience comes from your desire to be pleasing and honorable to the people around you and you learn about what its honorable and good and decent by watching what other people do when other people do things good and bad, help and you see somebody do something got g that is honored and a mired you take a mental note. not literally mental note. ...
5:30 pm
5:31 pm
>> so his life is all full. i recently heard a story of a rabbi that was sent to the gulag during post world war ii era one of the worst times you should read the book for the courage it took to write that book. it is three volumes read the gulag is fantastic. it is a horrible thing where they take people to make them work hard and don't feed them much gore have good clothes and a 10 year sentence was a death sentence. so the rabbi is in the gulag talking to a guy who says
5:32 pm
you were so happy. wire you so happy? we have no food. we are dressed in rags and work all day. he said before here i was to get people close to god. i have the same job as a half before. you were a banker for you were important but now you are a prisoner in have nothing. and you are miserable because you block to think it gave you your sense of identity and a sense of pride which was people paying attention. his life has radically changed. to say we are drawn to money for the world's greatest economist, we're drawn to fame and power but it will not make us that much happier. and the pursuit will destroy us.
5:33 pm
that there is a better way to become loved to be wise and virtuous. and to be lovely that is a two-step process. but up here as part of the sentiment is about propriety but what he means with conformist he means and the good sense of the word of what people expect so few have tragedy your success you know how to interact with people differently depending on how close they are or not. he says if you have a great success your better off keeping a mostly to yourself.
5:34 pm
the man who buys a sudden revolution of fortune is lifted into a condition of light greatly above 44 many lived to be a shared the congratulations of his best friends are not perfectly sincere. one said it more bluntly every time a friend succeeds i die a little. if you have success they will pull back. if it is a small success there will be happy for you and they can share it but tragedy is the opposite. even a stranger could empathize. if you lose a loved one because the stranger could empathize but not as well as a person that is close to you. but the person to suffer the tragedy does but they
5:35 pm
f motions because they know the stranger cannot fully empathize although the stranger is strong and getting closer but they cannot create a perfect match like it is the audience or a musical metaphor that we're constantly interacting with people around us trying to understand what they're going through of how we match and do that is what smith is talking about which is beautiful. but the real goal is virtue. is our prudence, a justice one is to take care of yourself and your body and financial situation and don't be reckless. justice, don't hurt other people, steel or robb and do the best you can that is the world you in a nutshell we
5:36 pm
want to be loved and lovely we have a poll to be loved through the unhealthy ways of money fame and power if you are better to go through a quiet pathless acclaim but better for us and more honorable. it is lovely to be virtuous and honorable and proper. smith is not a fool but understands we have the terrible time with self perception. he knows who want to be lovelier think that we are. that is a terrible problem. it is very easy for us to notice the fault of others but not so easy to notice our own. smith said he is a bold surgeon whose hand does not trouble when he performs an operation upon his own person.
5:37 pm
think about that. we can diagnose and operate on people around us, not so good. we're not so good to see ourselves as we truly are. that we are very uneasy to lift the mysterious veil of self delusion. we cover our moral deformities from the people live around us as we don't want to be seen as bad people but we cover them for ourselves. the cells deception ever own flaws is responsible for half of the disorders of daily life and i think it is the interest of it. if we could only see ourselves as others see as we only have a choice but to reform our behavior in be different people.
5:38 pm
he invokes the impartial spectator that does not have a stake but is judging us in a moment of a crucial moral decision can you help me out or do me a favor? that we step out of ourselves and ask ourselves what would be impartial spectator say when observing our choice is? and we give life to that idea by watching the actual spectators to watch us approved and disapproved of our behavior. so there is a marvelous vision of network of connections we share with each other that we learn from that affects our behavior and that is called culture. that is where we get our
5:39 pm
judgment about what is right and proper and inappropriate and improper. now he says self-interest which is in conflict we are seduced by air own self-interest and do the wrong thing but nature has a way to remind us maybe i was a little bit selfish when i didn't visit the friend in the hospital when i worked on the project instead of helping my kids with their homework. i will close this par by saying about our self-interest, although it may be true every individual naturally prefers himself to all mankind. true. we are the center of the
5:40 pm
universe. each of us. weepers for a -- repressed for ourselves but yet we do not dare look mankind in the face, he should work to this principle. that however naturalistic him it always must appear excessive in extravagant to them. so we want to do what is best for ourselves but we know it really is an act that way the world will not judge us kindly. that is what growing up is about, maturing when you are a child is mine my mind. as an adolescent you're definitely the center of the universe than if you were lucky there other people that you realize they think are the center and interacting with them is a good idea in the picture so first of the time. that business vision of
5:41 pm
psychology in a nutshell. what the good life is about and how we behave in this great adventure recall life but he has a lot to say about what is the great society. he argues our desire to be approved an honor and praise to and respected of those around us and for us to react, that creates civilization. it is a rather remarkable claim. , the author of nature has put us desire to be judge favorably and has made as the judge of all mankind.
5:42 pm
is essentially we are god's deputies to keep an eye on the people around us. people do horrible things all the time that what is remarkable that anything decent happens considering household century are. i had a chance to go to big sur in california to spend one day with my wife without our kids which happens about once a year. we're pretty excited to have a vacation day. the only problem is we cannot find a place for one night's. you can stay $800 a night for one night to pay a little less is is hard to find because there are no real hotels. you have to find a cab bin they all had said to night
5:43 pm
minimum finally we just said they will pay for two nights. we have one night we will enjoy it. we are going. recalled the owner. reset will pay the two nights. he was very happy to take one night for the cost of two. you can get me a check so i will be the unlocked. we want to be there when you leave the next day just be the cash on the kitchen table and my cleaning lady will pick it up and give it to me. as an economist i found this very alarming. [laughter] my first thought was it was in my first, but i'm thinking different scenarios , one scenario
5:44 pm
would be what if when i got there had a really good time and either said it paid two nights for one night does not seem fair i will just leave one nights' worth of cash but better yet i could sail the zero when the cleaning lady does not find it and tells the landlady did not pay i would say the cleaning lady stolen. who would know? scenario number one. number two priority the cash the cleaning lady puts in her pocket and says it was not there and then she says i did not pay the cleaning lady said it is not there may have a problem. third possibility i pay she gets it and she calls me and says i never got the money. and by the way the fourth possibility by the the money the when the cleaning lady gets there though force comes and and eats the money or stranger wonders in to
5:45 pm
take it because the door is unlocked. the morning we left i still have it on my phone. i standout way too many $20 bills. thence to the i took a photograph selling case she said i didn't get the money i could show her the picture of course, i could put it back in my pocket. [laughter] i took the picture and drove down the hill went up the coast and everything went great to. perfect. the cleaning lady took the money the landlady got it, no problem. that doesn't happen in every country in the world where every culture in the world. in many places opportunism
5:46 pm
-- opportunism is normal. but fortunately in a lot of parts of america we are blessed to be in a country where you can often trust people. another time i nam -- i and in new york city i am a camera store in the close the box puts everything away and will cut me a check progress in all your open in their boxes? he said if the stuff wasn't in the you could not sleep at night. new york city. he was right. i would have slipped very badly would have been unlovely and if he said i could say i forgot the that is not what i did and it worked out great. when we can trust each other
5:47 pm
and we do constantly even in our litigious world other incredible detailed contracts there are numerous things that are left unspecified. as a result we trust with our certain expectations about the condition of the equipment for the house we sell or how we behave that is a glorious thing that lets us spend a nice time in big sur california and lets me change my camera equipment and lets us interactive people commercially in a wonderful way. where does that come from? because we have gotten to a world where people are disapproving of dishonorable people that creates the expectation that most of us want to meet. i say it that just says each of us is irrelevant to the
5:48 pm
price of apples, we are irrelevant if i doubled my consumption the price does not changes. quadruple or tenfold every person in this room gave a passionate speech in eight to three apples the day there would be no impact on the price of apples. so this is irrelevant but if every person who eats apples in the world doubles consumption there be more retreats planted and the price would change it would go up then go back down but they all be set in motion by our actions. so we as a group determine the apple market. it is not individually there is no is our -- czar.
5:49 pm
he writes about the social things we produce together. so my good deed or not good deed has no impact on the culture. i had taken half of those bills back and step those in my pockets of righteously that would not have destroyed culture in america. and angry landlord for maybe she would lot about a caretaker to court but the impact would be virtually zero but if we all do that we live in a horrible society. all this together have a stake of trust and honor to that extent and real sustained it everyday when we honor people who do good things and destroy its step-by-step with bad things when we fail to disapprove a
5:50 pm
people who do bad things that is an incredible vision of the two pieces of our life. the commercial power and the cultural part that smith understood as well as anybody i think. i will close with his last insights into society. he wants us of the hubris of politicians and calls such a person with the vision that he or she wants to impose on society he calls the money and a system. he seems to imagine he can arrange the different members of the great society as the hand and arranges the pieces of a chessboard and does not consider those pieces have no other
5:51 pm
principal e motion besides that but in the great chessboard of human society every single piece altogether different from what the legislature might choose to impress upon it. he warns us about dictators but also unintended consequences of bad public policy and the challenges of national policy that enhances our lives. uk and go further to argue politics is not rely happens. legislation and government affect our lives and all types of ways good and bad. you want to make the world a better place, a talk to your kids come and gone a dates with your spouse without checking your e-mail and read more adams smith smile as someone you don't know or
5:52 pm
even like. be nice your parents because you can never repay them for what they did trio. none of this shows up in the gdp they don't help pay the bills they're not on the to do list so don't have the satisfaction to check them off but nothing will happen if we don't do them but it is the stuff of the good life. you might be tempted to say this has nothing to do with economics but i'd like to think it is how to get the most out of life. to get the most you have to use your time wisely and it is all about a trade-off that if we do one thing we cannot do another. the other side is we as a group do things of that anyone's intention that is good and bad. we determined how many apples or if we live and to construct -- of trust.
5:53 pm
the ultimate non renewable resources is time. we only have so much of the. we are best spent with adam smith. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you dr. robert three halftime for some questions anybody have questions? we got a little late start he will be upstairs after we're finished and signing copies of his book. you can buy more than one for the holiday gift-giving. [laughter] >> for every 40 people i sell about one book not to put any pressure on new.
5:54 pm
[laughter] >> i apologize in advance but i want to a knowledge to the audience you are a deeply religious man of the boston red sox. [laughter] >> it's true. i was being polite to and said he may be the best player of all time. >> affine franchise of the other league. [laughter] 1967 world series game six in the bleachers we won that one. we lost the next one. go ahead. >> justice was done. [laughter] >> i was their 1946. >> something went wrong. [laughter] you said something about politics at the and but in his most recent book charles krug hammer wrote in the
5:55 pm
introduction about the importance of policy and i tell people it was truly an approach then he talks about why it is important to do politics well to engaged in the system do you have any thoughts on that? >> when my daughter was little a friend said when she grows up she could be enacted this and i thought no. because to me if not careful to be a man of the system to have bay vision to impose on the rest of the world. so my first thought is politics of a bite to live
5:56 pm
in a world where politics is less important to. and understand the appeal as a sports fan, it is fun to root for your home team but here is the truth, i realize the boston red sox are really not any better emotionally is called -- psychologically morally than the other teams of baseball. [applause] but i don't always act that way. i was an england. in the premier league every team is the new york yankees. i went to my game when i was there. i told an author i was visiting, that i was going to go see them he said i would rather have my eye is
5:57 pm
scratched out. i shot okay. not a sports fan. he said i don't like them they are evil. the concierge at my hotel wanted to give me bad directions to the game. [laughter] everybody hates everyher team like the yankees. we know they are decent people. with the cardinals. all my children were born in st. louis and two sons are incredible cardinal fans i cannot enjoy a red sox victories over the cardinals because it makes them sad. but think about we have a ridiculous emotional connection with several teams and we look at the other team as really bad or awful. and we do that in politics. but we say there is true.
5:58 pm
5:59 pm
obviously this book struck a personally and i wondered if, how you apply this if it affected the way you think in your life and if it affected the way you conducted live and if so, how? >> so, i write in my book how hard it was to read smith's book. i had to interview a colleague at the time at george mason. and coke line. i was doing a podcast and it was a six-part series. we did over six hours of conversation the theory of world
6:00 pm
sentiments. i picked up the book and started reading it and after one page i put it back down i thought i have no idea what you are talking about. it was just tough. it's not an easily read book but once i got into it i got excited and it really did help me see the way other people see me and how i see them seeing me seeing them. when you write a book about loveliness there's a little pressure to be lovely, right? it's an interesting experience. people have written me about things they have done now because they said you know i was doing x and i realized it was not lovely so that is very lovely. it's fabulous that one person changes their behavior it would be a wonderful thing. as for me, it's interesting if i knew you better maybe i could really tell you but in front of my close personal friends here i want to be loved so i'm going
27 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
CSPAN2 Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on