“Do you mean to tell me that you’re thinking seriously of building that way, when and if you are an architect?”
“Yes.”
“My dear fellow, who will let you?”
“That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”
This is one of my favorite passages from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. The conversation takes place early in the novel. It’s between the Dean of the architecture school and budding architect Howard Roark. The Dean wonders how Roark will survive in the architecture world, given Roark’s unusual approach to each design. Roark has no such worry.
I thought of this when I was engaged in a discussion on Facebook last week. Someone had pointed to a “politically incorrect” movie and said that such a movie “couldn’t be made today.” If he had said “almost certainly wouldn’t be made today,” I would have agreed. But I disagreed that it couldn’t be made today.
It’s true that the knives would be out for whoever made the movie and, knowing that, many potential funders would be scared off. But all funders? I think that’s unlikely.
How about actors? The prominent actors are like NBA players: they’re the best of the best. But go down a notch and you can probably find some very good actors who are at least 80% as good as the top actors and who would gladly work for 20% of the pay of the top actors.
In Charley Hooper’s and my book, Making Great Decisions in Business and Life, we discuss a similar issue, the issue of whether you have to do something. You typically don’t.
Under the subtitle “I Must”, we write:
Another way many of us think unclearly is by going through life with a list of made-up obligations. We wake up in the morning with a long list of “must do” items. After a while, our feet start dragging and we feel a heavy burden on our shoulders. But we “must” press on. Such phony obligations get in the way of clear thinking.
There is very little in the world that we actually must do. Let’s face it, unless we are in jail or otherwise detained, we have complete freedom about how to spend our day. The reason we don’t just pack up and go sit on the beach every day is that our actions lead to outcomes—and many of our “have to’s” give us the outcomes we want. Going to work, for example, provides camaraderie and a feeling of importance, as well as the money to buy the things we need and want. The “I must” person tells himself that he must go to work. The clear-thinking person says, “If I work at this job for another year, I’ll be able to buy a house. I could quit my job today, but if I want that house a lot, I’d better show up for work on Monday morning.”
The “I must” attitude increases our burdens and lessens our humanity. When we have goals in mind, we should reframe the issue from “I must” to “I want.” I want to go to work so that I can feed my kids, buy a car, buy a house, or change the world. If my goals don’t seem to justify the effort, then maybe I should rethink my goals and my overall strategy. When we act with clarity of mind, we cease being a fake prisoner and realize our true freedom. For more on this, see David Kelley’s powerful essay “I Don’t Have to.“
Back to the idea that something can’t be done. There are, of course, certain things I can’t do. I can’t become a player in the NBA, for example. But many people can become players in the NBA.
Similarly, there are qualified people who can make a politically incorrect movie. They may choose not to and their choice may be wise, given their other preferences and constraints. But that’s very different from saying they can’t.
When I was in my late 20s, I expressed to my friend Roy Childs that I was feeling discouraged by the economics profession’s narrow view of what was considered publishable research. I told him I couldn’t publish what I wanted. He said I could. It’s just that I probably couldn’t publish it where I wanted.
That simple insight lifted a burden. I had been focusing on the “I Have To’s” and forgetting that I didn’t have to. That conversation, plus a few others, led me to leave a good well-paying tenure-track position at the University of Rochester and to work at the Cato Institute in 1979.
I’m publishing what I want.
READER COMMENTS
MarkW
Feb 22 2022 at 3:25pm
“That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”
That reminded me of the wonderful (Canadian) movie Still Mine.
Alan Goldhammer
Feb 22 2022 at 4:18pm
This is actually not true. There are 30 NBA teams comprised of 15 players. There are over 25K high schools in the US. Now maybe all of them do not have basketball teams but the vast majority do. High schools are usually not limited to the number of players on a team but let’s say it is 15 which is the same size as an NBA roster. Doing elementary math, that means about 375K boys suit up for high school basketball.
I cannot read David’s mind about what ‘many’ means in context of becoming players in the NBA. It’s important to also remember that there is not a complete turnover of NBA players each season. The NBA draft consists of two rounds so 60 players are thought to have enough promise to make an NBA team (more foreign born players are getting drafted which would further shrink the pool for US born kids). Say 50 of those make an NBA team. Let’s make one more assumption that 375K boys suiting up are equally split between juniors and seniors so that we have 187,500 competing for one of those 60 spots. You can see the chances of making an NBA team means that you are one of a very select few; not my definition of ‘many’.
Even Ayn Rand would not like these odds.
David Henderson
Feb 22 2022 at 4:46pm
You’re right that you can’t read my mind.
By many, I meant about 1,000.
But you did do a nice numerate exercise.
Alan Goldhammer
Feb 22 2022 at 5:36pm
I would have no problems had you written, “… many people aspire to play in the NBA…” Certainly when I was growing up in Southern California we were playing all three major sports beginning in elementary school. Most of us at the age of 10 aspired to play professional baseball. At the time this was the best organized sport for kids in our area. Hitting a curve ball was the great leveler.
There are a number of very good books about playground basketball in New York City. Lots of great players who never made it into the NBA but were playground stars who could give NBA players a run for their money during summer games. Pete Axthelm’s “The City Game” is a really nice book on this topic.
Ryan M
Feb 22 2022 at 7:46pm
On another level, I think that Rand quote juxtaposes two worldviews. I often hear politically liberal friends discuss things in terms of permission – “people shouldn’t be allowed to do that,” or “how is this even legal?” When he says “who would let you do that?” I think that mindset resonates with a group of people who views our relationship to government as one in which rights are granted. I often frame it as the difference in understanding our constitution as an enabling document, rather than a limiting document. In other words, government has no authority other than that explicitly granted to it, whereas we have all freedom except that which is explicitly limited in some manner.
Liberals tend to think in terms of needing to have permission (of whom? Government? The experts?) to do anything, whereas conservatives (and generally libertarians) don’t. That is why the COVID response has tended to break down so strongly along political lines.
David Henderson
Feb 22 2022 at 10:26pm
Interesting. Thanks.
David Seltzer
Feb 23 2022 at 12:40pm
Excellent blog. Howard Roark, one of my favorite literary characters, doesn’t want or need the approval of others and is not affected by their criticism. It seems people are annoyed by him because he doesn’t “need” them. He’s so unusual, Rand made him physically different from the homogeneous herd by giving him a head of fiery red hair. He is not duty bound to live or provide for others. When Ellsworth Touhy asks Roark what he thinks of him, Roark says, “But I don’t think of you.”
Luke J
Feb 23 2022 at 7:23pm
Andy that, my children, led to the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics . 😉
David Henderson
Feb 24 2022 at 10:44am
Yup. If I hadn’t been writing for Fortune regularly from 1984 to 1990, Fortune would have never thought of approaching me to do The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics, the predecessor of The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.
Tom Means
Feb 26 2022 at 9:05am
I think the other point to make is suggesting to young people that they can achieve any career they want even if the odds are extremely small. I loved playing basketball as a kid but realized early in life, I might play at the HS level but that was it. I decided to switch to wrestling and was much more successful. Most short people have an extremely small chance of playing in the NBA, no matter how hard they try. If you are 5’6″ you may play HS and possibly college but you can count on one hand the number of NBA players that are less than 6 feet. The same applies to Major League pitchers. If you are less than 6 feet, you may get drafted, but it’s extremely unlikely you will ever make it to the dance. It’s better to figure out what you are good at and what the chances are of achieving success early in life. You can increase your skillset in a lot of things you do, but if a professional sport “requires” height, you should think about whether your time is better spent in other areas.
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