Since the first chapter of "Tipping Point" I have been enduring Gladwell out of an increasingly weary sense of professional obligation. This is what they pay me to do, I tell myself. The man has a nose for interesting tales, I grant you, but his unfailing combination of intellectual parasitism, credulity, false modesty, and self-importance repels me. In "Tipping Point", "Blink" and those of his New Yorker pieces I have read, the formula is always the same: find a scholarly opinion; sanctify said opinion with Gladwellian approval (transforming it from a disputed theory to something "we now know"); season with Madison Avenue terms of art; then deluge with anecdotes of questionable, if any, relevance. And let there be color. Always, the color. Please tell me about that man's wry smile, interesting foreign accent, and cluttered desk (often, as studies show, the sign of a creative mind). I need to know all that.
Well, as I say, I will report back on "Outliers" in due course. For this premature outburst, blame David Brooks. "Outliers" is an "important" book, he says, in an excess of professional courtesy. (Important to whom?) Further compliments follow. In the end he criticizes a little, but quite respectfully. I see no blood on the floor. It's disappointing.
As Gladwell told Jason Zengerle of New York magazine: "The book's saying, 'Great people aren't so great. Their own greatness is not the salient fact about them. It's the kind of fortunate mix of opportunities they've been given.' "
Rather than nodding wisely at this, shouldn't one just laugh? The "salient fact" about Newton was not his greatness but his "kind of fortunate mix of opportunities"? Einstein? Mozart? Does Gladwell actually know what "salient" means? As for the idea that nature and nurture are both involved in determining one's success or failure--am I asked to believe that this is a new insight, for heaven's sake? I learn from other reviews that Gladwell has also arrived, through the research for this book, at the discovery that "practice makes perfect". Yes, I was surprised too; once again conventional wisdom is turned on its head. There is a rather important academic paper about it.
Brooks' main point is to express concern at where these remarkable new findings might lead:
His book is being received by reviewers as a call to action for the Obama age. It could lead policy makers to finally reject policies built on the assumption that people are coldly rational utility-maximizing individuals. It could cause them to focus more on policies that foster relationships, social bonds and cultures of achievement.
Interesting. What might those policies be, I wonder? Are the policies supportive of mixed-economy capitalism--the ones we already have, which policy makers might finally reject--so inimical to relationships, social bonds and cultures of achievement? I mean, as compared to the alternatives, whatever those might be.
I know. None of this changes the fact that I will have to read that damn book.
I wrote Gladwell off during an interview on the subject of intelligence and standardized testing. His thesis was that we weren't getting smarter, we were just getting better at taking tests and that intelligence was essentially stable across the generations. What we were seeing was training, not ability.
I wanted to leap off the couch and scream at him that sprinters have gotten faster since 1932 through training and no one disputes that Usain Bolt is faster than Jesse Owens. You could argue that had Owens been born today he would be the faster of the two (and given that flowing running style, you might be right) but the clock doesn't lie.
Personally, I still think no one can get past Gladwell's hair. It's a stunning look that inhibits active cognition in a 15 foot radius.
But I don't have to read the book, lucky me.
Gladwell's ideas are not as Big as he might think they are, but I think you need to cut him a little slack. Every book he's written has contained a couple of intriguing notions that have changed the way I think about something, and that's more than I can say for a lot of what I read.
And, of course, like you said, maybe you ought to read the book and then weigh in. For example, in Outliers the "practice makes perfect" point is more nuanced than you've been led to believe. He makes the interesting argument that not only is there a huge gap in the aggregate lifetime number of hours of practice between (say) a superlative violinist and a really good violinist, but that (a) no one puts in those kind of hours (at least 10,000 hours, he says) without becoming a superlative player, and (b) no one becomes a superlative player without putting in those kind of hours. He does some back-of-the-envelope calculations to bear this out with regard to sports, computer programming, and so on.
Like I said, an intriguing notion, and might change the way you think about talent, even if it's neither an earth-shattering revelation nor peer-reviewed science. Along with a couple of other interesting points, it makes it worth the time spent reading the book (as opposed to, say, practicing violin).
When someone achieves the type of success Gladwell has achieved, there is always at least one "hater". I am looking forward reading “Outliers”.
You know Clive, the least you could do before critizing someone or something they have done is to know what they did.
You haven't even read the book yet, guess who come of second best in this one???
I don't dispute the criticisms of Gladwell, and other reviewers have noticed his formula, which seems to borrow tricks from the self-help and pop psych genres. But I also detect a whiff of envy or at least glee when people tear into a writer who moves a lot of books, even if one can understand frustration at something that's more popular than it deserves to be. (Some of the most hilarious criticism I've ever read was of "The Da Vinci Code" -- see Anthony Lane's review of the movie, which discusses the book).
Gladwell also got some unflattering attention for a story he told from his days working for the Washington Post, in which he and a colleague competed to insert particular phrases -- such as "raises new and troubling questions" -- into their reportage. Gladwell later claimed that this story wasn't really true, though it's hard to say which is worse, that he did this kind of stuff or that he lied about it on a radio program.
He also very unfairly misrepresented a claim of Charles Murray's which required an embarrassing correction in The New Yorker.
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/mixed-media/2008/03/21/gladwells-fact-fudging-no-secret-at-new-yorker
I do not personally have an opinion of the Gladwell writing style or book content. I came to your article when exploring comments on the latest book he has written.
I did find some humor in the fact that as you trash this author using your right to speak freely, you will not allow YOUR readers to make a comment which has not been approved by yourself prior to posting.
CC - I read the Gladwell book, and I'm glad that you will have to as well. Your criticism of his first two books is valid, and certainly apply in spades to 'Outliers' as well, but it's sort of missing the point. Gladwell isn't a philosopher. He isn't trying to break new ground in science or logic or anything else for that matter. Gladwell's trick is to take something that we already know and tell us what it really means, while marrying interesting detail and solidly constructed prose. In other words, he's a writer with the nerdiness and hairdo of a scientist.
I thoroughly enjoyed 'Outliers', (And fear not, even if you hate it at least it's short. I read it in one afternoon) not on the premise that it should change my life, but because Gladwell's writing has an almost aphoristic quality that lends itself well to remembrance and discussion. He provides new takes on well-known stories (The Beatles, Bill Gates). So when people sum up his book by saying his conclusion is 'practice makes perfect', they either missed the point, or they are being deliberately obtuse in the service of a review narrative they put in place before they read the work. If you make the former error, okay, it happens to some people with every book. But I certainly hope you won't make the latter mistake.
Clive--
I think you're right in that Brooks was merely being polite in expressing some reservations about Gladwell's guiding theory, for among other maneuvers, towards the end of his piece, Brooks does counter Gladwell in a somewhat similar manner as your Newton/Mozart/Einstein passage, when he wonders aloud how MG could explain Shakespeare in the context of Outliers. And I don't necessarily read his label of the book being 'important' as an enthusiastic recommendation, rather just an observation. Certain crap can find itself being important, after all. In fact, reading Brooks' piece this morning convinced me not to pick up Outliers.
Thank you! This is the first Gladwell criticism I've seen anywhere (though I haven't been looking too hard).
I gave up on Tipping Point when Gladwell offhandedly declared that AIDS existed way back in the '50s. Have you heard? I haven't! You'd think this would be news, but Gladwell doesn't even provide a citation.
His pop-sociology is reminiscent of the pop-psych of the '70s. I can't wait for him to become passé.
@Jess
'When someone achieves the type of success Gladwell has achieved, there is always at least one "hater".'
That is true. But your contention doesn't address the validity of that hater -- it only states that they exist.
See how I developed an idea using citations and logic? Now, if only Gladwell would do that, I wouldn't have to hate on him.