REVIEW
A different tack on the origin of genius
By Ruel S. De Vera
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:47:00 01/04/2009
Filed Under: Books, Literature
MALCOLM Gladwell is smart, but exactly how smart? Is he smarter than you? That question embodies the idea at the core of Gladwell’s newest book, “Outliers: The Story of Success” (Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2008, 309 pages).
The frizzy-haired thinker who tackled massive change in 2000’s “The Tipping Point” and quick thinking in 2005’s “Blink” now puts the idea of intelligence between his literary crosshairs: “I will argue that there is something profoundly wrong with the way we make sense of success.”
What Gladwell excels at is taking something considered generally-accepted fact and showing us how wrong it is, and putting forth an argument that seems counter-intuitive, before proving it. This is what he does in “Outliers,” which he defines as an example “that lay outside everyday experience, where the normal rules did not apply.”
Specifically, he discusses what makes people like The Beatles, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, among others, so extraordinarily successful.
What then is Gladwell’s counter-intuitive theory about genius? That geniuses do not spring from a vacuum, that it is more about where they’re from than who they are: “They are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.”
Like his earlier books, “Outliers” presents a big picture to discuss his big idea, tracing the connections between Canadian hockey, making garments in New York, planting rice in China, and what all that has to do with why Asians make excellent students, particularly in mathematics.
Along the way, he demonstrates how measuring intelligence simply by points in an IQ test is inherently flawed, because there is such a thing as analytical or general knowledge (the kind measured in IQ tests) and practical knowledge (which isn’t).
To illustrate his point, Gladwell introduces us to Chris Langan, who just might be America’s smartest man, someone who got every single question on the SAT, has an IQ so high it cannot be accurately measured (though 195 is close; Albert Einstein’s IQ was 150), yet floundered in school and today is a farmer.
Cultural legacy
“Outliers” argues that one cannot disregard an individual’s background—what Gladwell calls his “cultural legacy”—when figuring out how a person does well, and also why he did not: “Who we are cannot be separated from where we’re from—and when we ignore that fact, planes crash.” Literally.
Gladwell uses several horrific plane crashes to illustrate how where the pilots came from played a part in the disasters. He is not being racist, he is saying that in fields such as flying an airplane, it is important to counteract any cultural legacies that could prove counter-productive, such as the overly submissive behavior found in some cultures.
This is not as easy as it sounds, as Gladwell himself admits, “It is not easy to be so honest about where we’re from.”
In keeping with his all-around perspective, he discusses how long someone has to practice anything in order to become an expert: “Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.”
He explains there is such a thing as a perfect birth date for certain professions; why a “culture of honor” is not necessarily a good thing; why mitigated speech is dangerous; why meaningful work is important; and how outliers are those who make the most of “an opportunity to transform their relationship to their work.”
Just when you think you’ve got him down cold, he does something completely unexpected. All those diverse threads of thinking converge, dovetailing into a very personal story, the path taken by Gladwell’s own Jamaican mother Joyce and grandmother Daisy Nation.
As one has come to expect from him, he writes in crisp, accessible prose and never pretends he is smarter than his readers. Instead, he puts forth examples, puzzles and exercises to prove his point, and then delights in learning along with his readers—all part of what makes his past books such a delight.
Along with writers like Richard Preston (“The Hot Zone”) and Oliver Sacks (“Awakenings”), Gladwell makes scientific thought irresistible.
All throughout “Outliers,” he defines and redefines exactly what an outlier is, at one point defining them as “those who have been given opportunities—and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.”
He concludes on an even more surprising definition that won’t be spoiled here, but one which fits perfectly with Malcolm Gladwell’s maverick manner of taking in the big, complicated world and then showing us how it works in a way that’s so easy for us to understand. The man really is smart.
Available in paperback from National Book Store.
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