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I enjoy Gladwell's writing style and annecdotes, but have become wary of actually believing any argument he makes with them. The more I know about a subject th

I enjoy Gladwell's writing style and annecdotes, but have become wary of actually believing any argument he makes with them. The more I know about a subject the less convincing and more cherry-picked the annecdotes seem to become. I think his books are made the same way the evening TV news is:- an editorial narrative is decided upon, and then people are interviewed until someone says what the editor wants and that's the clip that gets used. Buy his books, by all means, just be wary and do your own research :)

internaut 10y ago
He spreads anti-information. I wonder if we would be better off without him. I know sometimes lies-to-children are necessarily part of an education but sometimes they are just lies that get in the way of understanding. So far as I can tell he deciphers what most people want to believe is true and then gives it to them. Jared Diamond is in a very similar position.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  Haha this seems like the start of a fun game. You see Gladwell and raise Diamond. I'll see your Diamond and raise Pinker. Eventually we'll upset someone, who will then have to draw a reasonable line somewhere between Gladwell and their favored popular author.
  - internaut 10y ago
    Not at all, upset away! I do think Pinker is of a higher calibre than Gladwell but ever since reading Dawkin's (in the God Delusion) vague idea of some eternal progress towards 'Progress' (which he called the Zeitgeist) I haven't seen much substantiating why outbreaks of violence should decline asymptotically. A handful of modern bombs would disturb that nice little chart. Seems like cycles are more likely, perhaps contingent on solar cycles. If we don't understand why we go to war (I find most explanations too high level and utterly unconvincing) we should not predict peace. Things can and do turn on a dime.
    - ktRolster 10y ago
      If we don't understand why we go to war (I find most explanations too high level and utterly unconvincing) Fear, greed, or ideology. Those were the three reasons the Greeks came up with.
      - jessaustin 10y ago
        Fear and ideology are usually smokescreens for that other reason, at least on the aggressor's side.
        ktRolster 10y ago
        You're like the blind man who can only feel one part of the elephant. You can see greed, but you don't see the other two reasons.
        CocaKoala 10y ago
        Well, you can break "why does a country go to war" into two separate questions: first, why has war been declared? And second, why do the soldiers enlist and willingly go? You can probably put together a decent argument saying "The second War in Iraq was because of oil", but I haven't heard any stories of soldiers who signed up and came out of their deployment with the rights to an oil well. If you want to have a discussion about the motivations for war, it seems foolish to ignore the motivations of the boots on the ground that are actually making shit happen out there.
      - Aelinsaar 10y ago
        I like the modern inclusion of Compromise and Coercion.
        ktRolster 10y ago
        Compromise causes war?
        Aelinsaar 10y ago
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
  > they are just lies that get in the way of understanding Careful there, those things have really piled up since Plato's day. You unravel one or two of those lies, you're liable to bring down Western Civ. And we need aspirin and cell phones.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Howso Diamond?
  - internaut 10y ago
    It is because Diamond treats human civilization like a Age of Empires game. In Age of Empires if you were plonked near the sea (fishing/trade potential), near mineral deposits and trees, then all things being equal you'd win mechanically, the geography would be destiny. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_determinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_determinism Unfortunately for Diamond, Biology and Culture are both real. Humans are not blank slates nor are they mindless automata. The topics of his books are interesting and worth debating over, so I am (unlike Gladwell) pleased he wrote it since lots of interesting commentary and observations have come out. I say you would profit greatly by reading around Diamond rather than by taking him at his word.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      While geography isn't quite everything, it does speak for a great deal. Thinking of single-factor determinants (or criticising arguments on that basis) is insipid. And yet somehow we accept it in other fields -- economics and its devolution of everything to simple matters of capital and labour comes to mind. I've found much of Diamond's work to be quite illuminating and useful. I find his critics, most particularly those claimi global fault, cavil and singularly unpersuasive.
      - internaut 10y ago
        > Thinking of single-factor determinants (or criticising arguments on that basis) is insipid. And yet somehow we accept it in other fields -- economics and its devolution of everything to simple matters of capital and labour comes to mind. Agreed. The further you get from physics the more multi-factor everything becomes. We know this yet I think our language and minds have difficulty expressing multifactor explanations in ways which seem convincing to most of us. That is a problem. Strangely we are more confident with a single over-arching explanation. I can't explain why that should be so. Surely more analysis should give us more confidence and not less! Intelligence analysts and other smart people put their efforts into building multiple scenarios, which is a good way to see things more multi-dimensionally. I picked up on something from Thiel, which is that he tends to run through multiple explanations e.g. from a liberal and conservative and libertarian and communist point of view before proceeding to make a political point. That's a pretty good mental habit! Whether this gets you to the truth is a separate question I feel but this method will certainly prevent you from overlooking major lines of reasoning, and that in itself is a pretty profound improvement over single factor determinants.
mjklin 10y ago
Reading his recent statement here [0], I was reminded of William James's remark on J.S. Mill: "Mr. Mill's habitual method of philosophizing was to affirm boldly some general doctrine derived from his father, and then make so many concessions of detail to its enemies as practically to abandon it altogether." [0]: http://greyenlightenment.com/malcolm-gladwell-bait-and-switch/ http://greyenlightenment.com/malcolm-gladwell-bait-and-switc...
stephengillie 10y ago
Are you intentionally being ironic, or is it purely coincidental?
Frondo 10y ago
Something about Malcolm Gladwell really didn't sit right with me after learning about his tobacco industry connections (http://exiledonline.com/malcolm-gladwell-tobacco-industry-shill/ http://exiledonline.com/malcolm-gladwell-tobacco-industry-sh...). Reading this guy's response to Gladwell's cultural theory of plane crashes sealed the deal for me: http://askakorean.blogspot.hk/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplane.html http://askakorean.blogspot.hk/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-a...
- mcguire 10y ago
  Gladwell aside, "Why? Because Americans and Europeans are always accorded with the privilege of being treated as individuals, while Asians remain a great undifferentiated mass, unknown and unknowable." Wow. Good article.
sverige 10y ago
But what great anecdotes and snippets! I loved this one: Elliott’s father, Claude, was the headmaster of Eton. According to Macintyre, the elder Elliott “loathed music, which gave him indigestion, despised all forms of heating as ‘effete,’ and believed that ‘when dealing with foreigners the best plan was to shout at them in English.’ ” Sounds like the inspiration for a character played by John Cleese.

internaut 10y ago

He spreads anti-information. I wonder if we would be better off without him. I know sometimes lies-to-children are necessarily part of an education but sometimes they are just lies that get in the way of understanding. So far as I can tell he deciphers what most people want to believe is true and then gives it to them. Jared Diamond is in a very similar position.

jessaustin 10y ago
Haha this seems like the start of a fun game. You see Gladwell and raise Diamond. I'll see your Diamond and raise Pinker. Eventually we'll upset someone, who will then have to draw a reasonable line somewhere between Gladwell and their favored popular author.
- internaut 10y ago
  Not at all, upset away! I do think Pinker is of a higher calibre than Gladwell but ever since reading Dawkin's (in the God Delusion) vague idea of some eternal progress towards 'Progress' (which he called the Zeitgeist) I haven't seen much substantiating why outbreaks of violence should decline asymptotically. A handful of modern bombs would disturb that nice little chart. Seems like cycles are more likely, perhaps contingent on solar cycles. If we don't understand why we go to war (I find most explanations too high level and utterly unconvincing) we should not predict peace. Things can and do turn on a dime.
  - ktRolster 10y ago
    If we don't understand why we go to war (I find most explanations too high level and utterly unconvincing) Fear, greed, or ideology. Those were the three reasons the Greeks came up with.
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      Fear and ideology are usually smokescreens for that other reason, at least on the aggressor's side.
      - ktRolster 10y ago
        You're like the blind man who can only feel one part of the elephant. You can see greed, but you don't see the other two reasons.
      - CocaKoala 10y ago
        Well, you can break "why does a country go to war" into two separate questions: first, why has war been declared? And second, why do the soldiers enlist and willingly go? You can probably put together a decent argument saying "The second War in Iraq was because of oil", but I haven't heard any stories of soldiers who signed up and came out of their deployment with the rights to an oil well. If you want to have a discussion about the motivations for war, it seems foolish to ignore the motivations of the boots on the ground that are actually making shit happen out there.
    - Aelinsaar 10y ago
      I like the modern inclusion of Compromise and Coercion.
      - ktRolster 10y ago
        Compromise causes war?
        Aelinsaar 10y ago
B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
> they are just lies that get in the way of understanding Careful there, those things have really piled up since Plato's day. You unravel one or two of those lies, you're liable to bring down Western Civ. And we need aspirin and cell phones.
dredmorbius 10y ago
Howso Diamond?
- internaut 10y ago
  It is because Diamond treats human civilization like a Age of Empires game. In Age of Empires if you were plonked near the sea (fishing/trade potential), near mineral deposits and trees, then all things being equal you'd win mechanically, the geography would be destiny. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_determinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_determinism Unfortunately for Diamond, Biology and Culture are both real. Humans are not blank slates nor are they mindless automata. The topics of his books are interesting and worth debating over, so I am (unlike Gladwell) pleased he wrote it since lots of interesting commentary and observations have come out. I say you would profit greatly by reading around Diamond rather than by taking him at his word.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    While geography isn't quite everything, it does speak for a great deal. Thinking of single-factor determinants (or criticising arguments on that basis) is insipid. And yet somehow we accept it in other fields -- economics and its devolution of everything to simple matters of capital and labour comes to mind. I've found much of Diamond's work to be quite illuminating and useful. I find his critics, most particularly those claimi global fault, cavil and singularly unpersuasive.
    - internaut 10y ago
      > Thinking of single-factor determinants (or criticising arguments on that basis) is insipid. And yet somehow we accept it in other fields -- economics and its devolution of everything to simple matters of capital and labour comes to mind. Agreed. The further you get from physics the more multi-factor everything becomes. We know this yet I think our language and minds have difficulty expressing multifactor explanations in ways which seem convincing to most of us. That is a problem. Strangely we are more confident with a single over-arching explanation. I can't explain why that should be so. Surely more analysis should give us more confidence and not less! Intelligence analysts and other smart people put their efforts into building multiple scenarios, which is a good way to see things more multi-dimensionally. I picked up on something from Thiel, which is that he tends to run through multiple explanations e.g. from a liberal and conservative and libertarian and communist point of view before proceeding to make a political point. That's a pretty good mental habit! Whether this gets you to the truth is a separate question I feel but this method will certainly prevent you from overlooking major lines of reasoning, and that in itself is a pretty profound improvement over single factor determinants.

mjklin 10y ago

Reading his recent statement here [0], I was reminded of William James's remark on J.S. Mill: "Mr. Mill's habitual method of philosophizing was to affirm boldly some general doctrine derived from his father, and then make so many concessions of detail to its enemies as practically to abandon it altogether." [0]: http://greyenlightenment.com/malcolm-gladwell-bait-and-switch/ http://greyenlightenment.com/malcolm-gladwell-bait-and-switc...

stephengillie 10y ago

Are you intentionally being ironic, or is it purely coincidental?

Frondo 10y ago

Something about Malcolm Gladwell really didn't sit right with me after learning about his tobacco industry connections (http://exiledonline.com/malcolm-gladwell-tobacco-industry-shill/ http://exiledonline.com/malcolm-gladwell-tobacco-industry-sh...). Reading this guy's response to Gladwell's cultural theory of plane crashes sealed the deal for me: http://askakorean.blogspot.hk/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplane.html http://askakorean.blogspot.hk/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-a...

mcguire 10y ago
Gladwell aside, "Why? Because Americans and Europeans are always accorded with the privilege of being treated as individuals, while Asians remain a great undifferentiated mass, unknown and unknowable." Wow. Good article.

sverige 10y ago

But what great anecdotes and snippets! I loved this one: Elliott’s father, Claude, was the headmaster of Eton. According to Macintyre, the elder Elliott “loathed music, which gave him indigestion, despised all forms of heating as ‘effete,’ and believed that ‘when dealing with foreigners the best plan was to shout at them in English.’ ” Sounds like the inspiration for a character played by John Cleese.