Resolve to Be a Non-Conformist

*You Will Not Stampede Me: Essays on Non-Conformism* now on sale

We traditionally use January 1 to turn our lives around. To lose weight, stop drinking, get a better job, or finally find a partner. All worthy goals, but let me suggest an alternative: This year, resolve to become a non-conformist. Stop worrying about what’s popular. Stop worrying about what strangers think. Live your life the way you think best.

To guide you on this path, today I’m releasing a new book of essays, entitled You Will Not Stampede Me: Essays on Non-Conformism. It collects almost twenty years’ worth of my posts on this theme — and still for the low low price of $12 in paperback and $9.99 for Kindle.

Here’s what Steve Kuhn, founder of Major League Pickleball, has to say about the new book:

Want to be average? Then be a conformist. Want to excel? Then be a non-conformist! This is true in business, tech, sports, and life. With the eloquence of Emerson, Bryan Caplan shows us how to reap the immense benefits of non-conformism while dodging the disapproval of others. Bryan has been an inspiration to me. Let him inspire you, too.

In case you’ve never read Emerson, here’s just one famous passage.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Like my other books of essays, You Will Not Stampede Me is divided into four parts.

• The first, echoing Milgram, is “Disobedience to Authority.” These pieces dissect the psychology and economics of being normal.

• The next section, “The World Is Wrong,” explores big, specific issues where the popular opinion sucks. Covid, of course, but also bioethics, trolling, the right of revenge, and more.

• I follow with “The Weird Is Right,” most notably with the essay, “A Non-Conformist’s Guide to Success in a Conformist World.” Yes, the world does punish non-conformists, but so sporadically and thoughtlessly than the crafty can usually defy the world with impunity.

• I close the book with “Non-Conformist Candor,” where I call a litany of hand-picked controversies just like I see them.

As usual with my books of essays, you can read them all for free in the Bet On It Archives. What you get for your $12 is curation, convenience, and coolness. Realistically, you’re not going to sift through everything I’ve written about non-conformism. This book lets you consume my best pieces on this topic in rapid succession with a smile on your face.

So far, I’ve now published five collections of essays, with three more planned. If you’ve enjoyed previous volumes, I think you’ll love this one. And at $12 a copy, please consider handing them out as New Year’s gifts to everyone you know who needs a nudge to start marching to the beat of a different drummer.

Happy New Year, all.

P.S. Since you’ve been asking, my all-new non-fiction graphic novel, Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation, releases in April. Unbeatable: The Brutally Honest Case for Free Markets, is coming along well, but won’t be done for two years or so. I moved Poverty: Who To Blame down the queue, but it has not been forgotten.

P.P.S. Happy to do interviews, podcasts, radio, TV, and beyond for the new book. Just email me to set something up.