Gladwell is a good storyteller. He weaves disparate things together in a way that seems convincing and brilliant at first but dissolves on inspection. When challenged, his answer is, Oh of course I never said that anything was true.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, entertainment is fine, Gladwell is an intellectual entertainer, nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, his narratives do depend on an implicit claim to being true discoveries about how the world works; they're not nearly as valuable and interesting if they're not.
If you look up the definition of "charlatan", Gladwell is perilously close to it.
While trying to pin down what exactly Gladwell is concluding is generally difficult, you're certainly right, his gift is definitely in the story telling.
And honestly, that's good enough for me. While I believe that I am up to date on the latest in Computer Science I am not well read on the any of the recent or popular studies going on in social psychology. And Gladwell brings that research to the forefront.
Gladwell was the first to expose me to Paul Eckman's work; a man that has dedicated his life to recording and interpreting the micro-expressions that individual faces take on as different emotions escape us.
This led me to think "Oh, this would be greatly if I could interpret these expressions and use them in my weekly poker game." And sure enough Mr. Eckman offers a training CD.
http://www.paulekman.com/cds.html
Gladwell is dusting off the basement academic journals, painting them with great story telling, and shining a spotlight on the research. And that has merit.
Comments
Gladwell is a good storyteller. He weaves disparate things together in a way that seems convincing and brilliant at first but dissolves on inspection. When challenged, his answer is, Oh of course I never said that anything was true.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, entertainment is fine, Gladwell is an intellectual entertainer, nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, his narratives do depend on an implicit claim to being true discoveries about how the world works; they're not nearly as valuable and interesting if they're not.
If you look up the definition of "charlatan", Gladwell is perilously close to it.
While trying to pin down what exactly Gladwell is concluding is generally difficult, you're certainly right, his gift is definitely in the story telling.
And honestly, that's good enough for me. While I believe that I am up to date on the latest in Computer Science I am not well read on the any of the recent or popular studies going on in social psychology. And Gladwell brings that research to the forefront.
Gladwell was the first to expose me to Paul Eckman's work; a man that has dedicated his life to recording and interpreting the micro-expressions that individual faces take on as different emotions escape us.
This led me to think "Oh, this would be greatly if I could interpret these expressions and use them in my weekly poker game." And sure enough Mr. Eckman offers a training CD. http://www.paulekman.com/cds.html
Gladwell is dusting off the basement academic journals, painting them with great story telling, and shining a spotlight on the research. And that has merit.