I recently read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, the acclaimed author of The Tipping Point and blink, but was not as impressed as I thought I would be with a #1 National Bestseller. However, I do understand why it is a bestseller–it has a very interesting argument. Outliers presents the idea that success comes less from hard work and skill and more from lucky circumstances. To boot, Gladwell’s use of statistics is solid, and he references notable studies from sociology and psychology. What upsets me, however, is his penchant for making unsubstantiated peripheral claims.
Perhaps I notice these unfounded hypotheses because I spent my last three years in college teaching students how and where to incorporate evidence in their papers. Honestly, at my college, I bet that Outliers would be considered a strong second draft in need of concrete evidence. The book is well organized, the ideas are clear and concise, and the voice is appropriate for the text, but there are some claims that need further explanation or research. For instance, in Gladwell’s chapter about why the Chinese might be better at math because of a learned disciplined work ethic, he makes a side claim that Japan and China never had feudal systems. In the larger scope of his argument, whether or not China and Japan ever had feudal systems is not terribly important as Gladwell argues that a cultural difference in work ethic is responsible for why children from Asian countries seem better equipped to understand mathematics than children of European decent. But regardless, this side comment is incorrect, at least for Japan. During Japan’s Heian period, the entire country was comprised of feudal systems partially controlled by the samurai, the military class. To say that Japan never had a feudal system is simply incorrect.
At the Writing Center, one of the most difficult concepts to teach was the art of the conclusion paragraph. In this paragraph, one should do the following tasks: succinctly restate the argument, summarize the facts, and present the relevance of the argument. This last task is also known as the “So what?” question and could address a variety of things. Depending on the paper, I would ask clients, “How does your argument affect the global economy?” or “What does your impact have on the greater scope of English literature?” or “Why should I care whether or not we have universal healthcare?” In answer to this question, many students respond with an entirely new argument. It’s easy to do. After all, the paper was not written in response to this question, and so it is easy to get off topic in response to a slightly unrelated question. But telling readers why your argument is relevant to their lives gives them a reason to read your paper at all. For more skilled writers, I suggested that they hint at this “so what?” question throughout the paper so that when they finally get to their conclusion paragraph, the validation of their argument doesn’t come from left field. Gladwell, however, clearly struggles with this concept.
Though he has very interesting arguments, he often wanders outside of his thesis for a sentence or a paragraph. He begins to discuss something related, but not relevant. If he had come to me with each chapter of his book, I would have asked him to explain the relevance and provide evidence for his outside claims. If Gladwell evidenced every wandering thought processed in Outliers, I think the book would be about 50-100 pages longer, but it would be better. It would be stronger.
But why make such a big deal out of this? you may ask. Perhaps it is because I have just graduated from a liberal arts college that I feel all claims need solid evidence and proof of research. Regardless, I think the editor should have caught these discrepancies. The problem with publishing a book with a few inaccuracies presented as fact is that it might become a #1 National Bestseller. That means that a large majority of the reading population has read this book and truly enjoyed it, and for those who prefer a more leisurely reading experience, they will probably not catch any false facts, meaning they are likely to take everything as fact. And with a list of references as long as the one provided at the end of Outliers, who would argue with anything Gladwell has to say? But now there are people in the world who think that Japan has never had a feudal system, which is simply not true. Perhaps Gladwell meant that Japan’s feudal system wasn’t as oppressive as the feudal systems of Europe, but that type of language needs more than a paragraph of explanation on page 236. (For example, he needs to answer the question: what makes a feudal system oppressive?) And there are more untruths that are now circulating as fact and some I know I didn’t catch (I don’t know anything about flying planes, for example). But the book is easy to read, has pretty statistical charts, and it validates our idea that our hard work really doesn’t get us anywhere. We like being validated, so we’re not going to question Gladwell’s argument.
This laziness is unfortunate. I think Outliers could be a strong text with a more stringent editor. I think readers would still feel validated even if all of the inaccurate claims were removed. Were I editor, I would have tried to push Gladwell to make his argument stronger. I would have shown him that he didn’t need to rely on his side statements–they’re unnecessary crutches. I would have explained why his argument that 10,000 hours makes you a genius is his best argument so that all of his other arguments could reach that caliber. I also probably would have encouraged him to include a chapter in which he argues against his argument, only to show the fallacies of the counterargument and thus bolster his claims even more.
There are enough half-proven truths in the world. In the news especially, we want to know everything so quickly that we often don’t have time to receive the whole story but move on anyway. We need to stop being lazy fact-checkers. Think about truth in terms of chocolate: half-truths would be equivalent to Hershey’s, a cheap, gritty chocolate, and full-truths would be equivalent to Lindt, a more expensive but better quality chocolate–both are satisfying, but the latter provides a much more fulfilling experience. Why would we choose to deprive ourselves of decadence?
aMusing 