4 ms·

There isn't much else to say. Malcom Gladwell is an utter hack. The mainstream media refuses to acknowledge that and glorifies everything he says. Meanwhile, p

There isn't much else to say. Malcom Gladwell is an utter hack. The mainstream media refuses to acknowledge that and glorifies everything he says. Meanwhile, pretty much anybody whose field has been touched by Gladwell reports that his account of their field is utterly uninformed, lacking nuance, and shaped to reach a foregone conclusion. What more is there?

jfoutz 5y ago
Malcom Gladwell writes clearly and persuasively. I don't believe he uses his rhetoric to deceive, I don't think it's full on sophistry. That said, he clearly won't let the facts get in the way of a good story. As much as I want truth, evidence and proof to have one true meaning, the words really mean different things to different people. Heck, they mean different things to the same person in different contexts. Malcom Gladwell (in my humble opinion) is very good at making political arguments, not scientist arguments. They sound true. They engage in intellectual and emotional ways. I have, with multiple Gladwell books, been led down the garden path. But golly it's a pretty and enjoyable walk. And eventually that walk leads me to other interesting stuff, like _thinking fast and slow_. I guess, it's useful to me to read stories dressed up as science (kinda). Otherwise, how could I tell if the science I'm reading is just a story?
- lubujackson 5y ago
  It is hard to read this as a positive thing. You are basically describing a con-man (or more neutrally, a politician) who is skilled at convincing people of things through stories that are not factually accurate but feel accurate - "Truthiness" as Jon Stewart called it. At best, it is a shortcut to convince groups of people of a point but it is the opposite of informative - people come away with bad information, not partial information and curiosity to learn more. He is specifically disliked because he is selling the "take-aways" as knowledge when they are the opposite, then says he is just a storyteller - which is good and fine except he is marketed and digested as a layman's source of truth. Which is why we have people walking around thinking they can be a concert-grade pianist with 10,000 hours of practice even though the argument falls apart with the slightest analysis. If Hacker News caters to curious "hacker mindset" types I think Gladwell is the opposite of curiosity: insights without discussion or understanding.
  - jfoutz 5y ago
    I guess, I like Gladwell for the same reasons you dislike him. He's popular and picked apart. I can read his books and be convinced, then find out about all of the ways he's wrong. Where did I screw up? What did I fall for? Blink was probably the one that had the biggest impact on me. There are some gems there. It lead me to other thinking about thinking ideas. I learned a bit about quality of sources. I learned a bit about skinner boxes. Ironically I'm here, refreshing HN. So clearly I didn't learn that lesson particularly well.
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      Goodwin's law warning. If you go into it with a critical eye and compare it to other sources, then you didn't fall for anything. Reading mein kampf can be really insightful if you read it from a historical perspective and use the hueristics of skepticism. You can still dislike the original intent and think it is a missinformative work in general, but hold that the world would be better off without it.
      - Ericson2314 5y ago
        But "Mein Kampf" is an important primary source propaganda, whereas Gladwell's books are trash secondary sources, unless the object of research is "comforting false narratives of the early 21st century". I don't think that's fair to "Mein Kampf" (!).
- elliekelly 5y ago
  I agree, Gladwell tells a great story and he’s absolutely entertaining to read. But I can’t quite wrap my head around how you began your comment by saying Gladwell doesn’t use rhetoric and end it by describing his writing as “stories dressed up as science (kinda)”. Is that not rhetoric?
  - jfoutz 5y ago
    "rhetoric to deceive" He asks questions with many possible answers. He leads to one specific answer. He picks his favorite and dresses it up. the difference would be, he knew for a fact that Bob murdered Alice. Saw it with his own eyes. He doesn't write books about how Bob couldn't possibly have killed Alice, it must have been Charlie. He picks a favorite, says that's a good answer - rhetoric. I don't think he's leading people to an answer he believes to be wrong. He's not lying.
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      The book review cites much concrete evidence --- done by actual scholars doing the tedious work of digging through "boring" archives --- undermining Gladwell's conclusions. Yes, there are many conclusions to draw about these sorts of things, but getting facts wrong and omitting other information does not for a valid interpretation make. He's a sophist storyteller.
    - groby_b 5y ago
      You don't get to claim an unproven alternate science just because it's a good story unless you're in the Fiction aisle. Gladwell would like to be in the non-fiction aisle, and he really utterly fails there. He's "not lying" only in the sense that he spouts completely uninformed opinion. He knows that he does that, because it's not like he hasn't been told repeatedly. He continues anyways. At that point, the line to flim-flam becomes tenuously thin.
- idolaspecus 5y ago
  You say you don't think it's "full on sophistry" then you go on to describe a full on sophist.
geodel 5y ago
> The mainstream media refuses to acknowledge that and glorifies everything he says. For some reason I find it utterly hilarious. Because on any subject I know a bit I find reporting by media utterly wrong or willfully ignorant. And it just makes me think what about all the subjects on which I have little or no knowledge. Can I trust anything at all here. I guess the point is same, like Gladwell media is obsessed with narrative often at cost of details/truth.
- cpleppert 5y ago
  Michael Crichton's Gell-Mann Amnesia strikes again. >>You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well... You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
adolph 5y ago
> Meanwhile, pretty much anybody whose field has been touched by Gladwell reports that his account of their field is utterly uninformed, lacking nuance, and shaped to reach a foregone conclusion. “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.” https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...

jfoutz 5y ago

Malcom Gladwell writes clearly and persuasively. I don't believe he uses his rhetoric to deceive, I don't think it's full on sophistry. That said, he clearly won't let the facts get in the way of a good story. As much as I want truth, evidence and proof to have one true meaning, the words really mean different things to different people. Heck, they mean different things to the same person in different contexts. Malcom Gladwell (in my humble opinion) is very good at making political arguments, not scientist arguments. They sound true. They engage in intellectual and emotional ways. I have, with multiple Gladwell books, been led down the garden path. But golly it's a pretty and enjoyable walk. And eventually that walk leads me to other interesting stuff, like _thinking fast and slow_. I guess, it's useful to me to read stories dressed up as science (kinda). Otherwise, how could I tell if the science I'm reading is just a story?

lubujackson 5y ago
It is hard to read this as a positive thing. You are basically describing a con-man (or more neutrally, a politician) who is skilled at convincing people of things through stories that are not factually accurate but feel accurate - "Truthiness" as Jon Stewart called it. At best, it is a shortcut to convince groups of people of a point but it is the opposite of informative - people come away with bad information, not partial information and curiosity to learn more. He is specifically disliked because he is selling the "take-aways" as knowledge when they are the opposite, then says he is just a storyteller - which is good and fine except he is marketed and digested as a layman's source of truth. Which is why we have people walking around thinking they can be a concert-grade pianist with 10,000 hours of practice even though the argument falls apart with the slightest analysis. If Hacker News caters to curious "hacker mindset" types I think Gladwell is the opposite of curiosity: insights without discussion or understanding.
- jfoutz 5y ago
  I guess, I like Gladwell for the same reasons you dislike him. He's popular and picked apart. I can read his books and be convinced, then find out about all of the ways he's wrong. Where did I screw up? What did I fall for? Blink was probably the one that had the biggest impact on me. There are some gems there. It lead me to other thinking about thinking ideas. I learned a bit about quality of sources. I learned a bit about skinner boxes. Ironically I'm here, refreshing HN. So clearly I didn't learn that lesson particularly well.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    Goodwin's law warning. If you go into it with a critical eye and compare it to other sources, then you didn't fall for anything. Reading mein kampf can be really insightful if you read it from a historical perspective and use the hueristics of skepticism. You can still dislike the original intent and think it is a missinformative work in general, but hold that the world would be better off without it.
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      But "Mein Kampf" is an important primary source propaganda, whereas Gladwell's books are trash secondary sources, unless the object of research is "comforting false narratives of the early 21st century". I don't think that's fair to "Mein Kampf" (!).
elliekelly 5y ago
I agree, Gladwell tells a great story and he’s absolutely entertaining to read. But I can’t quite wrap my head around how you began your comment by saying Gladwell doesn’t use rhetoric and end it by describing his writing as “stories dressed up as science (kinda)”. Is that not rhetoric?
- jfoutz 5y ago
  "rhetoric to deceive" He asks questions with many possible answers. He leads to one specific answer. He picks his favorite and dresses it up. the difference would be, he knew for a fact that Bob murdered Alice. Saw it with his own eyes. He doesn't write books about how Bob couldn't possibly have killed Alice, it must have been Charlie. He picks a favorite, says that's a good answer - rhetoric. I don't think he's leading people to an answer he believes to be wrong. He's not lying.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    The book review cites much concrete evidence --- done by actual scholars doing the tedious work of digging through "boring" archives --- undermining Gladwell's conclusions. Yes, there are many conclusions to draw about these sorts of things, but getting facts wrong and omitting other information does not for a valid interpretation make. He's a sophist storyteller.
  - groby_b 5y ago
    You don't get to claim an unproven alternate science just because it's a good story unless you're in the Fiction aisle. Gladwell would like to be in the non-fiction aisle, and he really utterly fails there. He's "not lying" only in the sense that he spouts completely uninformed opinion. He knows that he does that, because it's not like he hasn't been told repeatedly. He continues anyways. At that point, the line to flim-flam becomes tenuously thin.
idolaspecus 5y ago
You say you don't think it's "full on sophistry" then you go on to describe a full on sophist.

geodel 5y ago

> The mainstream media refuses to acknowledge that and glorifies everything he says. For some reason I find it utterly hilarious. Because on any subject I know a bit I find reporting by media utterly wrong or willfully ignorant. And it just makes me think what about all the subjects on which I have little or no knowledge. Can I trust anything at all here. I guess the point is same, like Gladwell media is obsessed with narrative often at cost of details/truth.

cpleppert 5y ago
Michael Crichton's Gell-Mann Amnesia strikes again. >>You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well... You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/

adolph 5y ago

> Meanwhile, pretty much anybody whose field has been touched by Gladwell reports that his account of their field is utterly uninformed, lacking nuance, and shaped to reach a foregone conclusion. “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.” https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...