Malcolm Gladwell. Best-selling author of simple truths. In his writing, he breaks down truths that should be "self-evident" and renders them into fascinating prose. I read his second book, Blink, over a year ago. I liked it a lot. Found it interesting. Blink examined the way humans make decisions, how you can manipulate the decision of others (which is basically the business of advertising and marketing), and how some decisions are split-second and others are more of an analysis. But in terms of interesting, Malcolm Gladwell himself far outdoes anything I read in his book.
A little over a month ago, I went to see a moderated discussion with Malcolm Gladwell as part of JCC Conversations (I told you their programming was amazing). Abigail Pogrebin, former producer for the likes of Charlie Rose, Bill Moyer, and Mike Wallace, and (now) acclaimed author herself was our guide for the evening. As it turned out, Malcolm needed little guidance to captivate his audience, but brava to Abigail for allowing her subject to tell his own story rather than forcing him in a direction she had planned on.
Sitting in the spotlight, Malcolm's wiry figure exuded this zany energy—which seemed to split like electricity through the hairs in his afro. A literary Einstein of a man sat before me. The first thing that Gladwell said in response to how he finds such interesting people and trends to write about: "Most people are interesting." He asserts that the observer has the opportunity to find that 'interesting' piece of a person. He continued that most of us are wrong about what is interesting about ourselves.
For example, I might think it's interesting that I have a blog. But that's not really interesting. Everyone has a blog now. What's interesting is that ever since the first grade my teachers were constantly telling me that I wrote too much and needed to follow the guidelines of length for my homework. My response back then was, but I have so much to say. SO, what's interesting is that even from the age of five I have had more thoughts than I know what to do with. (Of course, I could also be wrong about that being interesting based on Gladwell's statement that we don't know what is interesting about ourselves...but you get my point.)
Part of the reason Gladwell has been so successful in his writing, is that he has been able to uncover these seemingly obvious examples of interesting people and interesting trends, AND he has organized them in a way that puts random pieces together into a contiguous puzzle.
For example, Gladwell spoke a lot about his upcoming book David and Goliath. Now in ancient times there were three divisions of the armed forces: the cavalry (with spears on either horseback or chariot), the slingers (like David who used slingshots and other stone-driven weapons), and the footmen (like Goliath who were basically the gruntmen or combat soldiers). Gladwell explained that this was a game of rock, paper scissors. Footmen always beat cavalry. Cavalry always beats slingers. Slingers always beat footmen. You do the math. David was always going to beat Goliath. It didn't matter that Goliath was bigger. David was a slinger, throwing a stone with incredible accuracy at 60 miles per hour. Goliath was a dead man and he knew it.
So: Why are pretending that [this story] it's some miraculous victory?! Gladwell asks. "The whole mythology of that story is backwards. It suggests that there is something fundamentally amiss with how we think about advantage and disadvantage." Such was inspiration about Gladwell's latest study about perceived advantages (like wealth or Ivy League education) and perceived disadvantages (like a troubled childhood) in our society.
It took a man who thinks like Gladwell to call into question a legend that has been passed down for 3,000 years and then to discover real-life examples to prove his point.
I didn't read Gladwell's most famous book The Tipping Point until after that night. I find it fascinating how he seems to explain our own culture, our own behavior to us. In The Tipping Point, Gladwell explains word-of-mouth and practically maps a plan of how to make a trend or a product the next epidemic. I can only assume that he also used the principles of The Tipping Point to become as famous as he has.
To listen to Gladwell tell a story, is to hear how he thinks. He spends a lot of time on details that cause him to sound like he is rambling on and following tangents. But it is precisely this attention to detail and his lack of fear of losing his audience to tangents that make him so brilliant.
For instance, Pogrebin asked him about his mother's influence on him. Gladwell launched into a fifteen minute diatribe about his parents' marriage and how is mother was black and his father was white and his father asked for access to a library at a university in the US while he was working in the islands. The university was all up in arms because they didn't know if Gladwell's father was black or white and they couldn't reach him while he was in the Caribbean and oh-my-goodness what if he showed up and was black and they couldn't just let a black man into the library! Now that story is arguably unrelated to Pogrebin's original question, but how interesting!
Gladwell is not afraid to follow his own mind. During the Q&A portion of the evening, I asked Gladwell how he chooses the topics that he case studies, and once he selects his topic how he finds the real-life example to demonstrate his point. Gladwell's answer? Basically that he pays attention to the things the mainstream find unimportant. While watching a biography of someone famous on PBS, he pays attention to the quick mention of a side character. While reading a book, he reads the footnotes. Gladwell emphasized that he finds the facts and people that don't fit into a story more interesting than the plotline.
You bet your bottom dollar that I've begun reading every footnote and considering each side-mention I come across. I'm trying more and more to act on my questions—to follow my question through to the answer. I want to follow my mind.
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