4 ms·
The criticism isn't that his stories are vapid, it's that a) his conclusions and wider narratives amount to borderline-meaningless just-so stories dressed up as
by InitialLastName 4y ago
The criticism isn't that his stories are vapid, it's that a) his conclusions and wider narratives amount to borderline-meaningless just-so stories dressed up as "deep thoughts" and b) the evidence he uses to build his narratives collapses under even the slightest scrutiny.
Mix in his habits of open disdain for anyone outside of the creative class (see his comments on remote work), his books' occasional cultural supremacy issues, and his recent apologia for strategic bombing, and Malcolm Gladwell has hit the jackpot for distasteful writers.
He is, however, as others have noted, a very compelling storyteller.
- Wistar 4y agoOr, for me, anyway: He often doesn't deliver what he promises to deliver. I still find his writing enjoyable and he is a captivating speaker, but his stuff seems to go… nowhere.
- jmartrican 4y agodoes Robert Greene get this type of criticism?
- endominus 4y agoI don't think Greene is treated anywhere near as seriously. Especially since his books tend to fall into the category (in my mind, at least) of "self-help" rather than scientific non-fiction. The Laws of Power, Strategies of War, etc. are clearly advice books, so him presenting anecdotes for examples and drawing lessons from them makes more sense than someone doing it with explanatory intent of a deeper and more fundamental phenomenon.
- nameless_me 4y agoI consider him the Graham Hancock (see Netflix's Ancient Apocalypse) of pop culture topics. Gladwell is trying to do for pop culture which Freakonomics did for economic topics which draw from seemingly disparate elements to provide a correlation and explanation.