thinking is the new black

I went to see Malcolm Gladwell “Live!” on Tuesday night and left feeling cross. I’m sure this post is going to make me unpopular as he and his ideas are incredibly successful. I think Malcolm Gladwell needs a large sprinkle of charisma dust. It’s OK to go all humble and low key , if  and only if what you’re saying in knock-out or you’re the Dali Llama say. It was not knock out. As far as I know he’s not taken over as the spiritual leader of Tibet.

Let me explain. My 1st encounter with Malcolm Gladwell’s work was via Heath and Potter’s Rebel Sell , as they quoted an article he wrote for the NY Times about coolhunting in their examination on the ideology of cool. I read the whole article and thought it was interesting, well researched and engaging writing. Based on some of his other pieces there is no doubt in my mind that he’s a talented journalist and he’s probably, or at least hopefully a nice person for all I know, so this is not a personal attack.

But, “The Tipping point”. Urrgh and double yuck. This sort of pop self helpy business manual gets my goat, and I associate it with the mind set of real life Apprentice style vague business rhetoric. There’s so much I could say here about the relationship between self improvement and the political project of New Labour and meritocracy – but that’s for an essay and this is a blog post.  For an excellent, more thoughtful critique of “The Tipping Point” read Duncan Watts.  Anybody who argues that their reader can learn thinking without thinking by reading a paperback –  is naughty.  It’s rude to do away with metaphysics and epistemology  in a byline. (Thinking is the new black, after all). Again, there’s an essay here about how one explores the nature of things at the level of unconscious and how decisions we make in a split second are grounded in  and manifest of our culture, upbringing, and how we come to know the things we think we know . I want to go into onotological security here, but too many ology words so little time.

So you see , I was already pre-deposed not to like Gladwell’s talk because I think his ideas are fluffy, furthermore, I’m jealous he makes a lot of money out of book deals and lectures. But I went out of curiosity and to be proved wrong, even secretly feeling a bit excited that I might be evangelised and touched on the forehead by the hand of knowledge. Really, I was v interested to know what sort of public speaker he is as I’ve heard great things and seeing someone do good public speaking is intoxicating. I’d hoped for multimedia and dry ice – but no, just Malcom and a lectern and a few notes.  This should be impressive right? I mean he barely looked at his notes, he just talked.  

2 mins  he employs ethos to establish credibility. “I’ve written books you know, and done tours before”.

5 mins he tells the audience out right he knows more than us about the subject of the American civil war.( This is the subject on which he costumed the real points.)

Mr, DO NOT subordinate the audience, and do not presume to know all they know. As one of the people I’d gone with said at the time “He’s basically just said we’re all C ***s”.

20 mins  I’m comfortably numb at this point. My seat is soft and spacious, venue warm, and fortunately I’d a glass of white. Thank god for alcohol when am I gonna be hit with his wows?

40 mins I’m brought to by other members of the audience laughing as Mal makes a funny. Then he says something about a Harvard academic, thus lending academic legitimacy to his sphere of reference. I notice a man 2 seats down writing “Harvard” in a note book. 

The end There’s clapping so I think some sort of conclusion has been reached and wisdom imparted. Have I missed it? Will there be a laser show at this late point  in the lecture? People start to form a big queue to get their copies of The Outliners signed, but  I think it’s to touch his hair…

Gladwell’s meader through the American civil war battle strategy drew on the ancient art of ‘argument’, which is Aristole, but perhaps dates backs to Homer. Use logos and deductive reasoning to construct a point, or basically blind the audience with minutia and detail that detracts from actual facts or useful insight. After an hour of  listening all I’d really gleamed from Gladwell was beware of the  authority awarded to expertise.

OK, OK so fare play to Mr G for having such a good grasp on the art of persuasion. It is clever to be able to do this, but the crux of the problem  as far as I’m concerned is the lack of content. I’m keen to know what others thought he actually said?

I’ve found a few blog posts. One here on Mr G & an analogy of link bait

Am I being mean?