Malcolm Gladwell
Lee Siegel, criticizing The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (see also the first in the series): “Never mind that "Connector," instead of being some sophisticated social concept, is also another name for "networker," which is also another name for--in descending order--"operator," "hustler," "ass-kisser," or "weasel." In other words, Gladwell's beloved Connector is a primitive commercial type who drives the rest of us nuts.”
Pamela Paul: “While the temptation to correct errors - which often reverberate from blog to blog - can be strong, counterblogging can be counterproductive. Authors report sad tales of the flaming feedback loops that follow such confrontations.”
The article links to the most blogged-about books of 2005, and I'm linked on the page for Are Men Necessary? by Maureen Dowd (which links to my 'just quote' of a review of the book). Most of the writers asked seem overly-sensitive about reactions they read in weblogs, but then again, aren't writers overly-sensitive to begin with? (And the same for bloggers?) Dowd seems the most sensible about following what bloggers say about her by deploying human filters—her assistant and her sister—to forward her the important reactions.
Dowd's book is not listed in the top-20 list, however, but two technical aspects of the list strike me as interesting: you do not need an account to view the list and also search engines are allowed to index the list, though not archive it in a cache. (But what, no links so that I can purchase any of the books, with the newspaper getting a cut?) It's unusual for The New York Times to allow search engines to index anything—but it's very smart, because users coming in through search engines are more likely to click on the ads which most bloggers and weblog readers probably have learned to ignore.
Here are the books on the list that I've read, with, if applicable, a link to my short review for each:
- 3. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell (my brief review)
- 5. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen (my brief review)
- The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
- 12. The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations by James Surowiecki (my selection as best book of 2004)
- 14. 1984 by George Orwell (my favourite book of all time)
Malcolm Gladwell: “Being “smart” involves facility in both kinds of thinking—the kind of fluid problem solving that matters in things like video games and I.Q. tests, but also the kind of crystallized knowledge that comes from explicit learning. If Johnson’s book has a flaw, it is that he sometimes speaks of our culture being “smarter” when he’s really referring just to that fluid problem-solving facility. When it comes to the other kind of intelligence, it is not clear at all what kind of progress we are making, as anyone who has read, say, the Gettysburg Address alongside any Presidential speech from the past twenty years can attest. The real question is what the right balance of these two forms of intelligence might look like. “Everything Bad Is Good for You” doesn’t answer that question. But Johnson does something nearly as important, which is to remind us that we shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that explicit learning is the only kind of learning that matters.”
What's remarkable about Gladwell's article is how he criticizes Johnson's argument that books are isolating and linear, which he, Johnson, says encourages passivity. In the section that Gladwell quotes, Johnson comes across as quite serious, but Gladwell deflects by saying “He’s joking, of course, but only in part.” In the passage quoted by Gladwell, Johnson seems to have totally missed the other half of learning that comes from books, which people get through writing about the book or at least quietly reflecting about connections the reader can draw to other ideas.
Gladwell, in what is a positive review of Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter by Steven Johnson, seems to approve of the notion of both IQ tests and a bell-shaped curve of intelligence. A counterpoint to that would be Doc Searls' excellent article on education for Linux Journal. The title says "Part 2", and you can read Part 1 as well, but the first part is not necessary for understanding the ideas in the second. (Both of Searls' articles deal with The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas Friedman. I have several articles about the book, including an excerpt from the book, lined up in my reading queue.) Searls argues that we are all smart despite schooling, not because of it, almost totally rejecting all types of formal learning entirely, including university-level education. All that's fairly tangential to what Gladwell and Johnson are arguing, except that it has to do with education, informal or not, and I'm still on the side that says that smart people watch smart TV, but doesn't make you smarter.
Kathryn Lord citing Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, a book I didn't like very much: “Speed dating seems MADE for the thin slicing of decision making, and in some ways, that is so. I'll talk more about speed dating in future postings. Speed dating relies on instant decision-making about interest and attraction. Gladwell writes much about how these flashes of insight proved correct. But also, he gives plenty of examples of when the insight does not work well, and is sometimes dead wrong. We all know of couples who hated each other on first meeting, but later felt strongly attracted. He says that good decision making rests on a balance between deliberate and instinctual thinking. And secondly, that too many choices reduces the effectiveness of the process. Speed dating involves many choices, and what might actually be a good match could get lost in the frenzy.”
See also what Richard Posner had to say about Blink and dating.
Finished reading Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell.
Not a very good book. I defer to Richard Posner's excellent critique of Blink, but I can add that Malcolm Gladwell writes in a very passive style (he also overuses variations of the phrase "it turns out that" when pointing out that conventional wisdom is wrong) and repeats his anecdotes a little too often. About halfway through the book we find out that you can develop quick thinking and reaction through extensive research and experience. Is that such a revolutionary idea? The discussion about Kenna and his struggle to get the singles from his album New Sacred Cow played on Top 40 radio was very interesting. His album is a case of the critics loving something that the majority of actual radio listeners aren't really interested in, and seems out of place in a book about "initial reactions" and how to control them.
Richard Posner, after critiquing Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell: “Gladwell also discusses alternative approaches in dating. (The procession of his anecdotes here becomes dizzying.) One is to make a list of the characteristics one desires in a date and then go looking for possible dates that fit the characteristics. The other, which experiments reveal, plausibly, to be superior, is to date a variety of people until you find someone with whom you click. The distinction is not between articulate thinking and intuitive thinking, but between deduction and induction. If you have never dated, you will not have a good idea of what you are looking for. As you date, you will acquire a better idea, and eventually you will be able to construct a useful checklist of characteristics. So this is yet another little tale that doesn't fit the ostensible subject of his book. Gladwell does not discuss "love at first sight," which would be a good illustration of the unreliability of rapid cognition.”
Best Book of 2004: The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. Along with Moneyball by Michael Lewis, and The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, The Wisdom of Crowds is the latest to attack conventional wisdom in an accessible way. Surowiecki argued very compellingly that groups of relatively independent and diverse individuals with well-aggregated information can make better decisions and are more accurate about matters of fact than the "experts". In fact, Surowiecki almost advocates distrusting experts entirely, a remarkably unconvential piece of advice.
Honorable Mentions: Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. The book was read by people I admire for a collaborative audiobook project. Lessig writes with passion and humility about copyright law and digital rights management and other threats to our culture from government and business. He's a believer in copyright and the protections it affords, but he argues that the music and motion picture industries fundamentally misunderstand the nature of creativity and are acting extremely inconsistently with the tradition of using the past to create the future. Also: Gay Marriage by Jonathan Rauch, which had an interesting effect on my views of heterosexual marriage; The Corporation by Joel Bakan. I covered the book for One Book One Vancouver 2004 and interviewed the author.
I didn't read a lot of books published in 2004, but the ones I read were excellent.