REVISIONIST HISTORY: Malcolm Gladwell's Podcast
I'VE BEEN DRIVING MYSELF CRAZY
So many topics, such a lazy bum...
From women and guns to no police to why I hate literature to drinking so much. And those come to me when I'm not even properly thinking about it. Oh, and then there is Ruthy's 96th birthday, celebrated on Zoom. Without me, but she says I was a presence.
Malcolm Gladwell has a nice voice. There is a lot of melody and affect, and a free use of colloquialism. There is no sentence too compex to understand. Which is why it's so wonderful that he delves into the most complicated matters with joy and curiosity, and fully brings us with him.
The phrase "revisionist history" is often misunderstood. I wonder if he knows that and is having fun with his title. Revisionist sounds like a bad thing, like what we were taught the Soviets did, rewriting their so-called history books to reflect well on the regime and leave out inconveniences like starvation, failed farms and factories, etc.
But in truth, revisionist history is the opposite. It is the revised history made possible, nay mandatory, by new knowledge. What Gladwell does is look at events, ideas, whatever, that in many cases have already been looked quite a lot, and he re-examines them in light of new facts and theories. A lot like the spirit of FREAKANOMICS.
I always read him, the science writer, starting with THE TIPPING POINT, which I read in excerpts in The New Yorker. This was wonderful to me because it explained unexplainable things, like why a neighborhood would fail. I understand just enough of quantum mechanics to be intrigued, but not enough to explain it to someone. More about that later. But it seems like many things do not change gradually. But in quantum leaps. Suddenly it is ice when a second ago it was water. This may not be a scientific analysis, but it's easy to understand. I loved OUTLIERS, too. A much better explanation of certain kinds of success that the usual bromides involving bootstraps*, or possibly worse, "you can do anything" when nothing is explained.
I put the links below to two of my favorites. The King of Tears is about why country music makes you cry, as opposed to Rock. And the second, Chutzpah vs Chutzpah is a primer to understanding Israelis.
More later. I must go make a salad and some lemonade for a socially distant dinner party now.
revisionisthistory.com/episodes/16-the-king-of-tears
Listen to "Chutzpah vs. Chutzpah" Season 4 Episode 9 of The Revisionist History Podcast with Malcolm Gladwell.
*The origin of the phrase picking oneself up by the bootstraps came from the self-evident fact that such an action was impossible. It was meant to describe something that couldn't be done. And somehow it has come to mean its opposite. A cat o' ninetails used to whip people into frenzies of guilt when they can't pick themselves up, I think mainly used by Republicans agaainst the poor.
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