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Monday, September 13, 2010
Rules are guidelines
That’s how Bill James sees how Americans see things.
Having lived about an equal number of years of my adult life in Canada and USA, I can tell you the #1 difference is that Americans take risks. While a Canadian saves his dollar to earn the inflation rate, an American will gamble that dollar. (Not “all” obviously. Just a noticeable difference.) The crazy credit card offers don’t exist in Canada like USA. The diversity of mortgage plans and lengths of plans don’t exist in Canada like USA. Americans are risk-takers.
Given what America has delivered, per capita, it seems to be a good thing, a very good thing, that they are such risk-takers. The rest of the world has benefited greatly. That doesn’t mean that Americans themselves have derived as much benefit though, given how they are not as happy as those with less “success”.
Back to James’ point: I agree that there’d be tons of old-timers who would have taken the risks of using steroids. Baseball players are no different than any other successful person in America, or the world: they take risks, and treat rules as guidelines, to be followed to your level of risk-aversity.
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I myself am a stubborn, sometimes arrogant person who refuses to obey some of the rules that everybody else follows. I pay no attention to the rules of grammar. I write fragments if I goddamned well feel like it. I refuse to follow many of the principles of proper research that are agreed upon by the rest of the academic world.
I agree with this. ALOT.