We have reviewed The Tipping Point by the same author earlier and liked it. A lot. This book opens with a similar astonishing detail and tells us why Malcolm Gladwell is an author who is more or less universally liked! In the other book, he starts with the strange experience of Hush Puppies. In this one, he talks about an isolated town called Roseto in USA which exhibited a weird health patten (on the good side) and explains why it is so. Fascinating start to the book.
The concept of Outliers is not new to anyone who knows even rudimentary statistics but the way Malcolm goes about explaining it is just outright fascinating. I have never come across anything like the angle with which he approaches the subject.
The amazing revelations for which Gladwell is known continue. First he proves that to excel at anything you need to put in ten thousand hours. He proves it by example after example, that of Bill Gates, Beatles and other greats, on how they got opportunities that no one else got.
Also he contrasts J Oppenheimer with an equally intelligent Charlie Lagan and how their family backgrounds – not the wealth part but how families groomed children – that made all the difference between the wildly differing material success of each person. Astonishing.
Hel also talks of the success of the Jewish refugees from poverty to wealth in terms of the timing and, actually, the fact that they were destitute.
He then moves on to the honour culture prevailing in South Eastern United stated in the olden times and why the cycle of killings and revenge killings emerged in multiple places at once. Again he lifts you up from individual instances to the panoramic view of the nature of the settlers – where they came from, what they did etc – that it suddenly starts to make some sense.
He also reasons that some of the plane crashes happened because the subordinates of a tired captain did not speak up and that is inbred due to the culture of their home lands.
The book goes into less surprising (but still interesting?) facts about how achievement comes from the country’s culture. (Why are Chinese good at math? Because their culture involves planting rice and managing a harvest. Puzzled? A long explanation exists. Read the book to understand.
When cultural biases exert great influence many years and many generations later even when the people are in totally different environments, they can be overcome if some of the traits create a negative effect, according to the author.
It is interesting to read and what I am beginning to see is that Malcolm Gladwell is a ‘one idea’ author. In tipping point, it was all about how suddenly something comes into fashion and in this one (including the personal family history in the epilog) it is all about how exceptional performance is not due to exceptional ability alone but due to the opportunities that came in the way of these overachievers, based on the special circumstances of the year (even the month) of the month and how the business or cultural climate came to value them above all just when they were ready and “trained”.
Worth reading but in my opinion, the hype on this was a setback to me. I probably expected too much, which is probably not the author’s fault.
He wades into nature or nurture debate in this book, recognizing that any nature argument would delight the legions of people who believe that some folks are inherently inferior to others.
Steven Pinker tackles the nurture vs nature question with his usual methodical way. We have reviewed some books of his earlier. Please see The Better Angels of Our Nature and How the Mind Works for two examples.
He starts with two opposing philosophies of the past. The first one, gentle savage argues that primitive people are guileless and has inspired the practice of encouragement and support to develop – for example – children. The other is that man is inherently bad without control and should be guided, which gives rise to correctional facilities and corporeal punishment for kids.
There is also the ‘ghost in the machine’ theory where many people believe that the ‘mind’ is separate from the body and is not formed just by brain cells. This gets very close to the ‘soul’ argument as they mainly believe that the mind lives on after death in some form or another.
He then explains how the ‘blank slate’ theory – that everything you are is a product of your experiences (nurture) and not anything inbuilt (nature) – has gained ground to the point that even discussing the other view is considered inappropriate.
He talks about some factors undeniably being genetic – this is not about superiority or inferiority of race, he clarifies. For instance, identical brothers, even if brought apart, share many characteristics including some illnesses (physical and mental) and tastes. Two children, one adopted and one natural – the same age – brought up in the same house show no such correlation. Even more strikingly, different types of corn grown on the same field and irrigated the same way grow to different heights. Some environmental factors matter, of course – the same corn grown in different fields (different conditions – wet vs arid for example) grow differently as well.
He then talks about the influence of culture – most of it invented and agreed to by convention by all, and therefore has a value – currency, presidency, national flag and law are all examples.
Like I observed that the books of Richard Dawkins (see the earlier review of The Blind Watchmaker) gives you a lot of interesting facts about the natural world (living creatures), Steven Pinker also provides gems in addition to the central theme of the book. In this book for example, he talks about the evolution of the English language. For instance, children could not remember the odd past tense of some words – like writhe-wrothe or crow/crew and converted them to regular verb method (writhed, crowed) which became the norm in English. Instead of saying ‘I had the house built’ some said ‘I had built the house’, giving English its past perfect tense. Also, mumblers helped convert the old ‘maked and haved’ to ‘made and had’ that is in use today!
He talks about the ‘limited’ plasticity of the brain. The point he makes is interesting. The brain comes equipped with complex form so all that makes you is not fully environmental. There is an undeniable genetic component. But environment plays a part too : for instance, an Asian child brought up in China may speak Mandarin but the same child brought up in England speaks English.
He then describes the vicious attacks and raging insults on anyone who even dared suggest that the mind has no inherent characteristics and everything a mind has is due to environmental factors. (God forbid that inherent characteristics of brain lead to new world of ubermench).
In the seventies, it was fashion among leftist intellectuals that liberalism is for wimps, Marxism was the only truth. When Richard Herrnstein published a paper that pointed out facts which should have been banal, like ‘talent and intelligence tend to be segregated as intelligent people marry intelligent people’ it was interpreted as ‘intelligence is a genetic tendency’ and Hernstein was labeled by Alvin Poussaint as ‘the enemy of black people’ (who are at the poorest end of society on average). Enraged college professors distributed leaflets urging students to ‘Fight Harvard Prof’s Fascist Lies’. Harnstein received death threats and was barred from speaking by chanting and disruptive mobs wherever he went.
Paul Ekman, who found in 1960s that smiles, grimaces, frowns etc were displayed and understood similarly worldwide postulated that humans were endowed with emotional expressions by evolution. (Darwin had said the same thing earlier). And he further postulated that all races had diverged relatively recently from each other. Margaret Mead called Ekman’s work ‘outrageous, appalling and a disgrace’. Stephen Pinker wryly observes that these were ‘some of the milder responses’!
For his pains, Alan Lomax Jr rose from the audience at American Anthropological Association, shouting that Ekman should not be allowed to speak because his ideas were fascist. When neuroscientist Torsten Wiesel published his historic work with David Hubel showing that the visual system of cats is largely complete at birth (so genes had something to do with it) another neuroscientist angrily called him a fascist and vowed to prove him wrong!
When E. O Wilson’s Sociobiology claimed that humans were branches of animals evolved from others and had some innate universals. Anthropologist Marshall Sahins ‘vulgar sociobiology’ negates the theory of superorganism. They seem to be upset that man’s character was derived by needs as opposed to a ‘free floating’ culture that is apart from innate abilities.
A group, including Stephen Jay Gould lumped Wilson with proponents of Eugenics and worse. Some in that group also accused Wilson of ‘debating the salutary advantages of genocide’ and making ‘institutions such as slavery normal in humans because of its universal existence’ when Wilson said no such thing. He was even accused of saying the exact opposite of what he said in the book, namely ‘people were locked into castes determined by their race, class, sex and genome’.
A protestor with a bullhorn called for Wilson’s dismissal and his classrooms were invaded by slogan shouting students. When he spoke at other universities he was disrupted by people who called him ‘Right Wing Prophet of Patriarchy’. (He was a lifelong Democrat!)
In 1978 when he was to speak on American Association of Advancement of Science, a group of people carrying a Swastika and other posters rushed onto the stage shouting ‘Racist Wilson, you can’t hide’. One snatched the microphone to harangue the audience while another threw a pitcher of water on Wilson.
Hamilton and Trivers were also attacked in later years for supporting Sociobiology. Gould and Lewontin carried on fighting against Sociobiology and later evolutionary psychology. Their ire was also directed at Richard Dawkins. They blatantly misrepresented what both Wilson and Dawkins said to promote their case, according to Pinker. They even misquoted Dawkins to buttress their attack. When Dawkins said ‘genes created us, body and mind’ they twisted it to ‘genes control us, body and mind’.
James Neel, a geneticist and anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon came under virulent attack for suggesting that primitive societies (they studied Yanomamo tribe of Amazon forest) can be inherently violent. This upset the applecart of ‘Noble Savage’ that they all believed with a rigor bordering on religious fanaticism, it appears to me.
Terrence Turner and Leslie Sponsel, as recently as 2000, spewed a vituperative attack on Neel and Chagnon. They accused Neel of fabricating the evidence and also deliberately infecting the tribe with measles to study the impact. (The measles were, according to Neal, given to the tribes earlier, probably by proselytizing priests who had arrive earlier, and most of the attackers were either religious folks or churchgoers.)
Turner and Sponsel were brazen enough to admit that their charge ‘remains only an inference and there is no smoking gun of evidence’. When these charges were demolished, within a few years, point by point by many scholars who had direct knowledge of the events, Tierney lamely explained ‘Experts I spoke to then had very different opinions than the ones they are expressing in public now”.
He argues brilliantly that both the left and right are allergic to the scientific fact that genes inherently determine some intellectual abilities with the mistaken belief that it will lead to social darwinism or assumptions of differing abilities of sex and races. He convincingly demolishes such (angry, raging) denial of such scientific assumptions and why that particular argument that there are no differences at all among people (‘the blank slate’) is the one that will lead to dangerous conclusions and tolerance of inhuman treatment of the disadvantaged. (‘Everyone has equal ability; so the poorest must be lazy or indolent because there suffer from no disadvantage at all’ is the extreme argument if you really believed in the Blank Slate theory).
He talks of the implications of both blank slate and the gene theory of behaviour on the justice system and the arguments in court.
He talks about the fear of both the left and the right to accept that some of the genetic functionality could determine some fundamental characteristics, for opposite reasons. The extreme version of gene determinism theory is the Nazi version of supermen and extermination of ‘lower people’. The extreme version of the blank slate theory is communism where anyone can be molded into the utopian socialistic society.
Then he goes into an amazing discussion of the concept of soul. The genius of Pinker is to argue a point without taking sides (left or right) and explain the issues. The discussion of a soul is so great. The Christian opposition to abortion rests on the fact that a soul is formed in an unborn instant and therefore any abortion is murder. Fair enough. Pinker shows that science seems to differ or at least pose problems : for instance, several membranes could penetrate the outer membrane of the egg; it takes time for the egg to eject the extra chromosomes. (What and where is the soul in this interval?); Even when a single sperm enters the egg, its chromosomes remain separate from those of the egg for a day or more. (Does the soul form a day to two days after conception?) Many of those conceptus never become a baby; between two thirds and three quarters do not stick to the uterus and are spontaneously aborted (What happens to those souls?)
It gets more complex, identical twins and triplets are formed from the same conceptus when it divides. Do they then share portions of the soul? If not, where do the additional souls come from? Any of the cells in an embryo is potentially able to form a full human being if they separate. So does a fetus have numerous souls within it? When the fetus no longer can so divide, where do those extra cells go?
Fascinating. Rarely a person has two different genomes in a body. A person – rarely – has different genomes (usually two) in different part of the body. This happens when what is supposed to be a fraternal twin merges into the body of the other child. So dos she have two souls?
He also shows that the belief on the other side that cloning duplicates the body and the mind (‘or the soul’) is also wrong. Hitler’s clone will not necessarily become a dictator or even know the ‘original’s’ thought process. Einstein’s cline will not necessarily continue his work or even understand the Theory of Relativity.
He takes to task the blind terror of the unknown – including the genetically modified food, the fear of flying, many others – that are caused by not understanding the risks or probabilities of things going wrong.
As awe inspiring the argument is, it is enhanced by the cultural references (to pop singers, movies, cartoons) that he sprinkles throughout the book and also his anecdotes. He talks about how, when Norman Mailer came across a convicted killer (who had committed other crimes) he was so taken in by his intellect that he got his diary entries (including a piece where he describes the sublime experience of stabbing someone to death) published; got him out on parole and had the literary world swoon in adulation. Abbot was compared to Solzhenitsyn among others and interviewed by People magazine and Good Morning America.
For two weeks this went on until Abbot got into an argument with a waiter and stabbed him to death.
He talks of human nature that does not want to even consider anything less than total cleanup/ improvement in some sacred subjects (oil spills, chemical pollution cleanups) that distort public policies and ultimately provide more harm than a more balanced policy that used the money for ‘enough’ cleanup and the rest for equally urgent measures elsewhere.
When he talks about gender, he talks about rational feminism which he labels equity feminism – where people argue for absence of discrimination by gender – and the radical feminists whom he calls gender feminists. The latter are so defensive that they even refuse to either accept that there could be genetically induced differences between male and female capabilities (and definitely not to imply that one is superior) and / or even there may be some career interests that may be different. Their theories have been proved time and wrong again as Steven Pinker shows at length but they are blind to counterarguments and even call those who call for a discussion as either anti feminists or misogynists.
He then discusses the role of children and whose influence shapes their behaviour (ie, after accounting for the genetic inheritance).
He talks about the arts and how the modern and postmodernism went overboard by creating a shared value that is totally imaginary and how it lost its way and unsurprisingly, declined.
He ends brilliantly with a plea to not deny fundamental scientific truths in a misguided attempt to promote equality and oppose bias but to work with scientific truths to achieve the same effect. He recalls both Mark Twain’s and George Orwell’s satire about the extreme forms such ‘simple minded attempts to do good’ can take, defeating the very happy world that these theories are attempting to create.
Another thought provoking book that is fascinating to read and also provides a very unique and different view of looking at things.
Having been impressed with the author’s earlier book How the Mind Works, I decided to give this one a try. If you do, you will not be disappointed. The book educates, astonishes and repays the effort you put into finishing this large book handsomely.
This book is all about why violence has declined in the world. Steven Pinker (who wrote the excellent How the Mind Works that we reviewed earlier) lays out the arguments about the almost constant decline in violence on earth (at a macro level) from the evolution of man. This may surprise you if you either think that the two World Wars formed the acme of violence in the world or, if like most people, you think that violence is increasing in society but Steven lays out a very cogent argument in favour of his argument.
He first talks about the six trends of human history – various eras where a portion of the decline was noticed; he talks about five inner demons and four better angels. He also talks about five historical forces.
The summarization is just that : an overview of what follows. They are interesting and worth reading, but if you just want the details (which are fascinating and gripping) and want to skip this, you can safely do so, as this is about the rest of the book. You will not lose anything by skipping this intro. In addition, don’t judge the rest of the book by the intro and give up on this book – in case you are not interested in the summation given there. The book is absolutely fascinating.
He starts with the violence seen in almost all of the old human remains unearthed and starts with how pervasive violence must have been to give this overwhelming tilt to almost all findings of those periods.
He then starts with the Bible and shows how violent it has been (the Old Testament that is). You see here echoes of Richard Dawkins’s argument in The God Delusion on the same topic but in a book of a different emphasis. He also talks about violence that was prevalent in Shakespeare and even children’s tales from Brothers Grimm, at a much later date in history.
He talks about the insensitivity of even the early twentieth century ads where spanking a wife and raping were considered humorous.
He then moves on to the inherent nature of violence in humans. He starts with our closest living relatives – genetically speaking – the chimps and their propensity for violence and the genetic advantages that helped promote such calculated violence.
He then traces why city states meant less violence, often mandated by the ruler for his benefit. What follows is a fascinating expose of how primitive societies, even the most peaceful as The Semai of Malaysia or an equally pacific tribe of Indonesia had murder rates that are higher than even the most violent of modern cities – statistics which belie their peaceful reputation.
He also reviews the barbaric practice of witch hunting – in the literal sense, where thousands of women ‘confessed’ under torture that they were indeed witches and then executed. He also talks about human sacrifices including the Indian suttee. He shows why those practices gradually disappeared from the world and gives a number of fascinating anecdotes about the practice when it was prevalent in ancient times. One of his revelations that, once it started accelerating, a whole number of personal scores were settled by accusing an inconvenient woman (and in very few cases, men) of being witches.
He tackles how violence has decreased in area after area – the cruelty of slavery where the owners factord in ‘loss during transit’ into their business model as many slaves died in the galley of the ship during transportation is described well and he traces the abolition of slavery; he even talks about the punishments – imprisonment – for nonrepayment of debt or even forcible possession of the debtor’s property being taken. And how that process was humanized through bankruptcy laws.
He then turns his attention to the officially sanctioned mass murder – also called war – and how that also came to be used very rarely. What made humans appreciate the suffering of other humans and, later, of animals? He credits the creation of mass publishing by Gutenberg and the explosion of literacy. By reading fiction (the dominant subject matter of books at that time) people were able to both put themselves in the story characters’ shoes and also learn about far off lands and how people lived there. The stories taught them to think from the viewpoint of others, and also opened their eyes beyond the parochial concerns of just their immediate surroundings.
The explosion of ideas that followed this development drove most of the humanistic development of social norms.
He then talks of the regression caused by nationalism when killing – this time to defend the nation or preemptively strike to avoid a threat to the nation – was approved again. The nationalistic sentiment, mixed with the ideology that one’s nation is better than other nations, gave rise to fascism and also, replacing the nation with class, communism. This increased the violence level. However, war as a ‘noble purpose’ had lost its allure and thanks to a lot of writers and filmmakers, war was portrayed in all its viciousness and was personalized in books like All Quiet on the Western Front and A Farewell to Arms or movies like The Big Parade.
He explores the taboo surrounding a nuclear strike and the use of chemical weapons in war.
He turns his attention to genocide and delves into the psychology that makes men kill en masse – even women and children – solely because they belong to a group of opposed ideology, ethnicity, religious belief or some other factor.
Next in line is terrorism, and with it, the terrifying possibility of a small nuclear weapon being used in a terrorist attack. With his dispassionate eye, he looks at the data and draws compelling conclusions. I will leave it to you to read the book to learn what those conclusions are and why, The answer does need to go with the reasoning to make any sense, but the answer is definitely surprising.
He takes the ‘Data Analysis’ eye to other crimes like racism, then rape, and then domestic abuse. In each case he shows why the popular intuitive belief that we live in dangerous times is wrong, at least compared to the past ages. He does the same for children’s rights and finally the rights of LGBT groups – that is, a historical view of how far we have come in our changed attitudes.
He then moves on to animal rights and tells how animal cruelty is different from other discriminations in that meat eating and therefore killing innocent animals is not going to go the way of abolition of slavery or women’s rights but will follow a different trajectory. Yes, the animals will be humanely killed.
He also offers a surprising answer to why some cultures are still not ‘progressive’ by Western standards. This is because they resisted the printing press and therefore the transfer of ideas and views about how people very dissimilar to themselves live and think and therefore develop an empathy through exposure to ideas that are bigger than their own locality, community, nation.
Very interesting. I have never met this argument before; I suspect very few have. But it has the ring of truth in it, if you pause to think about it.
He goes on to explore the mindsets that trigger violence. This is the second angle of analysis. He covers gain (hunting, violence to achieve an aim), revenge, and ideology.
After these negative motives, he turns to innate forces which stop people from killing each other senselessly – most of the people, that is. One is empathy. Next comes self-control. He even explores genetic changes in just the last hundred years that may have driven humans to become less aggressive – even though many think that the time frame is too short to effect changes of behaviour noticeable at a societal level.
He concludes with great arguments. If there is one small thing I can nitpick, it is that the conclusion echoes (and summarizes, it is true) some of the same arguments that appear in the meat of the book. Even though it is interesting to read again in a different context, you feel that the book could have been shortened a bit without much loss of value. However, given the immense canvas the author has chosen as his subject matter and given the virtuoso performance in communicating to us and convincing us that violence has indeed gone down in the world, he does a stellar job and so you tend to easily forgive this redundancy.
9/10. Wow! It opens your eyes to so many facets you had not thought about.
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