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Wes Bentley is one of the most attractive stars in the American industry who is currently thought to be ill. Is Wes Bentley sick?
Wes Bentley is one of the most popular stars in the American industry.
He is one of the most beautiful and is also consered an American beauty star.
He is best known for playing the soulful, artistic neighbor Ricky Fitts in the Oscar-winning film American Beauty (1999).
He also played game designer Seneca Crane in The Hunger Games (2012) and played photographer Thomas in Lovelace (2013).
Fact Check: Is Wes Bentley Sick?
News has flooded the internet that actor Wes Bentley is ill, which is not true.
As of now, there have been no news and reports suggesting that Wes may be ill or in poor health.
He’s still doing great in his shoots and is ready for the new season of Yellowstone, which will be released soon.
However, the source of Wes’ illness was not a trusted source, so as of now there is no reason to worry about Wes Bentley’s health.
Wes Bentley is not ill, which fact check confirms.
Wes Bentley Weight Loss And Health Condition
Wes Bentley is a superstar who needs to gain weight and lose weight according to the scenes.
And that could be the reason for his weight loss in the last few days.
But if people think it was because of his poor health, that’s not true.
As mentioned above, there is no news to support the statement that Wes may be in poor health.
Although he was once addicted to drugs in 2016, he is a clean and sober person for now.
Added screenshots of Wes Bentley in “Pete’s Dragon” to the gallery. Additional photos: https://t.co/TUDfMQ5nZC #WesBentley pic.twitter.com/E3jo088XDM
— Wes Bentley Network (@wesbentleynet) October 19, 2018
Wes Bentley Wife-Who Is He Married To?
Wes Bentley is married to his wife and colleague Jacqui Swedberg.
The couple have been together for more than a decade, dating back to 2010 when they wed.
Wes and Jacqui are the parents of their two children together, including a son born in 2010 and another their baby daughter born in 2014.
This was Bentley’s second marriage.
First, Wes was married to fellow actress Jennifer Quanz from 2001 to 2009.
Wes Bentley Family Detials
Wes Bentley was born into a family of six, including his parents Cherie Baker and Dav Bentley.
Bentley’s mother was a chaplain and his father a minister.
Wes graduated from Sylvan Hills High School in Sherwood, Arkansas in 1996.
Even during his school days he was a good student. He was a member of Group 29 in the Juilliard School’s Drama Division.
And right now, Wes has a family of 4 including his wife and two children, although he is also very close to his parents and other family members.
COUNTDOWN: SIDEMEN EDITION
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Lee Daniels Talks About Being Beaten Up, Discovering He Was Gay
When Lee Daniels was 8 years old, his father threw him in a trash can.
The director of The Butler’s Precious and Lee Daniels grew up in Philadelphia, the son of a police officer, when his father saw him trying on his mother’s high heels. “I walked down the stairs in high heels, and he put me in the trash,” Daniels recalled. “I think that’s where Precious came from, because I remembered the smell. I remember the darkness, the cold, my mother trying to fight back, and then me, thinking I was Aladdin on a carpet running away. And I think that’s why I so related to Precious. But that is only one of many times. And I have no hatred in my heart for my father. I don’t think he understood [Daniel being gay]. He didn’t quite understand and he knew it was hard to be a black man, and thought that if he was afraid of it from me, in retrospect, I think he thought that if he was afraid of it from me, that I wouldn’t be gay, because he can’t imagine what my life will be like. ”
On the contrary, Daniels ’grandmother understands. “He saw greatness, and he said I was going to have greatness beyond him, which I couldn’t understand at the time. My father told me I was going to be nothing. [But] he said, ‘Listen, you know. you, you’re not like all the other guys around here. You’re gay. ‘I said,’ What’s that? ‘And he said,’ Don’t worry, but you’ll get used to it-people will call you But you must remember, as long as you are strong, as long as you are fearless, as long as you are honest, you have nothing to worry about. ‘”
Daniels spoke on March 22 at Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film & TV, where he participated in the ongoing interview series The Hollywood Masters. Later, after dropping out of college, he moved to Los Angeles, “and then the so -called AIDS hit. All my friends are dying. … I earn a huge amount [running an agency for nurses]. I came from extreme poverty. I don’t know what to do with the money, so what do you do? House, clothes, I don’t know. Drugs, party, at 22, 23-ish. And still directing theater. And AIDS hit. And again, it wiped out all my friends. I have no friends. And we’re all together because their parents don’t let them in. And we bury each other, because most parents, 90 percent of parents, don’t let them in. And it hit the community hard. Scary, because we don’t know if you can drink from the glass or what it is. This is the scariest thing ever. And I don’t understand why I’m not [dead], because there are better souls than me to go. I thought I had to go. And so I fell on drugs and in bath houses to die. That I don’t have AIDS is a miracle from God. I don’t understand it. I really can not understand. Because I must have had HIV. Others did. ”
A full transcript follows.
You grew up in Philadelphia. When did you first fall inlove with the entertainment world?
Did you see my Instagram live? I instagram live. Very excited because, you know, I’ve learned how to do it now. And my publicist is very nervous about what I’m doing, because sometimes you’re drunk. (Laughter.) But I’m so excited. This is a new gadget that I am studying to use. Seems super exciting. So I Instagram, “Live at LMU.” I’m sorry, question again?
When did you fall inlove with the movie?
I didn’t know it was cinema, but rather television. I was eight years old, I was seven. Every year at Christmas and Thanksgiving, they have The Wizard of Oz and then they have Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella. So as a kid on projects, I remember I was just mesmerized by The Wizard of Oz and Cinderella, and Lesley Ann Warren’s Cinderella. And from there, the first book I read outside of Dick and Jane, which I remember reading as a child was, ironically, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Wow.
I went to the library, and something just went, like, “Go to the movies.” I don’t know what taught me in the theater section. The book itself looks interesting. I thought it was going to be – I don’t know – I thought it was going to be like Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf. And I pulled it out, and I will never forget it. I read it from cover to cover there, and then I pulled it out.This is my first book I picked up at the library. And then my cousins and my neighbors in front of me and my sisters and brothers read all the characters, from Martha to George.
When you were growing up, how did you think about your future life?
I thought I would go like most of my friends, to jail. Such was the world for me. I never thought I was going to die, but I thought of myself in jail. And when you have to steal to eat, yeah, I thought I’d really go – I mean, that’s just the norm.
One of your brothers has been in jail for a while.
He still is.
Are you talking to him?
Yes.
And when you look at his life, how do you feel about yourself?
I feel mixed, you know, about all of this. We are getting deeper.
(Laughter.)
Hopefully, yes.
Shit. (Laughter.)
You can go shallow later.
No. It’s just that, all of a sudden, I realize I’m in therapy or something.
Have you ever had therapy?
Yes. I finally started taking therapy. They say it works.
“They” said, but didn’t you?
I’ll know, won’t I?
Yes. (Laughs.) Your parents, who has the greater influence on you, on your father, on your mother?
The bigger influence on me was not my mother or my father, but my grandmother was the bigger influence on me. I come from a family of five, of siblings. And my grandmother could pass for a white. And he moved from North Carolina with his sister. And she is a very strong woman. She married the darkest man. She was the first black woman to attend Duke University. He passes as white enters. But then it’s like, “I’m leaving.” And he found this black man, and they migrated to Philadelphia. He is a politician. I don’t know how he got into politics. I do not know. I don’t remember how he got into politics. But my first memories are that he encouraged people to come out to vote in the neighborhood where he lived, which was similar to ours. And he had nine children, and he was a crooked politician.
A crooked politician?
Yes. He also ran the numbers. He has numbers. You know what the numbers are?
Uh huh.
Yes, illegal numbers, they are illegal numbers.
Don’t be fooled by this English accent.
(Laughter.)
I will not. i love you
You caught me in the bathroom in our offices, so you know I don’t usually speak like this.
I know. He speaks as if he were from Brooklyn. (Laughs.) Yeah, so he’s this gangster. He is a gangster. And yet, he was too involved in politics. It was important for him to get African-Americans out. It was a first start, a first understanding for me to understand that life, that people are not good or that people are not bad, that we are all trying to wake up in the morning to be the best person na tayo. But we were falling for our asses. Nobody’s perfect. And so my work has really become the gray place we are all in-the dark place we all live.
Wow.
And he produced many women like him. And all the judges are in his hand, because he will bring them into office. So, often, some of his sons commit heinous crimes, and many of the people in the neighborhood do as well. But they were paid, and they did not go to prison. And this is salvation. That’s just the way he did it. She was very much in-she very much wanted African-Americans to vote at a time when it was just legal to vote. This is important. He came from a place where he could not vote. It’s really about getting people to come out to vote. So my first memories are of a convertible, a white convertible, with a speakerphone saying go out to vote whoever it is. So voting is embedded in me and if you don’t come out to vote, his kids with those guns will let you out to vote. He dragged people from projects and out to the streets to vote for whoever it was … And he was diabetic, and amputee. She is a very large woman, and she has diabetes. And he was brilliant. He could have easily become president, I believe. Fearless.And I was around eight or nine – well, even before that, he was the first person to know I was gay. And he was very clear. He said, “Listen, you know, you’re not like all the other guys around here. You’re gay.” I said, “What’s that?” And he said, “Don’t worry about it, but you’ll get used to it – people will call you that. But you have to remember, as long as you are strong, as long as you are fearless, as long as you are honest, you have nothing to worry about. ” I watched her be just all those things, all those things. Even on the hook, there is a street code that is very, very, deadly. And I remember being impressed because Hubert Humphrey, the Vice President of the United States, came to the house. And like, what the hell?
Did he go to your house?
My grandmother’s house, yes, because she was powerful at the time. And I remember a conversation, when he was on the phone at the height of [Philadelphia police chief and mayor Frank] Rizzo.Rizzo became part of our family; all aunts and uncles worked for the City of Philadelphia. Because everything is in his pocket, the judges – also the police. Queen Latifah and I share a similar story about our parents: our fathers were policemen and what they were supposed to do. You know what I mean?
What should they do?
Just something, you know?
What thing
My dad has to do things, which, you know-we’ll know him in a second. But my grandmother, Rizzo owed him, Mayor Rizzo, at the time. And I will never forget what he said-because it was never heard to talk to a white man like this-“Bring me my mother — king of money before I put a bullet in your ass. I’ll put a bullet in your head. Bring me my mother — king of money. “It’s not over, you know?
Yes.
But I love him so much. And this is important. And then there’s a big exposure coming down, where I think The Philadelphia Inquirer – hopefully I can read that article, if I can find it – microfiche, these days – exposed him for who he is. And I can’t go to school. I remember being embarrassed to go to school that day, where they had a big case and this woman who was just corrupt in every way. But what I learned was – he worked from his bed because he was an amputee – he didn’t take no. I have never seen anything like this in my life. He is a hero to me. And in the basement, listening to music is very important.
Yes.
Listening to Motown songs with my aunts who are very much like him. And they were people of color, that is, she married a very black man, and he looked white. So they are literally from your color to my color, maybe even darker, my aunts and uncles, and 27 grandchildren, 30 grandchildren. This is the best time of my life. And they were running through the streets, and witnessed some of the atrocities that I [witnessed], I don’t really know what it is because everyone comes home with love and pleasure.
At what point did you decide, “I want to leave this world and make someone else?”
In the summer, my parents work, and we go to my grandmother’s. But in the eighth grade it became clear that I was gay. And my father died, my father was killed. He was killed in the line of duty. He was a policeman, and he was killed. And he lived a very violent life, and he died a very violent death.
Has he been violent to you?
Yes.
There’s the beautiful scene in Empire, where Lucious reacts to his son and throws him in a trash can. And that’s based on your own life, right?
That’s right.
What happened?
I went downstairs in high heels, and he put me in the trash. I think that’s where Precious came from, because I remember the stench. I remember the darkness, the cold, my mother trying to fight back, and then me, thinking I was Aladdin on a carpet running away. And I think that’s why I so related to Precious. But that is only one of many times. And I have no hatred in my heart for my father. I don’t think he understood [Daniel being gay]. He didn’t quite understand and he knew it was hard to be a black man, and thought that if he was going to be afraid of me, in retrospect, I think he thought that if he was going to be afraid of me, I wouldn’t be gay. , because he couldn’t imagine what my life would be like.But my grandmother can do it. And he saw greatness, and he said that I would have greatness beyond him, which I could not understand at the time. My father told me I would be nothing.
Oh really?
Mm. My mother, I think, is where The Butler came from. Two doors down from us, there was a butler who worked for Ed Snider, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles. Anyone from Philadelphia here? It’s getting deeper. Yes, let’s go in the light of this story. (Laughter.) Anyway, my neighbor, Mr. Crawford, was a butler. And he was driving a Mercedes, and it had a phone in it. For me Batman. And he worked at Radnor, which is a suburb of [Villanova] University.
I have really arrived, weird.
do you have? It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?
I went there one afternoon.
Do you still remember? It’s gorgeous. Well, for me, it is. It’s like the most remarkable thing I’ve ever seen. And so, after so many of my friends were shot, [my mother] knew I couldn’t survive selling drugs. I knew I just didn’t care about selling drugs. I was scared. Maybe, that’s part of the gay thing. I’m not sure.
Did you sell anything?
I tried to sell nickel bags, but I couldn’t. I can’t go through the process. But my mom said, “I want you to go to this school,” because the principal – once my dad was killed, it really exploded the family. And all these bad things started to happen. My brother is in trouble. Everyone is in trouble. It seems that the law no longer exists to protect us. And the law protects us. Because at that point, we were just ordinary negroes. My grandmother, her fame is fading. And my father is no longer a policeman. That’s why I’m fascinated with race relations today, because [at his funeral], there were none other than white men crying, crying, over his coffin. Although I was happy that she was dead, because I knew the beatings would stop, I was fascinated by the white men crying over her.
You go to college and then you drop out.
I made.
And then came L.A.
Well, let’s go back a little bit to my mom. So my mother put me in this white school in Radnor. And this was the first time I had actually seen white people back then. I am in the eighth grade. And I sank in a place that was pure white. And I was totally fascinated by it all. Like Mars or something. And I’m one of three African-American people at this school with about 1,800, not even that, but still, a lot of people. And they just lived a different life. And it’s just fascinating. Ed Snider let us use his home, his address, so I had a fake address. And I will take the train back and forth. And my mother knew that if I didn’t leave, something would happen to me. And so it happened, it happened to my whole family. They all went to jail. That experience allowed me to seamlessly go back and forth between the white world and the black world-seamlessly, so that I understood the reality of the world and the white reality of the world. And I haven’t experienced racism at all, oddly enough. And it was a great experience for me.
So when you came to L.A., you wanted to get into the entertainment business?
Let’s go back to college. So the college, so they saved up. When your dad dies in Philadelphia, they pass a plate around, and the cops give it to you, it’s a college fund they give away. And my aunts and uncles gave. But by the end of that year, a year and a half, the money was gone and it was left for me to figure out how to do it. And I have a choice, the choice. I know how to sell drugs, for sure. But I just don’t want to. My father told me he would kill me if I had sex with a man. So I think he’s coming back to kill me. And I had a boyfriend.
Oh.
Her name is Laurie Ingram, and she’s as beautiful as Halle Berry, or so I thought. But he said, “You’re gay, aren’t you?”
How old are you at that point?
It’s too late for me to know I’m gay. (Laughter.) But sleeping with Laurie just to silence my dead dad. And so he gave it to me – I had a bus ticket and seven dollars. And I went to Los Angeles from Lindenwood College in St. Louis. Louis, Missouri.It takes a long time to get started in the entertainment business. You made a lot of money opening an agency for nurses.
Well, not that long, just two and a half years. [But] I was homeless.
Are you homeless?
Yes. I live behind a church. First, I lived on the streets. And then I saw a church in Baldwin Hills. I live behind a church in Baldwin Hills in the Crenshaw area. And they found out I lived there, so I had to clean up. I have no problem there. I keep looking for jobs in L.A. Times, and I don’t really know what to do. So I turned around and looked for [a job as] a receptionist at a nursing agency. And I was taken to the theater there, by the way. I was taken to the theater. There is a theater in the church. And I gathered some of the congregation that wanted to make a theater, and we put on some of our plays. I took the work I did when I was eight years old and applied it, homeless in my early 20s. At the same time, I started working for a nursing agency in Hollywood. And I am a receptionist. Let’s say your mother is sick or your aunt is feeling bad and they want home healthcare, and they don’t want to go to the hospital, or if your grandmother dies, or if your husband is giving birth, nurses for homes. And I was on the phone, because I had a white voice, a really good sales voice.
Oh, you have a white voice?
Yes, I don’t know what that is now, but I had it then. My voice is beautiful, my speaking voice is beautiful. And it’s a sales job: “Let’s talk about what’s the problem, da-da-da-da-da.” We let the nurses in. They earn X dollar amount, and then we pay the nurses X dollar amount. And I succeeded very quickly because most of the people I grew up with were salesmen. They are drug sellers – and I already know how to sell – or pimps. I have met many pimps. So, you know, it’s me, the salesman is always there. And I succeeded here, and it made me the manager of the manager. I am in charge of the nurses. No one knows nursing, but I got my first apartment in Hollywood and Wilcox.Wilcox and Yucca were my first apartment, one-bedroom apartment. I am excited about it. When you are homeless, you really understand what it is. I saw people die. I’ve seen people be born, but when you’re homeless, you have a full three-dimensional understanding of the life-changing human condition. I gave the impression to my mother that I was fine, and I didn’t want her to worry about me, so I didn’t ask for money or anything. But I was determined to do it. I knew I could do it alone. My grandmother told me I could, and why couldn’t I? And then I got my apartment and I was still directing the theater at the church. And so I sell nurses. Then I said, “Why am I doing this for this white man? I could do it for myself.” I earned enough money to move into a better apartment in West Hollywood, and I opened my own nursing agency. Again, without knowing nursing, I opened offices in Wilshire and La Brea, and started with five nurses at [age] 22, and went on to 500 nurses. And I earn a tremendous amount. How you can get this sale is by befriending the social worker at the hospital or the discharge planner at the hospital, who are usually African-American women. And I will go in and I will talk to them and I will sell my agency. And they will refer these people to me. And I understand people. I can read people. I’m so good, I’m almost psychic at reading people. That we have no case is beyond my kingdom. You know, that just sounds crazy. And then something called AIDS hit. And we are the first agency – no one wants to touch AIDS patients. I am the first agency under the AIDS Project LA. And there we earn enormous amounts, in caring for many dying patients. At the same time, all my friends were dying. It’s super exciting, the yin and yang of it all. I earned a tremendous amount. I came from extreme poverty. I don’t know what to do with the money, so what do you do? House, clothes, I don’t know. Drugs, party, at 22, 23-ish. And still directing theater. And AIDS hit.And again, it wiped out all my friends. I have no friends. And we’re all together because their parents don’t let them in. And we bury each other, because most parents, 90 percent of parents, don’t let them in. And it hit the community hard. Scary, because we don’t know if you can drink from the glass or what it is. This is the scariest thing ever. And I don’t understand why I’m not [dead], because there are better souls than me to go. I thought I had to go. And so I fell on drugs and in bath houses to die. That I don’t have AIDS is a miracle from God. I don’t understand it. I really can not understand. Because I must have had HIV. Everyone did. Anyway, I had a nursing agency, and then the producer of a Prince film came in. It was Saturday, and he put a check under the door and said, “I’m here for Lee Daniels.” And he went, “Did you take care of my mother?”
Yes I know.
This 21-year-old child. And his mother was dying. And I have a nurse taking care of [him]. I’m really good at screening and the interview process. And so he said, “What do you really want to do?” And I didn’t know it was just pre-Spike Lee and post black-exploitation era. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I was directly attracted to art. And I said, “Well, I’m directing a theater.” He said, “Do you want to be show business?” I said, “Yes.” (Laughter.) And then literally, within weeks, I sold my nursing agency for a few million, knowing nothing about taxes.
Oh. Oh wow. Yes.
And I drove to the Warners lot, [on the Purple Rain set] with an armani suit, a Porsche, and a Newport cigarette coming in and just thinking I was shit. And I am a PA.
(Laughs.) Don’t take this as advice, everybody.
No. Neither do my children. It was tinape, and my children, poor children.
I heard they wanted to remove you, and Prince sent you back.
Yes. Because he knows the truth. He knows the truth.
Did you know him?
Intimate. He knew I knew. And suits won’t tell me. And I never – I’m my own boss. I’ve never worked for anyone, so I don’t really know how, like, “Who are you? OK, that’s nice. But this is the way.” You know what I mean? And so I was fired, and then he said, “No, bring him back.” I will be fired again. “Give him back.” And I was like, “OK, I’m sick of this job,” you know what I mean? I have money. I sold a nursing agency. I’m good. I could make a theater in the church. I was fine.And then he loved me, and we continued together in Under the Cherry Moon.
Did you stay in touch with him? When he died, were you still close?
No, no, no, but we had so many friends together. Lenny Kravitz is my best friend. And his friend Lenny. Maxwell, he knew Maxwell. Chaka Khan is a really good friend. Patti LaBelle. They are all friends. For some reason, I just, I don’t know. I don’t know what happened to his career as a filmmaker, because he was really talented in both films, I feel. But I don’t know what happened. I went my own way. We have a relationship, but we don’t get along.
You entered the casting …
Wait. Warners finally said, “OK, this kid likes it. We’re going to make him the leader of minority talent.” Now again, pre-Spike Lee, post black exploitation, is nothing happening to minority talent, you know? I know, they know. But they wanted to be good, which was nice to them at the time, really good. And I think I did something with Shelley Duvall called the Faerie Tale Theater, in Lorimar or something. Other than that, there’s really no work for me. I was just sitting there. But what they did, I was able to fly all over the country to watch plays, watch theater, which was super exciting. And I saw Morgan Freeman in Gospel and Colonus. Oh, I forgot to tell you something. Early in my career, Dreamgirls came into my life.
When you were 15?
I stole my mom’s car, 17. I stole my mom’s car, and I rode in El Dorado, and I drove to New York City. And I saw Dreamgirls, and that really changed my life. I knew it was theater, that’s what I was supposed to do.
So you’re in the casting.You became a manager.
I am a casting director. Then I became a manager. And to learn-I didn’t study film, but I thought I knew how to sell nurses. I went to watch all these incredible black people not work. I said, “I can do that. I’ll find you a job. “” What are you talking about? ” “It’s easy work.” And I made good money doing that, really good money doing that, especially in the days of TV, because you could get 15 percent, sometimes 20 if I was a scammer, you know, and put them on television shows.
Did you like that?
It’s frustrating because, you know, I want to be the one on the red carpet! (Laughter.)
Yes (Laughs.).
I hold the bag of who.
So the interesting thing is, you didn’t get that chance until you were, what, 41, when you made Monster’s Ball? And as a producer…
I managed for a while. I learned that the real money was in white people, because all whites were accepted.
You have Wes Bentley.
Nastassja Kinski really when I tasted it. Most of you are too young for –
Do you know Nastassja Kinski? No? Have you seen Tess of D’Urbervilles? Thank God. Hooray.
And then Michael Shannon, I got him his SAG card.
You have a big eye on artists.
Well, because I know. I have experienced the human condition. I think that’s my saving grace. That’s my school. And what I do, I learned on set what everyone’s job is. And I learned from management how to direct, because I lived on the set. And then I get tired of telling actors that there isn’t any work for them. It’s really embarrassing not to tell artists, especially African-Americans, that they are unemployed. One of the deepest actors in the world is a woman named Paula Kelly. She was at Women of Brewster Place. She is in Sweet Charity. He is one of the reasons why I am here today. A tour de force, a Meryl Streep, and unaware that she was a Meryl Streep, and offered nothing but maid roles, and she seemed to have none of it. And my determination to keep him working. And when I felt let down, I saw what is happening, injustice. I saw the injustices. I have not seen a race. Because I was protected at that school, where I had never experienced racism, so I didn’t know it existed. And if anything, I don’t know. I mean, I knew it had to be. But that school protected me in some way because they looked at me like I was like, it was cool to be around me, the high school that was. And so I get tired of telling people no. I said, “I’m going out. I will save my own money. I’m going to make my own movie. “And Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando and Sean Penn were attached to a movie that Sean was directing, I believe. I don’t know who was directing. And I think Queen Latifah [is] already attached to a movie called Monster’s Ball. The writers couldn’t do it because the studios wanted the kid to live, the heavyset kid, Halle Berry’s son. So I said, “OK, it’s time for change. “And change was very difficult. I remember I was very nervous about selling the nursing agency and very nervous to jump from management to [producing]. It was very secure for me.
Is change difficult for you?
Yes, it’s really hard.
Even if you have a big change in your life?
Mm-hmm. Its pain is as if that Band-Aid has been removed. Like a butterfly, it left the cocoon. Scary. For me, it is. But I said, “OK, let me make this change. Let me see if I can raise this money and make this film. ” And I know the same theories have been applied to what I saw on the streets. I saw everybody, every studio, everybody passed. They looked at me like I was crazy. I made friends with people, the game in the city of Hollywood – it was all a game. It’s all a game. It’s all a game. This is bull. You know, this is not true. And so I went to the streets to pick up the money. And the movie was made.
What do you mean you go to the streets? Aren’t you wandering the streets of Hollywood?
No. No. I did what I had to do to make the film and I’ll just let it go. Everything right?
Give us a clue.
No, I’m not giving you a clue. I’m on tape. But the film was made.
Let’s watch a clip.
[CLIP. APPLAUSE]
So why don’t you direct it?(Crying.) I don’t see my films after. I just stepped away. That was the first time I saw that. So let me take a moment to embrace that one.
Get ready for the Precious scene.
Come on, man. I will return to therapy. That was a hard thing to watch because it was really true to me. I was very clear to all of them, to Heath [Ledger], to Puffy [Sean Combs], to Billy Bob [Thornton], to all of them: “I don’t care what anyone says, this is what happens to be.” But I don’t really understand the technique and the things of directing. I used the cinematographer a few times afterwards. And I’m ashamed of how I behaved on set, honestly. And I didn’t share that with anyone. I don’t know what directing is. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what filming is. I knew it was in me and it had to come out.
What did you learn from doing so?
That I could direct.
Weren’t you sure then?
No. I know I know a little bit about a medium, a medium with a camera. I studied even more what everyone did, what the gaffer did. I was good in my mind about being confident about directing, but still not sure about it. And cocky too, you know. Really arrogant. Because when you’re off the streets, you have to put in this boldness that many of us usually do. And it’s up to me that I’m ashamed. Because it covered up so many African-American men being treated like nothing. I carried that energy and I was so embarrassed about it, about what I did. But I’m so happy about the performances that have come out of here and I’m so excited for the win to come out here [Halle Berry’s Oscar]. This is historic. Oddly, you know, by the end of it, I was on drugs, I was in the crack pipe, and Halle won an Oscar and I was at Chateau Marmont and she was like, “Are you going?” He said, “Big Daddy, are you going to the Vanity Fair party?” I never thought I deserved to be there. I have two fittings on my side with crack pipes. I said, “Let’s meet there, baby. I’m going.” And I have no intention of showing up. I didn’t think I was worthy to show up. My father told me I was not worthy to show up. That’s that experience. So when I see that movie, it brings everything back. But it brings back a high – I mean, not that kind of high. (Laughter.) It brings back a flood of memories, a learning experience. I didn’t like the person I was then.
Did you know?
Yes. Yes.
Good.
[APPLAUSE]
Ally Sheedy’s mom showed you Push –
He did.
– who became Precious.
How did you find out? Good for you.
I’ve read a lot before, you know.
Yes.
And you find out amazing things.
Isn’t it fascinating?
Yes.
I didn’t know that she was Ally Sheedy’s mother.
At that time?
Mm-mm.
You made your first film as a director, Shadowboxer.
I did something before that. I made Woodsman.
That’s right.
Because I still don’t feel like I am – has anyone seen Woodsman yet? This is good. This is really good. Kevin Bacon. But after that one, I couldn’t believe the things that were offered to me. Leprechaun From the Hood. Who’s My Baby’s Momma Part 4. (Laughter.) For me, “What the -?” I’m not joking. And so what, you know? And so I want to do more. At that point, I had kids and I wanted to do something. I am fascinated with pedophilia. So I left and made this film because I was always learning; it’s about learning. What can I learn? What can I learn in the process? And I can sort of tell, you know, what are the characters like. I left and did The Woodsman. It is a learning process.Every process. But we were reviewed very well and I think we won [an award at] Cannes though, which was exciting. The first time thing in Cannes. And then I thought I was shit and I made a movie called Shadowboxer with Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr., Macy Gray. Still on drugs. It’s so much there that it’s like crazy out-there. And that I saw. I saw it because I knew it was bad. But it’s not really bad.
No.
No no. It’s really not that bad. I went for it, you know.
It’s actually pretty interesting.
Yes, but they came for me. I’m not used to it – I’ve been reading reviews until then. Because it’s about evaluation.Now I know that if I could ever see my name, I would run. You don’t want to read it because you’re running. It stabs you hard.
I think the last review you read called you a hack and you were very angry. But not you.
My father told me I was. So this is a repetition. We are what you are. I have two kids and I’m just, “You are so beautiful. Do you know how beautiful you are? “That’s what I tell them.” You’re great. ” You have to tell them, you know. I know the power of the word and what it can do to you and what it has done to me. So I’m conscious about it, very conscious about it. So I did Shadowboxer and then I said, “I guess I can’t direct.”
Oh wow.
Because I read those reviews. I read reviews. I didn’t know not to read the reviews. I didn’t know not to read the reviews. Stupid ass. Because they can be wonderful, but it’s just a word. And it can be a glowing review. It only takes one word to make you fall. Supposedly, I am fetal position under the blanket holding a bottle of tequila. It’s crazy. You know what I mean?
Yes. So Ally Sheedy’s mom gives you a copy of the book.
Yes. I have that and a copy of a book called Iced by Ray Shell that I’ll probably do sooner or later. And they are both tour de forces. They both made me feel the way I feel. Iced did it because it was about the cracking experience and a black man and said it in vignettes. Brilliant, just brilliant. And Precious because it just reminded me of my family or I remembered my childhood. I’m not Precious, but I know so many Preciouses; I am a form of Precious. I knew it was something I could do with my eyes closed.
There was one amazing thing I read, that when you were young, a girl came to your door.
Yes. Angie.
He was horribly abused.
This is pretty normal though. Here’s the thing. There is nothing abnormal about it. The woman lived at the very top of our street, she went down, she was naked, she was beaten by her mother. She was eight, nine, she was only growing breasts and she was covered, but she was heavy. So the difficulty really covers oneself. I remembered feeling very awkward because she was sort of overweight. And he was covering himself and all you could see was the thick, thick [welts] – the extension cord hit him so deep and my mother couldn’t, my mother who had seen a lot of atrocity, she couldn’t – it does not penetrate. And we wrapped him in sheets and stuff. And literally, literally we need to know who will return him to his mother. Apparently, yes. His mother was shot. He was making a biscuit and a man shot him in the head. It’s crazy. It’s just insane.
Let’s take a look at a clip from Precious. This is the confrontation with Mariah Carey.
[CLIP. APPLAUSE]
I did not cry.
Why not?
Because it’s an f-king party. It’s funny that that movie played at the Magic Johnson Theater. The first time we showed it was in Harlem for an audience test. And it was played as, almost as a comedy, and it was all black people and I was like, it’s not supposed to be. You all laugh.
Wow.
I know some of them are funny, but come the f— on, you know? And then it played at Sundance where it was art. This is to show you. (Laughter.) And you’ll hear a pin drop. A pin. Like that. And it really goes to show you what a gray area we all live in and what we understand. And even the reviews, will never be seen by that one-someone behind that reviewer who is doing the review on this film-because I haven’t read anything in them. Whatever they said about the film, [they] would never see the lens as I look at the lens. Because they don’t live in my shoes. Because whatever I do will be true, it will come from [the heart], because I have smelled it, I have finished eating, I have tasted it, I have walked. This is me. And so yes.
[APPLAUSE]
Thanks. I have great memories of that, because I just remember like, [Monster’s Ball] was a hard one.We were a bit emotional there, but for the most part, happy – even Precious – we all knew it was a black experience that when Precious, in the first scene they threw her on the floor and she flew away, like she fell – it the reason I love him, I love everyone with me – he flew to the floor, the men pushed him, the bullies pushed him to the floor, he came down and he started singing, ironically, “Give Me Body,” by Reyna Latifah | I am with the author of [the book on which Precious is based], Sapphire. And he started laughing. And I started laughing. And then Mo’Nique started laughing. And the white AD said, “Sir. What’s funny? I just pushed this woman to the floor. “And yet I couldn’t understand what was funny. And then why are the writers laughing and why is Mo’Nique laughing? And so Gabby’s [actress Gabourey Sidibe] shoulders were hunching and he said , “I hope you’re happy, she’s crying.” I went down and said-you know, you’re guilty-“Now Gabby, you know we’re just trying, I’m trying to find out…” And she started laughing. And I said, ” Why are you laughing? “He said,” I’m a fat bitch on the floor, what do you think? “(Laughter.) It’s just a black thing. It’s definitely a black thing. And when I think of Mariah Carey and having her – literally, shaking her hands as I put her on the rayon – was like, “What do you have with me? Where’s my light? Where’s my makeup? What wig is this?” I can’t stop laughing. And I think Mo’Nique. I’m so comfortable because I’m able to do me and I’m able to have people that trust me to do me, that just give it and just give it.
But I think there are many—
It was a sexual experience. I say that when I do something and I do it to the best of my ability, it’s just as erotic. Because we are one, we’re making love without the physical act of making love. We are spiritually connected. It’s very powerful.
But there are crews who are not happy with you. You deleted your DP, you deleted your editor.
Yes.
At least half a dozen more people.
Yes. But that was only once. I fired an entire crew. Because they had no respect for me at the beginning of the show. They really have no respect for me. I would say, “This is what I want,” but some kids from NYU would tell me, “This is what they want.” I got, “OK, OK, good.” What I don’t understand is that it’s not over. They thought that when the train started running, it started running. But what they did not know was who was with them. Because that train stopped. And I replaced everything. You know what I mean?
Yes.
(Laughs.) Because it’s starting to look like a special afterschool. I said, “It doesn’t look right. Do you think it’s right?” I go, “And these costumes or this production, what’s going on here?” There is something wrong. And each day passes and I get nervous. I said, “No, stop the train.” And so I called the investors, I said, “Look, you want your money? We need to get rid of [them].” So I closed for a week and a half.We were worth a few million because of the cut-down, but it was worth it.We returned our money.They returned their money.
This is what, a $ 10 million movie?
Mm-hmm. It should be eight. But right, they returned their money, OK? A lot of money was returned.
There are times when you have to make an incredibly hard decision that makes you unpopular. When you cast it, you researched schools, looking for hundreds of women who would play Precious. I think you pick 10 and you put them in an actor’s boot camp.
I made.
And then you decide you want to start all over again. What happened? That was an amazing decision to me.
Even with Precious, the only reason why I cast her was because I felt that she was smart and she was the one on the floor laughing, where the others I would have taken advantage of [the moment]. At that point I was insightful enough to know that I didn’t want to take advantage of it. I felt that karmically it was coming back to me. And Gabby is on another level. He understands everyone’s humor. Because if you really look, if you really dissect, especially as an African-American, you’ll laugh. If you’re not laughing and dark, something’s wrong with you, because there’s some funny shit in there.
How would you direct someone like Mo’Nique?
Mo’Nique. That was the best experience of my life. Yung lang ay…You taught him to –
Shadowboxer. It’s very good, you know. I was with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and they were love interests. It’s a fun, fun moment, if you see them together. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and he were lovers and just beyond that. I laid them on the bed having sex. This is great. (Laughs.) The skinny white one and he, it’s so hot. This is great. Did you rehearse? Did you let him improvise?
No. Not really. This is very, very much what it is at the moment. I would say, “Now get the lotion on the table, because you have to wash your hands, you have to dry your hands. Your hands are dry. “” Don’t shave your armpit. “” Yellow your teeth. “It was written and then he would say something, I went,” OK. “I think so. I don’t know, it’s a little bit me adding lines in at the last minute, it’s her putting stuff in, it’s the script, it’s the set, it’s the other actors, I can’t articulate that.
Did he say no?
Definitely. The baby. He said not to the baby. [At one point in the film, he throws a toddler on the sofa.] Yes. Oh my, God.
The baby’s great.
Mongo. Mongo.
Mongo is what they call the child.
It’s hard. So wrong. This is wrong on every level.
And the child looks surprised.
But the kids were having fun because Mongo was mentally challenged and didn’t [understand], and Mo’Nique said, “Now listen, I can’t take this anymore, Lee. There is only a limit to what it is. I’m not throwing the kid. I smoked the child with a cigarette. “Social services were not on the set. We got them, we paid them. I learned from my grandmother how to play, you know what I mean? Because of that she was emitting smoke. cigarettes on this baby’s [face]. It’s serious. I’m so mean, I don’t know. So there’s the baby, there’s the cigarette, the ashes are falling. He’s trying not to hit the baby in the face, he’s trying to blow. the cigarette smoke the other way. And then I said, “Throw the baby away.” And he went, “What?” I said, “The kid doesn’t know. The kid’s Mongo.” I said, “I got a big fat cushion this big, it’s never [going to hurt].” And he said, “Lee!” I said, “Throw the child away.” And he won an Academy Award. (Laughter.)
Let’s look at another clip. This one’s Lee Daniels’ The Butler.
[CLIP. APPLAUSE]
You have 41 producers in this film.
How much money did I take to get [it]. I have to promise them all, you know. I told you I had to raise all my money. And so I had 41 this time.
Why do you think it is so hard to get the money?
I thought at this point Hollywood, especially Lionsgate – I just finished with Precious and won seven Academy Award nominations for them – that they would put a scary fence around me or something. It’s like I’m locked up. Deal or something, right? But the answer is still no. It’s, “They’re all flukes.” So the fighter in me was determined to come out and do it. And I did. And I’m proud of the film. I am proud of the film. My mom was like, “Dude, Precious, Monster’s Ball, like, Miss Jenkins at church says something’s wrong with you. Can you just make a movie that my housemates can watch?” And so it was. And shut up Miss Jenkins’ ass up. (Laughter.)
Some real challenges with this. You have a film that takes on a very long period of time with different stages, so it’s hard to keep a narrative. And it is based on the story of a real man. What is your direction with Danny Strong as a writer?
He wrote after I passed. He knows its structure. He had a great structure, because it was his story. He’s done a few things for HBO that’s brilliant. Game changes and more. He is really a historian. A brilliant writer, brilliant historian. But again, just understanding the nuance of the African-American experience and understanding the gray area at all. And Gloria [Oprah Winfrey’s role] hasn’t really formed yet. For me, the matriarch is always there. This country was built on black women. Getting Oprah not to be her and kind of being another chick is deep and it’s great. And I enjoy it.I’m glad to have – you think you know someone, but you don’t really know that person. And that’s something that really inspires me.
But it wasn’t easy to get him to that point. I mean he said at the time he gave you a lot of resistance.
Did he say it?
Or maybe you already said that.
Oh did I? I think there was a moment [that] was hard for him to [do]. That’s why I’m not going to take any of his money for [production]. I refused, because I had to be a manager, and I knew there was no way I was going to be in charge if he was a producer or anything. He has to be an actor. He has to be one of the people. And he did. He really did. I mean everybody – when I’m making a movie, because I’m from the theater, everyone comes in. If you don’t put on your own makeup, if you don’t help other people with their makeup or if you don’t help them with their costumes, if you ain’t craft services, I’m not messing with you. Because the only ego, I learned at this point, is the material.That is the only ego at stake at this point. And so is Oprah, oh it’s awesome. I just liked the sarcasm of him. I became like, not a bully, but – I can’t explain it. There’s a cut scene [where] he was doing Cecil’s laundry and he couldn’t do the laundry. It was like a Lucy episode. It’s like, “You put on soap, then you put on bleach, then you put on your fabric softener. Don’t you know how to separate whites from dark?” And finally he yelled at me. He said, “I haven’t done laundry in 30 years.” (Laughter.) I said, “What do you mean, you haven’t done laundry in 30 years?” And I realized it was Oprah. And then I started yelling, “He hasn’t done laundry in 30 years, all of you! He hasn’t done laundry in 30 years.” And she became a surrogate big sister and it turned out to be fun. It was just fun. If we’re not a family on set it’s really not fun, it’s not worth it. Not really, you know. The reason you saw me cry so hard at Monster’s Ball was because it was painful: I knew what I wanted and it was painful to get. But all the other experiences were remarkable. And even that Monster’s Ball was so much fun. It’s just different.
We haven’t even gotten to the Empire yet Will there be a spinoff? You discussed that there will be a big change by the end of this season.
Mm-hmm. There will be.
Does it have a title?
It will take place in Vegas.
How involved are you there in the Empire spinoff.
I do not know. I do not know. I mean, how many of me have to go around? I need to make a movie.
You have two series.
Yes. And I’m making a movie.
What is the movie?
I can not say. But I’m making a movie. I am so excited about it. I was very, very excited about it.
Give us a clue what it’s about or.
I really can not do it. Because it’s so close to, it’s a news. But there are some movies I do.
Will you make Richard Pryor’s film at some point?
I don’t know what’s going on there.
And Terms of Endearment.
Terms of Endearment possible. Again, with Oprah. But it was happening in the ’80s. I really wanted to explore-I had to tell stories that were important to me, and in the ’80s, so many African-American women died, because so many black men-because the church said so, because your dad said so, because it said of your neighbors, they say you can’t be gay. And so you interact with men in DL who infect African-American women. It’s no longer a gay disease, it’s about women dying. Black women are dying in bushels here in the United States. So in the ’80s, so I wanted to do Flap gay, DL, infect Debra Winger’s character, and then, you know. So we explored the ’80s in a different way by …
I want to see you do that.
I think. Don’t you think?
OK. Questions?
QUESTION: I’m looking at your Instagram – good username, by the way.
The Original Big Daddy.
QUESTION: And I saw that you gave a shoutout to Moonlight and Issa Rae’s Insecure, and I thought that: you’re clearly influenced by your own personal experience, but are you influenced by the other contemporary films coming out today?I am. And one of the films that inspired me, too – a couple of them whispered to me – was the French film Elle. And then Arrival is breathtaking. Breathtaking. And there’s a Korean Film called Handmaiden that I simply was, I was blown away, simply blown away by it.
QUESTION: When it comes to creativity and work you’ve done, do you find it more difficult to work within deals with Fox or within major film studios?
I have never worked in a movie studio. So that’s it. I guess I have. Television studios. [But that] really was jarring, because I was so used to calling the shots and then there’s so many executives that are there that it’s another part of my brain. I did this so I could learn how to work with people, because I became a better collaborator. I think you’re too late – it’s important to understand that it’s not just you or the actors. Because I only care about the artists, writers, and crew. It’s fun to have people who have nothing to do with the [creative side], but they have [money], people’s money finally has something to say about it. So it was fascinating and it was a learning experience for me. What can I learn? That’s what I learned working with Star and Empire.
QUESTION: I like how you implemented the music industry in these two shows. So I was wondering what kind of musical background you have that might have influenced the making of these shows, and also how you feel about the new aspiring artists, what they can do to come up with something on the table?
My kids give me all the information about who. I don’t know.I didn’t know Puffy when I cast him in Monster’s Ball or Mos Def. [My knowledge] stops with Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, I think. But my kids keep me up to date, and my partner, who is younger than me, keeps me informed about what’s going on on the streets. I mean, I know a good song when I hear something. I know what makes me tap my foot and what I think people want to answer.
QUESTION: What advice can you give to the next artists, since I am myself?
To be original. What I don’t like about artists today, with singers and things today, is that everything has to be perfect. And I find that everything’s so overproduced, everything is so, wind-machine and this all, and the originality [is rare], Amy Winehouses is very rare. Back in the day, Aretha Franklin wasn’t afraid to show she had a missing tooth – there was no shade for Aretha because she was the queen. But he had no problem sweating on stage and spitting on stage. He gives you courage. And that’s what I think is missing now in both cinema as well as in singing.
QUESTION: I just want to thank you for coming and talking to us today. I feel, your works and your journey are very inspiring to me, especially as a young black filmmaker. What is your biggest hurdle in the entertainment industry right now?
Myself. Learned to love myself, learned to believe in myself. You know, I just did that out of revenge on my dad, to show him I was going to be something. I mean, it’s about safety, showing him, but knowing deep down that I don’t deserve it. So yeah, I think that myself would be, I am my worst enemy. But, I’m learning, so I’m in therapy now. And I want to do something about that, because, you know, black people don’t believe in therapy. I was like, all of a sudden I’m 57 and I’m going to therapy. That’s some heavy stuff, you know?
Saturday 19th February 2022
‘Built with spectator in mind’ World’s best destination for F1 holidays for value
Why Our Economic Behavior Isn’t Always Rational NPR
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
SHANKAR VEDANTAM: From NPR, it’s HIDDEN BRAIN. I am Shankar Vedantam. When the crisis hits, people go into survival mode. Some persist, putting self -interest and self -care above the welfare of others. We see this in the COVID-19 pandemic.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: At the end of the day, I won’t let this stop me from partying. You know, I’ve been waiting – we’ve been waiting for Miami spring break for a while.
VEDANTAM: Some people refuse to wear masks in stores.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNKNOWN PEOPLE #2: It’s become a fairly familiar scene across the country – people become physical because of wearing masks inside stores. It is necessary, but unfortunately …
VEDANTAM: And there are those who even buy medical equipment to sell at a profit.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Agents are investigating 43-year-old Baruch Feldman for allegedly storing medical supplies, including masks and gowns, and selling them to doctors and nurses …
(MUSIC SOUNDBITE)
VEDANTAM: However, at the same time, we are also seeing another kind of response – people looking for ways to help each other. Erika Strauss Chavarria is a teacher at a Spanish high school in Columbia, Md.
ERIKA STRAUSS CHAVARRIA: My students call me Chav.
VEDANTAM: In March, he launched a grassroots network called Columbia Community Care to provide food and other essential products to people in need.
CHAVARRIA: We typically serve about 100 people per site per day. We also have a home grocery delivery service. And we have served, at this point, over 1,500 families in that capacity.
(MUSIC SOUNDBITE)
VEDANTAM: A lot more like Erika. Someone in Texas donated more than $ 9,000 in a dinner bill to help restaurant staff.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Only one message is written on the receipt. It says, hold on to pay your guys over the next few weeks. The tipster is a regular …
VEDANTAM: A retired farmer in Kansas sent N95 to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANDREW CUOMO: He sent a mask – a mask to New York to help a nurse or a doctor. How beautiful is that? I mean, how selfless are you?
VEDANTAM: Think of this man who donated a mask and the one who stored the mask. In almost every field, our public and economic policies are designed with the assumption that most of us will behave like selfish people. We make laws and policies to contain misconduct and rule violations. One thing we rarely ask – what effect does this have on the man who donated the mask, on people like Erika? This week on HIDDEN BRAIN, why economic models of selfish behavior regularly don’t describe how people actually behave. And later on in the show, could policies made with only selfishness in mind have a bad effect on some of us?
(MUSIC SOUNDBITE)
VEDANTAM: In 2015, I spoke with behavioral economist Richard Thaler in front of a live audience at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington, D.C. Richard is a professor at the University of Chicago and he is the author of the books “Nudge” and “Misbehaving.” Recently, he also won the Nobel Prize in economics.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
VEDANTAM: I want to start by asking Richard a really soft-ball question. Your friend whose name is Daniel Kahneman – he won the Nobel prize in economics a few years ago – is a world -famous psychologist, brilliant author. And Danny Kahneman was once asked to describe Richard Thaler to a journalist. And Richard’s dominant trait, the one that makes him stand out, is that Richard is lazy.
(LAUGHTER)
VEDANTAM: Can you tell me, Richard, why Danny said that and why he insisted it was a compliment?
RICHARD THALER: What’s worse is A, Danny is my best friend and B, he says it’s my best quality.
(LAUGHTER)
THALER: So far, Danny has been defending it.And he defends A, which is true, and B, which is a compliment because he says that means I’m just willing to work on things that matter. The truth is I’m just willing to work on things that are fun. And so I’m here now because I think we’re going to be happy.
VEDANTAM: I think that’s right. So I first talked to Richard maybe about 10 years ago. I will just ask that you give us a very brief introduction. What are the economics of behavior, and why has it had such a splash, or why has it become controversial over the past 15 or 20 years? How is it different than garden-variety economics?
THALER: You know, maybe once in your distant past, you all had economics class. And you know that the common economy assumes that people are highly rational beings capable of complex calculations, without emotions, never having any self -control problems. And they are absolute jerks. So I call these fictional creatures econ (ph). That’s short for Homo economicus (ph) …
(LAUGHTER)
THALER: … The Latin word. And I believe that for the past 50 or 60 years, economists have devoted themselves to the study of fictional creatures. Maybe they are also studying unicorns because there is no econ. Well, there are some economists I know closely. But basically, they don’t. And so we have very good models of fictional creatures. And people I know have a hard time figuring out how to split a check if there are more than three people …
(LAUGHTER)
THALER: … Sometimes – just once – eating too much or drinking too much, it’s hard to save for retirement. And, contrary to economic theory, at least some are willing to donate to National Public Radio …
(LAUGHTER)
THALER: … What any economist will tell you is a completely unreasonable thing to do because you can listen to it for free.
(LAUGHTER)
VEDANTAM: So when I first talked to Richard about 10 years ago, it was for a topic called mental accounting. And Richard explained to me that mental accounting is something we all do in daily life, and one of the things I noticed was that once Richard started speaking, I started thinking of examples. from my own life where mental accounting plays. , really big role. Let me just start by telling us what mental accounting is, Richard.
THALER: So the basic concept of economics is that money is fungible, meaning there are no labels on it. There’s a video of Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman talking. And Gene Hackman tells this story when they were young actors. Hackman visits Dustin Hoffman in his small apartment in Pasadena. Dustin Hoffman asked him to borrow money. And then Hackman went to his kitchen, and he saw these mason jars with labels. And one is rent, and the other is utility, and not in jars labeled food.
(LAUGHTER)
THALER: And so Hackman says, you don’t need money. You have a lot of money in all these jars. And Hoffman says, yes, but not in the food jar. And so that’s mental accounting, right? And before, it seems, certainly in my grandparents ’generation, that’s literally what people did. But we still do it almost in our heads. And it can do us all sorts of funny things.
VEDANTAM: So one of the things that happened over the years was Richard actually played as a psychotherapist for a lot of people who approached him with economic problems. And I will definitely do the same thing here. One of the things I noticed about myself, my husband and I, we share our finances. So we have a joint checking account. We kind of draw from the same pool of money. But I’ve noticed that when I go to restaurants, I really like when my husband pulls out his credit card and pays the bill. Now, I’m still effectively paying for it.
(LAUGHTER)
VEDANTAM: But it significantly increases my enjoyment of food …
(LAUGHTER)
VEDANTAM: … No need to issue my own credit card.
THALER: OK, so okay. So here’s something that would be even better.
VEDANTAM: Yes.
THALER: Assuming you and your spouse trust each other …
VEDANTAM: Yes.
THALER: … I recommend that everyone take separate checking accounts.VEDANTAM: What?
THALER: You can still – my wife and I have this arrangement. So each has a separate checking account and joint checking account. And splurges-if I buy myself a new set of golf clubs I really need, or he buys his fourth camera …
VEDANTAM: Right.
THALER: … Because he travels the world taking pictures, I don’t see that.
VEDANTAM: So splurges show up in your individual checking accounts.
THALER: Exactly. And gifts. So if your husband takes the tab, it will come from his account.
VEDANTAM: That’s even better.
THALER: Even better.
VEDANTAM: That’s really a good idea.
THALER: And, I mean, it’s a recipe for marital reconciliation.
(LAUGHTER)
VEDANTAM: One of the findings of mental accounting is that people keep their head in mind about how much money they have to earn on an annual basis or monthly basis or even once on a daily basis. And one of the things you explained to me might explain why it’s sometimes hard to take a cab on a rainy night. Can you tell us why mental accounting can be more difficult for us to ride taxis on rainy nights?
THALER: So this is a study we did with some friends of mine long ago in New York. And we ride a lot of taxis, and we talk to cabdrivers. And we’ll ask them, how do you decide how long to work? They rented a cab for 12 hours, which was a long time to drive to Manhattan. And then they have to withdraw it within 12 hours. And many of them will say, what we do – I set a target. So renting a cab cost me 100 bucks, and then I had to fill the tank. Let’s say another 25 bucks. So I want to make a certain amount on top of that– say $ 100. And when I hit that, I’m going home.
Now, the implication of that is that on days like the rainy season, where there’s a lot of demand, they reach their target early, and they go home. Now, what does an econ do? An econ will take more than just busy days. And on a sunny day when no one needs a taxi because they are walking, he himself will go out for a walk. Again, if we are going back to your husband’s fellowship, imagine that the man comes home at 2 pm, and his wife says, why did you come home so early? And he said, because I’m not making money. right? I mean, it doesn’t end well.
VEDANTAM: No, no. That’s right.
THALER: So you have to get out there and drive three hours, burn gas, not make a profit.
VEDANTAM: Right. But the interesting thing, of course, is that the average economy can predict that people will actually act rationally – that they will actually work more when demand is higher, and they will work less when demand is higher. is less. And, of course, what we see is exactly the opposite.
THALER: Exactly.
VEDANTAM: One of the interesting implications of mental accounting is where – the source of people’s money ends up changing how they spend money. So there was a study by Viviana Zelizer, I believe at Princeton University, looking at prostitutes in Oslo. And what he found out was that sex workers were willing to spend the money they received in the form of welfare checks or other types of, you know subsidies, on things like rent and valuables. But they spent the money they earned from sex work – they were more likely to spend that on drugs and alcohol. The source of money determines how you actually spend the money.
I saw a clip from a video. It’s called “Welcome To Me,” starring comedian Kristen Wiig, about a woman who suddenly wins a large sum. And I will play the clip for you. And I want you to talk about this idea. So if possible, play the video, please.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Fourteen. There are 57, 15 and 54 and 39.
UNKNOWN ACTOR #2: (As character) Thanks for calling the California Lottery. If you call to report a win, just say, I win, anytime.
KRISTEN WIIG: (As Alice Klieg) I win anytime.
WES BENTLEY: (As Gabe Ruskin) What’s your name?
WIIG: (As Alice Klieg) My name is Alice Klieg.I won $ 86 million.
JOAN CUSACK: (As Dawn Hurley) Do you think he really won the lotto? Seriously, can anyone Google that?
JAMES MARSDEN: (As Rich Ruskin) You should be the big winner. Hi. Im rich.
WIIG: (As Alice Klieg) Me too.
I want a talk show with me as the host.
JENNIFER JASON LEIGH: (As Deb Mosely) Want to talk about current events?
WIIG: (As Alice Klieg) No.
BENTLEY: (As Gabe Ruskin) What kind of thing do you want to talk about?
WIIG: (As Alice Klieg) I do. How much will that cost?
MARSDEN: (As Rich Ruskin) Fifteen million dollars.
WIIG: (As Alice Klieg) Oh, and I want to get on a swan boat.
TIM ROBBINS: (As Dr. Daryl Moffet) You’re off your meds. You live in a casino reservation. And you host your own talk show.
WIIG: (As Alice Klieg) It’s a new era – $ 86 million Alice.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As a character) We will live with five, four, three …
MARSDEN: (As Rich Ruskin) What is he doing?
CUSACK: (As Dawn Hurley) I think she’s a little frozen.
BENTLEY: (As Gabe Ruskin, whispering) You’re on TV right now.
WIIG: (As Alice Klieg) Hello. I am Alice Klieg, and welcome to me.
VEDANTAM: So, Richard, why is this? Why when we receive money from certain sources, the way we think about spending money dramatically changes?
THALER: You know, one of my colleagues – my fellow troublemakers – was David Laibson, who was chairman of the Harvard economics department. He was one of my former protégés. Now, you know – anyway.
(LAUGHTER)
THALER: Some of my friends had a barbecue for me a few weeks ago because I had a big birthday. And he told the following story. A group of us were invited to Washington – about 15 years ago, when David was a struggling young assistant professor – and did something for the National Institutes of Health. And they give us a $ 200 honorarium for that day.So I said, you know, it’s ridiculous. We don’t work $ 200 a day. We need to go out and spend this money on dinner. And so we went out and had dinner – you could have gotten a good dinner for $ 200 15 years ago. Now, David is not happy about spending $ 200 on dinner. And he now claims it was over 300 when I ended up on alcohol.
(LAUGHTER)
THALER: But, you know, this is my way of thinking, I’m not going to work for $ 200, but I’m happy to have a good dinner as a result of helping the NIH.
VEDANTAM: Yes. So studies have also found, for example, that if you want to reward employees at the end of the year, giving them a cash bonus is very different than giving them a vacation, even if you give them of the same amount of money – you give them, say, $ 500 as a bonus versus $ 500 as a vacation – people report that they are happier when you give them a vacation than when you give them money.
THALER: Yes.
VEDANTAM: Why is that?
THALER: Well, because if you give them a break, they’ll lose their guilt. I rediscovered it last week with my daughter, and I was wrong. And it’s a mistake that I, of all people, shouldn’t make, but I have good reason. And I have good intentions. So my son is a Mets fan, and one of the Mets pitchers is a neighbor. So he’s an avid Mets fan, and I thought it would be nice to buy him two tickets to one of the first round games when his neighbor was building. But it is – I finally got this idea.
So I went online, and I found out I could get tickets for $ 400. And – but I didn’t have time to buy tickets and send them to him, so I sent him an email with a link to this website that says, take a look. It looks like you can get tickets for 400 each. I’ll send you $ 1,000. Buy two tickets on this website. And he has already expressed intense excitement about going into this game. So I sent him that email. I recovered the text – LOL. This is like one of the examples from your book.
(LAUGHTER)
THALER: If you send me $ 1,000, I won’t spend it on baseball tickets.
(LAUGHTER)
THALER: So – now, he would have been happy if I had sent him the tickets. For sure, they would have gone to the game.But I sent him $ 1,000, nothing. So I didn’t send him a thousand.
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VEDANTAM: In the 1970s, Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel conducted a series of experiments that became known as the marshmallow test. Small children are placed in a room and told they can get a marshmallow right away, but if they stay in the room and don’t eat a marshmallow, they get a second. Children who tried not to eat the first marshmallow thought of ways to distract themselves. It’s fun to watch these kids in the video.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: All right, here’s the deal – marshmallows for you. You can wait, and I’ll give you another one if you wait. Or you can eat it now. When I come back, I’ll give you another one, for you two. But you stay here and stay in the chair until I come back, OK?
VEDANTAM: I played Richard Thaler a video of a marshmallow test being conducted where a little boy tries not to eat the marshmallow placed in front of him. At one point, he lovingly leaned on the marshmallow and took a deep breath and then sadly looked away.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: How’d you do? Did you do well? You did?
UNKNOWN CHILD: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: You want to eat this, don’t you? Yes. So did I say I’ll give you another one?
VEDANTAM: The excited boy crashes the same marshmallow, chipmunk-style, into his mouth.
(LAUGHTER)
VEDANTAM: So talk about self-control, Richard. Why did classical economics ignore the idea that people have a problem with self -control?
THALER: So economic theory says, we optimize and that we always choose what’s best for us, so that includes self-control. And just so you know, in these experiments, if you’d rather have two marshmallows than one, you should be willing to wait 10 minutes. But as, you know, obviously, kids have less self -control than adults. So this experiment amplifies. But what you get from those videos, the essential videos, is the really important idea, that self -control is work. Resisting temptation is work. This is important.
You know, 30% of Americans are obese. Half of Americans are not saving enough for retirement. So this is a huge problem that we face, as a society. And they are, at their core, because self -control is difficult. In some of these marshmallow experiments, they used Oreos. And my favorite of these – on one condition, there was a child, and he had three Oreos in front of him. And he can have one now. But he was looking at the three. And what he does is, as soon as the man comes out of the room, he opens the Oreos, licks the middle and then puts them back.
(LAUGHTER)
THALER: And I have deep suspicions – it was done many years ago at Stanford. I’m sure Bernie Madoff was that guy.
(LAUGHTER)
VEDANTAM: Thank you all very much. And thanks to Richard Thaler.
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VEDANTAM: That was behavioral economist Richard Thaler speaking at a live event we recorded together in 2015. Back then, what did we lose when we let go of the notion that people are inherently rational and personal interests that shape economic and public policy, and what we stand to achieve by focusing on the well-being of the people.
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VEDANTAM: I am Shankar Vedantam. And you’re listening to HIDDEN BRAIN. This is NPR.
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VEDANTAM: It’s HIDDEN BRAIN. I am Shankar Vedantam. Both during crisis and in normal times, public policy is often focused on preventing bad people from doing bad things. This makes sense if you assume that people are primarily driven by selfishness. In this worldview, the job of the government is to be a bad cop, a force to blow with knives and villains.
Behavioral economist Sam Bowles thinks this is a mistake.He worries that such policies not only underestimate the capacity of most people to do right but may inadvertently damage our ability to do the right of others. He researched this idea in his book, “The Moral Economy.”
SAM BOWLES: I think one of the really remarkable things is that in policy-making circles, you’re considered brilliant and realistic if you say, listen; everyone is selfish. We need to treat the citizen, the taxpayer, the employee and so on as if he or she is completely selfish because, otherwise, we might be a chump. Or we may be exploited and so on. So people who don’t really believe think you should continue this assumption of Homo economicus because it’s prudent.
Maybe there are people like that really. And so we better be careful. And therefore, we will design policies and so on that make sure everyone is like that. David Hume, a philosophical economist in the 18th century – just before Adam Smith – said that in designing a government, you have to assume that everything is a knave – he used the ancient word, a knave – and no in mind but the pursuit of his own interests.
VEDANTAM: We will talk a lot about how values and standards and beliefs shape our economic, professional and civic lives. But I want to put a caveat. One thing to say is that feelings and values and preferences are important. It is another thing to think that feelings and values can explain everything.
So I was always motivated by self -interest. There are two gas stations across the street from each other in my neighborhood, and one continues to be more expensive than the other. Why? I do not know. When I first moved into the neighborhood, Sam, I stopped at the more expensive station. But once I noticed the price difference, I never went back. So you can take the Homo economicus model too far. But maybe, you can also take its mirror image too far, right?
BOWLES: Really. And the work that needs to be done is to find ways of organizing our economy and our public policy not so that we can rely only on self-interest and certainly not so that we can rely only on our appreciation of others but we can rely on both. . . And we must design policies so that the two aspects of our personality work together in a synergistic or complementary way.
That’s what Adam Smith was talking about. His two great books are “The Wealth Of Nations,” as it is known, but also “The Theory of Moral Sentiments.” But what economists took from Smith was prosperity by the way of competition, and they put aside the idea that there was a culture necessary for that system to work. He thought we should combine material interests with moral feelings, and he thought there was a way to do that.
So I think, yes, the idea that you can replace the selfish interest system of competition in markets for profits etc. with a completely different system based on, essentially, considerations of others – I mean , this is clearly wrong. I mean, the whole world can’t be fixed as if it’s just a little camping trip.
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VEDANTAM: At the same time, there are also consequences when we move away in the other direction and imagine a world full only of freeloaders, delinquents and selfishness. The steps we take to reduce selfishness can have bad consequences on the rest of us.
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VEDANTAM: About two decades ago the Boston Fire Department was having a problem. Administrators are concerned that workers are abusing the sick leave policy. And at that time, workers could take unlimited sick hours, so administrators changed the policy.
BOWLES: They noticed that call-ins for sick days happened on Fridays and Mondays, and that didn’t seem to make sense to them. So they told firefighters that they would have a limited number of sick days, and if they called more often than that, their salary would be docked. And the firefighters felt they were not trusted.Most of them are certainly not really calling sick when they are not. They were a little angry with the fire commissioner.
It happened before Christmas, and what happened on Christmas Day called them to masses. The same thing happened on New Year’s Day. Meanwhile, those calling many of the sick at Christmas and New Year have canceled their bonuses. And the battle went on for more than a year. The number of sick call-ins doubled in the year following until the commissioner finally realized he had made a big mistake, and he canceled the policy.
VEDANTAM: I understand that there are almost 7,000 more sick days taken than taken last year following the implementation of these harsh policies.
BOWLES: Yeah, that’s right – from about six to over 13. And the interviews with the firefighters were really touching. I mean, they say, look. You know, we go to work when we’re sick. We are at risk of injury and so on. And this person says that importantly, we selfishly call when we are not in pain. Well, certainly some of them are. Looks like some of them are. But the problem is that applying that policy across the board backfired. Now, why did it backfire? Well, maybe, for those who are really self -interested and call in pain when they don’t, a policy like this is necessary. But what about the other 95%? Well, it just had a horrible effect on their morale and their sense of obligation to the fire commissioner and the fire department.
So that’s a problem we face today in society, which is that in thinking about trying to motivate people to do things, incentives are often suggested as a way of doing it. That is, if you do it – whatever it is – you will pay more. And we hear about incentives for kids to read books and for weight loss, even incentives for voting. And recently in Germany, someone suggested that we have incentives – monetary incentives related to distance from other people because of the COVID -19 pandemic and so on.
So with almost nothing without an example, we can actually design some incentives to fix this. Today, that is a perspective that dominates policy making and also jurisprudence. And the whole field of law and economics and public policy is focused on the idea that we can design an incentive to encourage right behavior.
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VEDANTAM: I was also surprised at the fact that the policies implemented by the Boston fire department changed the frame around which people think about what a day of illness means. So when pain time is limitless, your thinking is, OK. I will have sick time if I am sick or if I am injured, and I will take as much time as I need. When I was told, you can now only have 15 days, and if you go beyond that, they will punish you, now I’m starting to think, OK. I’d better use those 15 days. If I’m not really sick but near the end of the year, I’ll be gone by that time. I better call sick. Of course, unintentionally, but the frame changed the way I started to think about what it means to get sick and what it means to have time to get sick.
BOWLES: That’s exactly what happened, or at least that’s the best explanation I can get about it. But here’s another one where I think the way you put it as a framing problem is exactly right. In Haifa, Israel, there are a group of day care centers – about a dozen of them. And the children came in the morning, and the parents picked them up at night. And as it happened, there were parents who arrived late. And they decided to fine the parents who were caught.
Well, fun for economic science, a couple of behavioral economists know this. And so they say, now, wait. Wait. Wait. Let’s just do it in half of the day care centers and not the other half so we can have a good experiment. So sure enough, one day the parents came, dropped off their kids. And with notice.It said, starting tomorrow, anyone who picks up their child more than 10 minutes late will be fined 10 Israeli shekels. And then they recorded. They record what happened last week, and then they record how many people came late to day care centers with fines and where there were no fines.
What happened was amazing. In places where there were no fines, nothing happened. They went on – there were really a handful. Of the fines imposed on parents who were late, the amount of late was doubled. What now? How can you explain that? The fine should get them to arrive on time to pick up their children.
Now, if you think about it – I mean, there are many possible interpretations of what happened. But what you just said, Shankar, about framing seems to be the most likely explanation, which-parents frame the coming lead or come early to take their children as the important moral question- I mean, probably not high morale. But you should pick up your child on time because your child may be anxious, because the teachers might want to go home and be with their children or – something like that. OK. Sometimes there’s too much traffic, and you’re late. But this is a moral question.
Once you put a price, then it is like a commodity. It’s a shirt or a beer. Step up. Want to get some lag? Here you can get it. It only costs 10 Israeli shekels. So I think they made this thing from an ethical problem to, more or less, a self -interest problem. And apparently, 10 Israeli shekels isn’t a big enough fine to really cause them to do anything different.
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VEDANTAM: Researchers have discovered that different parts of the brain may be involved in weighing those problems. Ethical judgments are not processed in the same way as cost -benefit equations.
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BOWLES: Our brain is, obviously, these regions that do certain things. Processing benefits and costs is something we’re pretty good at, and it does that in one part of the brain. And there are other things that have to do with feelings, obligations and so on. But the fact that just putting money on the table will transfer brain activity to the prefrontal cortex, where you process benefits and costs and so on, is really a remarkable finding. So it suggests that, you know, that’s how we are. And we’re unlikely to change, so we better accommodate that.
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VEDANTAM: One of the sad things you notice about Haifa’s day care story is what happened when day care reversed the fine policy. So obviously, it backfired. And then the administrators reversed the policy and said, OK, we’ll remove the fines. What happened then, Sam?
BOWLES: That’s an amazing thing. When they removed the fine, the lag remained in schools – in day care centers with fines. Control schools – control centers don’t – it has no effect. But – now, just to get it – I say it again because it’s not common. When they imposed the fine for being late, the parents came later. And when they removed the fine, they continued going later. Why, why is that?
Well, I think the story about framing is exactly what happened. It used to be an ethical question. You must arrive on time. They tried. Sometimes they didn’t. Once it became a matter of just stepping in and buying a little lag if you like, that didn’t change after they removed the fine. Still for them – they’ve been told, oh, this is what I can buy. And only now can I buy it for free because for some reason, they hijacked the price.
VEDANTAM: (Laughter) I wonder if you have friends in the economy department who might say that the problem in Haifa is not because they entered fines but the fines are not enough; that in some ways, the incentive is not strong enough. If you actually made it – instead of 10 shekels, if you made it 200, you know, everything came on time because at that point, no one thought 15 minutes was worth 200 shekels.
BOWLES: I think that’s right.But I think that objection is perfectly correct, that there is some level of monetary incentive that will lead people to abide by the rules. It just means that because you start by crowting out ethical motivation, which is why they come on time – most of them – in the first place.
VEDANTAM: Right.
BOWLES: So you start, really, in the hole by destroying what Adam Smith calls moral sentiments. Now, the fact that you can pay for it with a huge fine or, you know, severe penalties – of course you can do that. punishment, especially if we can find ways to mobilize people’s desire to be a good citizen, to be good to their fellow man, to be considerate of their teachers and so on.
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VEDANTAM: When we return, what can we do to create policies that appeal to our better angels instead of our demons.
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VEDANTAM: You’re listening to HIDDEN BRAIN. I am Shankar Vedantam. This is NPR.
This is HIDDEN BRAIN. I am Shankar Vedantam. Sam Bowles is a behavioral economist at the Santa Fe Institute. He argues that policies designed to prevent bad behavior can actually work better if they are outlined instead to encourage good behavior. One idea that Sam explored has to do with the concepts of crowding out and crowding in. To explain these concepts, he told a story about his own children. He wanted to give them an incentive to do household chores, and he turned to the mainstream economy for a solution.
BOWLES: My kids helped a lot at home, and they did a lot. I am a single father, and they are great. And when they were teenagers, they started shopping for clothes and a lot of things like that. And I thought, well, you know, a great way to accommodate this is that – instead of them just doing things around the house, cleaning the dishes and helping me in so many ways, I’m going to take out price list. And then they can get paid for things they used to do for free.
VEDANTAM: (Captive).
BOWLES: Of course, I thought it was a brilliant idea. And we agreed on the price list. This seems reasonable. I posted it in the refrigerator. And what happened? Nothing. They stopped working altogether. They did nothing. And they’re not selfish because like I say, they help me a lot, do a lot of work. But when it comes to fees, it doesn’t seem the same. Now, it’s true, you know, when a particular item they want to buy – well, then they can take the lawn. But they ended up doing less than before. And I have to stop the thing and say, let’s go back to doing things together. Now, I wonder if your audience is thinking, oh, my God – the poor kids, that there’s an economist for a father.
VEDANTAM: (Captive).
BOWLES: And I think there probably is – there’s a lot wrong with having an economist for a father. And I talked to the kids about it. They don’t really have a good explanation for what happened, but looking back now, I think this is what happened. They really enjoyed doing things together around the house, and they thought they should help me. They don’t want to see me doing all this stuff alone.
And so it was something they both enjoyed and felt some obligation to do. But when I offered to pay them for it, they thought differently about it, and made it something to choose from. So I think I made a mistake that Adam Smith never did, which is to treat moral emotions – that is, the ideas of value in contributing to others and so on – to treat them as if they are separate from or additive only. to incentives arising from material interest and money.
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VEDANTAM: Sam’s incentives are weakening his daughters, but it doesn’t have to be this way. You can design incentives to work with the real pride and satisfaction people take in doing the right thing.Effectively designed, Sam said incentives can reinforce, or multiply, such motives. In Ireland in 2002, for example, the government wanted to reduce the number of plastic bags used by people. They provided an incentive but first made an appeal to national pride.
BOWLES: It was preceded by a big campaign about how these bags are ugly and Ireland is beautiful. And there’s an advertising campaign – don’t throw away Emerald Isle and things like that. And then the matter was introduced. This is a very small additional cost. And within two weeks, the use of plastic bags for shopping was almost completely eliminated. Now, think about it. That case is very similar to parents who when fined come late instead of forming and come earlier. In Ireland, when you had to pay for the use of a plastic grocery bag, they stopped using it.
And so we can learn something in that case. Why is that different from the day care case? Because the results are opposite. Let’s just think about it. If you are late to pick up your child for day care, you are one of the few people who are late. The only other people who see you late are the other parents who pick up their children late …
VEDANTAM: (Captive).
BOWLES: … Besides the teacher and your kids, so OK – no problem there. They didn’t explain why they’re doing the fine. They did not give any explanation as to why they should try to prevent being late. In Ireland, it is quite the opposite. You’re waiting in line, and the guy says, do you like plastic bags? And you have to say yes or no. And there were three or four or five, six other people standing there, and they were looking and, maybe from what happened, with disapproval. So this is a very public thing, and you have to choose to do it. Coming late to day care – you don’t even know it’s your choice because, I mean, you probably actually traffic it instead of deciding to have an extra cup of coffee with a friend. But the other thing …
VEDANTAM: Yes.
BOWLES: … Which I’m sure matters, is in Ireland – they say, look. This is a serious problem for us. We have dumped our country, and we have to stop doing it. Let’s stop doing this. And so I want us to learn from cases where we are crowded, crowded into the sense where the monetary side of the incentive or the package side enforces and increases the importance of the moral side.
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VEDANTAM: In recent weeks, we’ve all seen millions of people doing unselfish things. Although they are not particularly concerned for their own health, millions of people around the world follow public health guidelines and maintain physical distance from others. For many people, it has cost them their livelihood. I am wondering; Do you think the COVID-19 pandemic gives us a way to think again about incentives and about human capacity to do the right thing even when it’s hard to do?
BOWLES: Oh, yeah. I think COVID-19 will change the way we think about the economy and the way we talk about it. I think, for example, individualism and self -interest have certainly gotten a bad name in the past – during the pandemic. And I think we’re going to rethink the value of values - that is, the value of ethical values as an integral part of how you organize a society. So we need to have governments that their people trust, we need people who trust the scientific advice of governments, and we need people who are willing to help each other.
So I think we can learn some good lessons, that just relying on self-interest in the markets and in dealing with government is not going to be a good way to fix the future. COVID tells us that we have to rely on other things – communities, neighborhoods, obligations we have to each other that are not self -interest. That’s what we see in the beginning that keeps people going.
Now, of course, the market is very important.For example, the market is very important in providing incentives, which will be very important in the distribution of production and distribution of a vaccine and of other treatments, including masks and so on. Governments matter. I am not suggesting that the government and the market are unrelated. What I suggest is that there should be a third dimension of thinking, communicating and policy making, and that is what I would call community or civil society-things that are not manageable but neither are markets. For example, think about social distancing. Is that a market phenomenon? No. Well, is this a government phenomenon? Well, the government is asking for it in some places, but it will never be able to enforce it.
So what I hope we can learn from this is that you have to rely on the values of people like them, getting a realistic perspective about that. That’s the first point. The second point is, oh, you guess? People are not completely selfish. Economists also need to learn that lesson. People are not completely selfish. We really care a lot about others. And the third is pretty scary. Yes, we care about others, and sometimes we care negatively.
So for example, there has been a reported increase in attacks on people of Asian descent during the pandemic. And the rise of xenophobia in public statements and so on is just a reminder that one of the ways we care about each other is that we care about their welfare. We love them, and we are willing to sacrifice for them. We also sometimes despise them and are willing to treat them badly. So I think we have to face the fact that many of these values that we have – our susceptibility to kindness and cooperation – are included in the same package as there is a susceptibility to zeal and hatred of outsiders.
That’s a real challenge for us in terms of thinking about how we can essentially have the better part of that without having the worse. I think that COVID-19, along with innovation of climate, can be the driver of a new change, a change in both the economy-the content and what we teach our students and how we talk about the economy and how we talk about our future . And if I’m right, it would involve words like community, solidarity and not just self -interest in markets and obedience to governments.
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VEDANTAM: Sam Bowles is a behavioral economist at the Santa Fe Institute. He is the author of “The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute For Good Citizens.” Sam, thanks for joining me today at HIDDEN BRAIN.
BOWLES: Thank you very much. I enjoyed the program.
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VEDANTAM: This episode was produced by Maggie Penman, Kara McGuirk-Allison, Max Nesterak, Cat Schuknecht and Rhaina Cohen. It was edited by Tara Boyle. Our team includes Jenny Schmidt, Parth Shah, Thomas Lu, Laura Kwerel and Lushik Wahba.
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VEDANTAM: For more HIDDEN BRAIN, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter. If you like today’s episode, please share it with someone in your life who represents the positive aspects of human behavior that Sam described today.
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VEDANTAM: I am Shankar Vedantam. Until next week.
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