The paradox of choice | Barry Schwartz | TED

Summary

The speaker discusses the 'official dogma' of Western societies, which equates individual freedom with consumer choice, suggesting that more choice leads to greater welfare. However, he argues that this abundance of choice paradoxically results in paralysis and dissatisfaction, as high expectations and the burden of decision-making lead to regret and a sense of personal responsibility for outcomes. He posits that less choice, not more, could improve overall happiness and satisfaction, and suggests that redistributing resources to provide more choice to those with less could benefit everyone.

Takeaways

• 📚 The 'official dogma' of Western societies is that maximizing individual freedom leads to maximizing welfare.
• 🆓 The belief is that more freedom, equated to more choices, results in greater welfare for citizens.
• 🛒 Modern progress has led to an explosion of choices in everyday life, from salad dressings to stereo systems.
• 📱 The variety of cell phones exemplifies the extreme choice available in today's consumer culture.
• 🏥 In healthcare, 'patient autonomy' has shifted decision-making from doctors to patients, often leading to confusion and stress.
• 🤔 The abundance of choices can lead to analysis paralysis, making it difficult for people to make decisions.
• 🔄 Having more options can result in less satisfaction, as people tend to regret their choices and compare them to the alternatives.
• 💸 The expectation of perfection with more choices can lead to disappointment, even when the outcome is objectively good.
• 😞 The culture of choice contributes to higher rates of depression and suicide, as people blame themselves for disappointing outcomes.
• 🌐 The problem of too much choice is specific to affluent societies, while many others struggle with too few options.
• 🔄 Income redistribution could be a 'Pareto-improving move' by shifting some choice from affluent societies to those with fewer options.

Q & A

What is the 'official dogma' the speaker refers to?

The 'official dogma' refers to the belief in Western industrial societies that maximizing individual freedom and choice leads to the maximization of citizens' welfare.

How does the speaker illustrate the abundance of choice in modern society?

The speaker uses examples such as the variety of salad dressings in supermarkets, the numerous combinations of stereo systems in electronics stores, and the wide range of cell phones available.

What negative effect does the speaker mention as a result of having too many choices?

The speaker mentions that too many choices can lead to paralysis, making it difficult for people to make decisions, and can also result in less satisfaction with the choices made due to heightened expectations and regret.

What is the paradoxical effect of increased choice on decision-making?

The paradoxical effect is that increased choice can lead to decision paralysis, where the complexity of options makes it harder for individuals to make a decision, often resulting in inaction or delayed decisions.

How does the speaker relate the concept of choice to the field of healthcare?

The speaker points out that in healthcare, the burden of decision-making has shifted from doctors to patients, leading to 'patient autonomy,' which can be overwhelming for patients who may not have the necessary knowledge to make informed choices.

What does the speaker say about the marketing of prescription drugs to consumers?

The speaker questions the logic behind marketing prescription drugs directly to consumers, as they cannot purchase them without a doctor's prescription. The marketing is aimed at influencing consumers to request specific drugs from their doctors.

How does the speaker describe the impact of choice on personal identity?

The speaker suggests that the abundance of choice has turned personal identity into a matter of personal decision-making, allowing individuals to invent and reinvent themselves as often as they like.

What is the speaker's view on the relationship between choice and happiness?

The speaker believes that having too many choices can lead to unhappiness because it raises expectations and increases the likelihood of disappointment, even when the outcomes are objectively good.

How does the speaker propose that the issues of choice and affluence in Western societies could be addressed?

The speaker suggests that redistributing wealth and resources from affluent societies with too many choices to those with too few could improve the well-being of both groups, as it would reduce the negative effects of excessive choice.

What is the speaker's conclusion about the necessity of limitations in life?

The speaker concludes that having some limitations, or a 'metaphorical fishbowl,' is necessary for well-being and happiness, as it prevents the paralysis and dissatisfaction that come from an overwhelming amount of choices.

Outlines

00:00

📚 The Official Dogma of Western Societies

The speaker begins by discussing the 'official dogma' of Western industrial societies, which posits that maximizing individual freedom leads to the welfare of citizens. This dogma suggests that freedom is inherently valuable and that more choice equates to more freedom and, consequently, more welfare. The speaker uses examples from modern life, such as the vast array of salad dressings in supermarkets and the multitude of stereo systems that can be created from a single store's components, to illustrate the abundance of choices available to people. The speaker also touches on the shift in healthcare, where patients are now expected to make decisions about their treatment, and the marketing of prescription drugs directly to consumers.

05:02

🆔 The Invention of Identity

The speaker moves on to discuss how modern society has shifted from inheriting an identity to inventing one. This includes decisions about marriage, family, and work. The speaker notes that students are preoccupied with questions about their future, such as whether to marry or have a career first. The freedom to work from anywhere has also led to constant decision-making about whether to work or not. The speaker suggests that this explosion of choices in various aspects of life is both a good and bad thing, and he intends to focus on the negative aspects, such as the paralysis and dissatisfaction that can result from too many options.

10:03

🔄 The Paradox of Choice

The speaker delves into the paradoxical effects of having too many choices. He presents research showing that an increase in the number of mutual funds offered to employees leads to a decrease in participation rates due to the difficulty of making a decision. This paralysis can result in significant financial losses and missed opportunities for matching employer contributions. The speaker also discusses the concept of regret and opportunity costs, explaining how the presence of many alternatives can lead to dissatisfaction with the chosen option, even if it was a good decision.

15:04

📈 The Consequences of High Expectations

The speaker explores how the abundance of choices leads to escalated expectations and, consequently, less satisfaction with the outcomes. He uses the example of purchasing jeans to illustrate how having many options raised his expectations, leading to disappointment even though he ended up with a good pair. The speaker argues that while people may objectively do better with more choices, they feel worse because their expectations have increased. He also touches on the psychological impact of this, suggesting that the constant need to make decisions and the responsibility for those decisions may contribute to the rise of clinical depression and suicide in affluent societies.

🎣 The Fishbowl of Modern Life

In the final paragraph, the speaker concludes by reiterating that while some choice is better than none, more choice is not necessarily better than some. He suggests that there is a point at which the increase in options stops improving welfare. The speaker criticizes the official dogma and argues that the problems he describes are unique to affluent Western societies. He proposes that redistributing resources to societies with fewer options could improve everyone's lives. The speaker ends with a metaphor, suggesting that a metaphorical 'fishbowl' or set of limitations is necessary for happiness and that the freedom of unlimited possibilities can lead to misery and disaster.

Keywords

💡Official Dogma

The term 'official dogma' refers to the widely accepted beliefs or principles in Western industrial societies. In the context of the video, it is the belief that maximizing individual freedom leads to maximizing welfare, which is achieved through maximizing choice. The speaker challenges this dogma by arguing that too much choice can lead to negative outcomes such as paralysis and dissatisfaction.

💡Individual Freedom

Individual freedom is presented as a core value in the official dogma, suggesting that it is inherently good and essential to human nature. The speaker, however, questions this by showing that an excess of choices, which is meant to enhance freedom, can actually lead to decision paralysis and decreased satisfaction. The video implies that while some degree of freedom is beneficial, an overload of it can have adverse effects.

💡Maximizing Choice

The concept of maximizing choice is central to the official dogma, with the assumption that more choices lead to more freedom and, consequently, greater welfare. The speaker critiques this notion by providing examples from various aspects of life, such as supermarkets and healthcare, where too many options can overwhelm individuals and lead to less happiness. The video suggests that an optimal level of choice exists, beyond which the benefits diminish.

💡Paralysis

In the video, paralysis refers to the inability of individuals to make decisions when faced with an excessive number of choices. The speaker uses the example of investment options in retirement plans to illustrate how increased choices can lead to decision deferral and ultimately, negative outcomes. This concept is used to argue against the idea that more choices always lead to better outcomes.

💡Satisfaction

Satisfaction, in the context of the video, is the level of contentment or happiness an individual experiences after making a choice. The speaker contends that with more choices, individuals often feel less satisfied with their decisions due to the ease of regretting their choices and the increased opportunity costs. The video suggests that reducing the number of choices can lead to higher satisfaction levels.

💡Opportunity Costs

Opportunity costs are the potential benefits an individual foregoes when choosing one option over others. The speaker uses the concept to explain why more choices can lead to less satisfaction, as individuals tend to focus on the attractive features of the options they did not choose, which can make their actual choice seem less appealing. This concept is used to critique the assumption that more choices lead to better outcomes.

💡Expectations

Expectations in the video refer to the standards or levels of quality individuals anticipate from their choices. The speaker argues that an abundance of choices raises expectations, which can lead to disappointment when the actual experience does not meet these heightened expectations. This concept is used to illustrate how increased choice can result in less satisfaction, even when the outcome is objectively good.

💡Material Affluence

Material affluence describes the state of being wealthy in terms of material possessions. The speaker points out that the problem of too much choice is a peculiar issue of modern, affluent societies. The video suggests that redistributing resources to less affluent societies could improve the lives of people in both affluent and less affluent societies by reducing the burden of excessive choice.

💡Policy Matter

In the context of the video, a policy matter refers to considerations and actions that should be taken at a societal level to address the issues discussed. The speaker suggests that redistributing income and reducing the number of choices could be beneficial policies to improve overall welfare and happiness in society.

💡Clinical Depression

Clinical depression is a serious mental health condition characterized by persistent feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and a lack of interest or pleasure in activities. The speaker links the increase in clinical depression and suicide rates to the high expectations and disappointments that come with an abundance of choices, suggesting that the mental health crisis is partly a result of the societal emphasis on choice.

💡Fishbowl

The metaphor of a 'fishbowl' in the video represents the limitations or boundaries that can provide a sense of security and reduce the overwhelming nature of too many choices. The speaker concludes that while too few choices can be limiting, too many choices can lead to misery and that a balanced 'fishbowl' is necessary for happiness and well-being.

Highlights

The official dogma of Western industrial societies is to maximize individual freedom for the welfare of citizens.

Maximizing freedom is equated with maximizing choice, which is believed to lead to increased welfare.

The concept of choice is deeply embedded in modern society, as exemplified by the variety of salad dressings in supermarkets.

The explosion of choice in consumer electronics allows for millions of possible stereo systems.

In the past, telephone services were limited to what was provided by a single company; now, there is an almost unlimited variety.

The shift from doctor's authority to patient autonomy in healthcare decisions has increased the burden on patients.

The marketing of prescription drugs to consumers is an example of how choice has been commercialized.

Identity has become a matter of choice, with individuals expected to invent and reinvent themselves.

The abundance of choices in marriage, family, and career paths has led to increased preoccupation and decision-making stress.

The freedom to work from anywhere at any time has resulted in constant decision-making about work-life balance.

The paradoxical effect of too many choices is that it can lead to paralysis rather than liberation.

The study from Vanguard showed that offering more investment options in retirement plans decreased participation rates.

Having more options can lead to regret and dissatisfaction, even when a good decision is made.

Opportunity costs are more apparent with more choices, leading to less satisfaction with the chosen option.

Escalation of expectations due to increased options results in less satisfaction with the outcomes.

The secret to happiness is low expectations, which is contrary to the high expectations set by the abundance of choices.

The responsibility for disappointing outcomes falls on the individual when there are many options available.

The speaker argues that the official dogma is false and that more choice does not necessarily lead to better welfare.

The speaker suggests that redistributing resources from affluent societies with too many choices to those with too few could improve everyone's welfare.

The metaphor of the fishbowl suggests that too much freedom can lead to misery, and some limitations may be necessary for happiness.

Transcripts

I'm going to talk to you about some stuff that's in this book of mine

that I hope will resonate with other things you've already heard,

and I'll try to make some connections myself,

in case you miss them.

But I want to start with what I call the "official dogma."

The official dogma of what?

The official dogma of all Western industrial societies.

And the official dogma runs like this:

if we are interested in maximizing the welfare of our citizens,

the way to do that is to maximize individual freedom.

The reason for this is both that freedom is, in and of itself, good,

valuable, worthwhile, essential to being human,

and because if people have freedom,

then each of us can act on our own

to do the things that will maximize our welfare,

and no one has to decide on our behalf.

The way to maximize freedom is to maximize choice.

The more choice people have, the more freedom they have,

and the more freedom they have,

the more welfare they have.

This, I think, is so deeply embedded in the water supply

that it wouldn't occur to anyone to question it.

And it's also deeply embedded in our lives.

I'll give you some examples

of what modern progress has made possible for us.

This is my supermarket.

Not such a big one.

I want to say just a word about salad dressing.

A hundred seventy-five salad dressings in my supermarket,

if you don't count the 10 extra-virgin olive oils

and 12 balsamic vinegars you could buy

to make a very large number of your own salad dressings,

in the off-chance that none of the 175 the store has on offer suit you.

So this is what the supermarket is like.

And then you go to the consumer electronics store

to set up a stereo system --

speakers, CD player, tape player, tuner, amplifier --

and in this one single consumer electronics store,

there are that many stereo systems.

We can construct six and a half million different stereo systems

out of the components that are on offer in one store.

You've got to admit that's a lot of choice.

In other domains -- the world of communications.

There was a time, when I was a boy,

when you could get any kind of telephone service you wanted,

as long as it came from Ma Bell.

You rented your phone, you didn't buy it.

One consequence of that, by the way, is that the phone never broke.

And those days are gone.

We now have an almost unlimited variety of phones,

especially in the world of cell phones.

These are cell phones of the future.

My favorite is the middle one --

the MP3 player, nose hair trimmer, and crème brûlée torch.

And if --

(Laughter)

if by some chance you haven't seen that in your store yet,

you can rest assured that one day soon, you will.

And what this does is it leads people to walk into their stores,

asking this question.

And do you know what the answer to this question now is?

The answer is "no."

It is not possible to buy a cell phone that doesn't do too much.

So, in other aspects of life that are much more significant than buying things,

the same explosion of choice is true.

Health care.

It is no longer the case in the United States

that you go to the doctor, and the doctor tells you what to do.

Instead, you go to the doctor,

and the doctor tells you, "Well, we could do A, or we could do B.

A has these benefits and these risks.

B has these benefits and these risks.

What do you want to do?"

And you say, "Doc, what should I do?"

And the doc says, "A has these benefits and risks,

and B has these benefits and risks.

What do you want to do?"

And you say, "If you were me, Doc, what would you do?"

And the doc says, "But I'm not you."

And the result is -- we call it "patient autonomy,"

which makes it sound like a good thing,

but what it really is is a shifting of the burden and the responsibility

for decision-making

from somebody who knows something -- namely, the doctor --

to somebody who knows nothing and is almost certainly sick

and thus, not in the best shape to be making decisions --

namely, the patient.

There's enormous marketing of prescription drugs

to people like you and me,

which, if you think about it, makes no sense at all,

since we can't buy them.

Why do they market to us if we can't buy them?

The answer is that they expect us to call our doctors the next morning

and ask for our prescriptions to be changed.

Something as dramatic as our identity

has now become a matter of choice,

as this slide is meant to indicate.

We don't inherit an identity; we get to invent it.

And we get to reinvent ourselves as often as we like.

And that means that every day, when you wake up in the morning,

you have to decide what kind of person you want to be.

With respect to marriage and family:

there was a time when the default assumption that almost everyone had

is that you got married as soon as you could,

and then you started having kids as soon as you could.

The only real choice was who,

not when, and not what you did after.

Nowadays, everything is very much up for grabs.

I teach wonderfully intelligent students,

and I assign 20 percent less work than I used to.

And it's not because they're less smart,

and it's not because they're less diligent.

It's because they are preoccupied, asking themselves,

"Should I get married or not? Should I get married now?

Should I get married later?

Should I have kids first or a career first?"

All of these are consuming questions.

And they're going to answer these questions,

whether or not it means not doing all the work I assign

and not getting a good grade in my courses.

And indeed they should.

These are important questions to answer.

Work.

We are blessed, as Carl was pointing out,

with the technology that enables us to work every minute of every day

from any place on the planet --

except the Randolph Hotel.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

There is one corner, by the way,

that I'm not going to tell anybody about, where the WiFi actually works.

I'm not telling you about it, because I want to use it.

So what this means,

this incredible freedom of choice we have with respect to work,

is that we have to make a decision,

again and again and again,

about whether we should or shouldn't be working.

We can go to watch our kid play soccer,

and we have our cell phone on one hip and our Blackberry on our other hip,

and our laptop, presumably, on our laps.

And even if they're all shut off,

every minute that we're watching our kid mutilate a soccer game,

we are also asking ourselves,

"Should I answer this cell phone call?

Should I respond to this email? Should I draft this letter?"

And even if the answer to the question is "no,"

it's certainly going to make the experience of your kid's soccer game

very different than it would've been.

So everywhere we look,

big things and small things, material things and lifestyle things,

life is a matter of choice.

And the world we used to live in looked like this.

[Well, actually, they are written in stone.]

That is to say, there were some choices,

but not everything was a matter of choice.

The world we now live in looks like this.

[The Ten Commandments Do-It-Yourself Kit]

And the question is: Is this good news or bad news?

And the answer is "yes."

(Laughter)

We all know what's good about it,

so I'm going to talk about what's bad about it.

All of this choice has two effects,

two negative effects on people.

One effect, paradoxically,

is that it produces paralysis rather than liberation.

With so many options to choose from,

people find it very difficult to choose at all.

I'll give you one very dramatic example of this,

a study that was done of investments in voluntary retirement plans.

A colleague of mine got access to investment records from Vanguard,

the gigantic mutual fund company,

of about a million employees and about 2,000 different workplaces.

What she found is that for every 10 mutual funds the employer offered,

rate of participation went down two percent.

You offer 50 funds -- 10 percent fewer employees participate

than if you only offer five.

Why?

Because with 50 funds to choose from,

it's so damn hard to decide which fund to choose,

that you'll just put it off till tomorrow,

and then tomorrow

and then tomorrow and tomorrow,

and, of course, tomorrow never comes.

Understand that not only does this mean

that people are going to have to eat dog food when they retire

because they don't have enough money put away,

it also means that making the decision is so hard

that they pass up significant matching money from the employer.

By not participating, they are passing up as much as 5,000 dollars a year

from the employer,

who would happily match their contribution.

So paralysis is a consequence of having too many choices.

And I think it makes the world look like this.

[And lastly, for all eternity, French, bleu cheese or ranch?]

(Laughter)

You really want to get the decision right if it's for all eternity, right?

You don't want to pick the wrong mutual fund or wrong salad dressing.

So that's one effect.

The second effect is that, even if we manage to overcome the paralysis

and make a choice,

we end up less satisfied with the result of the choice

than we would be if we had fewer options to choose from.

And there are several reasons for this.

One of them is, with a lot of different salad dressings to choose from,

if you buy one and it's not perfect -- and what salad dressing is? --

it's easy to imagine that you could've made a different choice

that would've been better.

And what happens is,

this imagined alternative induces you to regret the decision you made,

and this regret subtracts from the satisfaction you get

out of the decision you made,

even if it was a good decision.

The more options there are, the easier it is to regret anything at all

that is disappointing about the option that you chose.

Second, what economists call "opportunity costs."

Dan Gilbert made a big point this morning

of talking about how much the way in which we value things

depends on what we compare them to.

Well, when there are lots of alternatives to consider,

it's easy to imagine the attractive features of alternatives that you reject

that make you less satisfied with the alternative that you've chosen.

Here's an example.

[I can't stop thinking about those other available parking spaces on W 85th Street]

If you're not a New Yorker, I apologize.

Here's what you're supposed to be thinking.

Here's this couple on the Hamptons. Very expensive real estate.

Gorgeous beach. Beautiful day. They have it all to themselves.

What could be better?

"Damn it," this guy is thinking,

"It's August. Everybody in my Manhattan neighborhood is away.

I could be parking right in front of my building."

And he spends two weeks nagged by the idea

that he is missing the opportunity, day after day,

to have a great parking space.

(Laughter)

Opportunity costs subtract from the satisfaction

that we get out of what we choose,

even when what we choose is terrific.

And the more options there are to consider,

the more attractive features of these options

are going to be reflected by us as opportunity costs.

Here's another example.

(Laughter)

Now, this cartoon makes a lot of points.

It makes points about living in the moment as well,

and probably about doing things slowly.

But one point it makes is that whenever you're choosing one thing,

you're choosing not to do other things,

and those other things may have lots of attractive features,

and it's going to make what you're doing

less attractive.

Third: escalation of expectations.

This hit me when I went to replace my jeans.

I wear jeans almost all the time.

There was a time when jeans came in one flavor,

and you bought them, and they fit like crap.

They were incredibly uncomfortable,

and if you wore them long enough and washed them enough times,

they started to feel OK.

I went to replace my jeans after years of wearing these old ones.

I said, "I want a pair of jeans. Here's my size."

And the shopkeeper said,

"Do you want slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit?

You want button fly or zipper fly? You want stonewashed or acid-washed?

Do you want them distressed?

Do you want boot cut, tapered?" Blah, blah, blah on and on he went.

My jaw dropped.

And after I recovered, I said,

"I want the kind that used to be the only kind."

(Laughter)

He had no idea what that was.

(Laughter)

So I spent an hour trying on all these damn jeans,

and I walked out of the store -- truth --

with the best-fitting jeans I had ever had.

I did better.

All this choice made it possible for me to do better.

But --

I felt worse.

Why? I wrote a whole book to try to explain this to myself.

The reason is --

(Laughter)

The reason I felt worse is that with all of these options available,

my expectations about how good a pair of jeans should be went up.

I had very low, no particular expectations when they only came in one flavor.

When they came in 100 flavors, damn it, one of them should've been perfect.

And what I got was good, but it wasn't perfect.

And so I compared what I got to what I expected,

and what I got was disappointing in comparison to what I expected.

Adding options to people's lives

can't help but increase the expectations people have

about how good those options will be.

And what that's going to produce is less satisfaction with results,

even when they're good results.

[It all looks so great. I can't wait to be disappointed.]

Nobody in the world of marketing knows this.

Because if they did, you wouldn't all know what this was about.

The truth is more like this.

[Everything was better back when everything was worse.]

The reason that everything was better back when everything was worse

is that when everything was worse,

it was actually possible for people

to have experiences that were a pleasant surprise.

Nowadays, the world we live in -- we affluent, industrialized citizens,

with perfection the expectation --

the best you can ever hope for

is that stuff is as good as you expect it to be.

You will never be pleasantly surprised,

because your expectations, my expectations,

have gone through the roof.

The secret to happiness -- this is what you all came for --

the secret to happiness is:

low expectations.

(Laughter)

[You'll do]

(Applause)

(Laughter)

I want to say --

just a little autobiographical moment --

that I actually am married to a wife,

and she's really quite wonderful.

I couldn't have done better.

I didn't settle.

But settling isn't always such a bad thing.

Finally,

one consequence of buying a bad-fitting pair of jeans

when there is only one kind to buy

is that when you are dissatisfied and you ask why, who's responsible,

the answer is clear: the world is responsible.

What could you do?

When there are hundreds of different styles of jeans available

and you buy one that is disappointing

and you ask why, who's responsible,

it is equally clear that the answer to the question is "you."

You could have done better.

With a hundred different kinds of jeans on display,

there is no excuse for failure.

And so when people make decisions,

and even though the results of the decisions are good,

they feel disappointed about them;

they blame themselves.

Clinical depression has exploded in the industrial world

in the last generation.

I believe a significant -- not the only, but a significant -- contributor

to this explosion of depression and also suicide,

is that people have experiences that are disappointing

because their standards are so high,

and then when they have to explain these experiences to themselves,

they think they're at fault.

So the net result is that we do better in general, objectively,

and we feel worse.

So let me remind you:

this is the official dogma, the one that we all take to be true,

and it's all false.

It is not true.

There's no question that some choice is better than none.

But it doesn't follow from that

that more choice is better than some choice.

There's some magical amount. I don't know what it is.

I'm pretty confident that we have long since passed the point

where options improve our welfare.

Now, as a policy matter -- I'm almost done --

as a policy matter, the thing to think about is this:

what enables all of this choice in industrial societies

is material affluence.

There are lots of places in the world,

and we have heard about several of them,

where their problem is not that they have too much choice.

Their problem is they have too little.

So the stuff I'm talking about is the peculiar problem

of modern, affluent, Western societies.

And what is so frustrating and infuriating is this:

Steve Levitt talked to you yesterday

about how these expensive and difficult-to-install child seats

don't help.

It's a waste of money.

What I'm telling you is that these expensive, complicated choices --

it's not simply that they don't help.

They actually hurt.

They actually make us worse off.

If some of what enables people in our societies

to make all of the choices we make

were shifted to societies in which people have too few options,

not only would those people's lives be improved,

but ours would be improved also.

This is what economists call a "Pareto-improving move."

Income redistribution will make everyone better off,

not just poor people,

because of how all this excess choice plagues us.

So to conclude.

[You can be anything you want to be -- no limits.]

You're supposed to read this cartoon and, being a sophisticated person, say,

"Ah! What does this fish know? Nothing is possible in this fishbowl."

Impoverished imagination, a myopic view of the world --

that's the way I read it at first.

The more I thought about it, however,

the more I came to the view that this fish knows something.

Because the truth of the matter is,

if you shatter the fishbowl so that everything is possible,

you don't have freedom.

You have paralysis.

If you shatter this fishbowl so that everything is possible,

you decrease satisfaction.

You increase paralysis, and you decrease satisfaction.

Everybody needs a fishbowl.

This one is almost certainly too limited --

perhaps even for the fish, certainly for us.

But the absence of some metaphorical fishbowl is a recipe for misery

and, I suspect, disaster.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)