March 19, 2024

I love Malcolm Gladwell

Inside my house in the living room is a tall bookshelf where four of Malcom Gladwell’s five books stand: “Tipping Point,” “Blink,” “Outliers” and “David and Goliath.” His fifth book, “What the Dog Saw,” is on my desk since I just purchased it at the United Way of Jasper County book sale earlier this month.

I love Malcom Gladwell. His work involves sociology, psychology, economics and history. He’s a seasoned journalist, working for The Washington Post, New Yorker and The New York Times. He’s a fluent, creative and compelling storyteller.

Gladwell takes an interesting fact or story and pairs it with academic research to help better explain the causes of an unexpected effect.

Anyway, Gladwell recently released a top-ranking podcast, Revisionist History, which I am recommending to readers. A podcast is a like a radio show done in episode style and available through digital download. For more, visit revisionisthistory.com.

Gladwell says sometimes the past deserves a second chance, so he revisits overlooked or misunderstood occurrences.

“I think too often we make up our minds about that has happened and then we move on without pausing to ask, ‘Wait a minute. Is this that actually what happened? Do we really understand it?’” he said.

Check out these two podcast.

“The Lady Vanishes” 

In the first episode, Gladwell talks about the what it means to be the first outsider to enter a closed world, like the first woman artist to enter The Royal Academy in England (Elizabeth Thompson, 1874) or the first female prime minister of Australia (Julia Gillard, 2010-2013).

But what are the consequences to these outsiders once they break down the door? Thompson disappears from the art scene after being rejected because of others’ discomfort with her sex. Gillard experiences misogyny bullying from men in society and even peers in parliament and retired from politics.

Gladwell explains these as examples of “moral licensing,” when people act immoral because they feel they have recently proven to society they are morally progressive.

“The Big Man Can’t Shoot”

In 1962, Wilt Chamberlain scored the most points in an NBA basketball game (100), and made 28 out of 32 of his foul shots. He shot 87.5 percent from the line. It was unbelievable. Chamberlain was usually an awful foul shooter, shooting less than 50 percent at the start of the season and the end.

So what was different? He shoot all of his foul shots underhand, granny style. Underhand shots are a proven better way to make foul shots but they aren’t popular.

“I felt silly like a sissy shooting under handed,” Chamberlain said. “I know I was wrong.”

In this podcast, Gladwell highlights examples in sports when athletes make poor decisions and why good ideas have difficulty spreading.

Gladwell demonstrates how people knowingly make irrational decision based on social constraints, approval and the threshold model of collective behavior, when a crowd influences independent judgment .

Contact Kate Malott at
kmalott@newtondailynews.com