When you think of creativity, you probably imagine a genius behind an easel or at the heart of a brilliantly directed movie. However, people can also tap into their creative juices if they want to rise to power, enact revenge, or just create trouble. - Psychology Today
At root, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council is about deference. Deference is a partial abdication of decisionmaking in favor of someone else. So, for example, when we go out to dinner, I often order what my son-in-law orders, even if something else on the menu sounds appealing. I’ve learned that somehow he always seems to pick the best thing.
Deference doesn’t mean “I’ve heard your argument and I’m persuaded by it,” (though something like that is misleadingly called “Skidmore deference, “ but isn’t actually deference at all). Deference means “even if I would have decided this question differently, I’m going to go with your judgment instead.”
Chevron, The Supreme Court, and the Law The political class faces a nightmare -- of accountability.
“So, there I was, age 44. I was still dunking french fries at Brasserie Les Halles, which I thought was a pretty good gig at the time.
But, there was this little free paper they gave out on corners in a little box called The New York Press. I thought, I’m going to write something that will entertain other cooks, maybe I’ll get a hundred bucks, and my fry cook will find this funny. So, I wrote that first piece, that first version of [Kitchen Confidential] with the intention of being published by the New York Press and making 100 bucks, and being a hero to a few fry cooks in New York.
I wrote it and I sent it to The New York Press… So, every week I’d run to the corner. ‘Oh, I’m gonna be in the free paper!’ and I wasn’t in there. And, in a moment of frustration and possible inebriation, I mentioned this to my mom who said, ‘Well, you should send it to The New Yorker. I know somebody there. They’ll read it.’ And I’m thinking, what is the statistical likelihood ever, even if you’re represented? There’s no chance. Ever.
Out of alcohol-fueled hubris and on the insistence of my mom, I stuffed a copy, a print of this thing I’d written into an envelope and sent it off to The New Yorker, and thought that’s the last I will ever hear of this. Then, a month and a half later, the kitchen phone rings, and it’s David Remnick, the publisher from The New Yorker saying we’d like to run this piece.
And when it ran, it transformed my life within two days... Everything changed. Everything. From that point on.”
–Anthony Bourdain
Photo: Anthony Bourdain outside of Les Halles in New York City, early 2000s
Quote: The New Yorker Festival, 2017
