Another favorite passage of mine from Atlas Shrugged that doesn’t qualify for the blockbuster category is a statement by Francisco d’Anconia. Jim Taggart, who is about to enter his senior year of college, tells Francisco that the millions of dollars he’s about to inherit are not for his personal pleasure but, rather, are a “trust” that should be used to benefit the underprivileged and the poor.
Francisco replies: “It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.”
I’ve almost never appreciated unsolicited advice. I try to model that by not giving advice without first asking whether it’s welcome.
The passage tangentially reminds me of an Allan Sherman song titled “Good Advice.” I still remember the refrain:
And that was good advice, good advice,
Good advice costs nothing and it’s worth the price.
READER COMMENTS
Andrew_FL
Sep 27 2022 at 10:47am
Quoth President Calvin Coolidge about Herbert Hoover “That man has offered me unsolicited advice for six years, all of it bad!”
artifex
Sep 27 2022 at 9:53pm
I’d consider this moral criticism, not advice. It’s not a good faith attempt to be helpful.
Philo
Sep 27 2022 at 10:21pm
“Of course, you want to behave morally. In order to do that, you must give your inheritance to the poor. Therefore, I advise you to do that (so as to achieve your objective).”
Stuart Macdonald
Sep 28 2022 at 12:00am
The gravamen of the statement is that he must hold his wealth in trust for the poor. That counts as advice, in my view.
Vivian Darkbloom
Sep 28 2022 at 2:06pm
I’m pretty sure that Allan Sherman was never a client of mine…
nobody.really
Sep 29 2022 at 11:31am
Was this statement preceded by James saying, “Won’t you please offer me your opinion now?”
David Henderson
Sep 29 2022 at 5:44pm
Touche.
David Seltzer
Sep 29 2022 at 5:36pm
I listen to be courteous but I don’t act on unsolicited advice from people who don’t live with the consequences.
Herb
Sep 29 2022 at 7:46pm
Ah, like our Congress.
Dylan
Sep 30 2022 at 5:34pm
Taking the contrary position, but I find that unsolicited advice is often the most valuable. I never solicited my high school friend to tell me that I consistently missed a spot under my chin when I first started shaving, but I’m glad he did. Same goes for a number of things I’ve done that were far more embarrassing that someone clued me in on eventually (sometimes nicely and sometimes in not so nice ways).
These days I work with early stage founders, and one of the pieces of advice I give is you want to particularly listen for the feedback that came without you asking, both bad and good. You’re likely to get a more unvarnished opinion that way than when you explicitly ask.
Various
Oct 4 2022 at 12:12pm
I’m going to disagree with Mr. Henderson. Some of the best suggestions I’ve ever received have been in the form of unsolicited advice. Some of it was quite critical. I think it helps if a). the advice comes from a good place, and b). the deliverer thinks carefully in terms of how and when to deliver it.
BTW, famous hedge fund manager Ray Dalio is a big proponent of unsolicited advice, which he calls “radical transparency”
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